The Abstract User Interface Markup Language toolkit is a rapid-development tool to assist developers in writing GUIs to run as either Swing applications or on the Web — without any changes. This article takes you on a tour of the AUIML toolkit, which includes rapid prototyping with the eclipse-based Visual Builder, DataBean implementation, built-in data validation, built-in internationalization and more.
Easy GUIs for Swing apps and web portlets with AUIML
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Some vendors are finally IMHO addressing the last-mile issue of Java.
Fantastically powerful, but a chore to implement. J2EE/Struts/Tiles/Server Faces/Swing are still too complex and require too much overhead to reap the benefits on smaller and mid-size projects.
This particular toolkit may/may not be a good answer, but at least Java advocates are admitting some of the unnecessary burdon of both web-based and application architectures using their products.
It’s always struck me as odd that a language that promotes such developer-friendly aspects as memory-management and garbage collection, and leans on good pattern concepts, such as interfaces, does nothing to shield the developer from tedious elements of seemingly assembly-line aspects of application development.
I appreciate your comments.
I can’t help but find it funny, IBM seems to be doing a lot more for java than Sun itself. Of course, they have to fight .NET, but still.
So this is a completely different alternative to jsf or tapestry?
I agree.
That fact may come from IBM’s large professional services wing. They know what the pains of implementation are, have more direct contact with clients pre/post implementation and understand how to compete (as you state) with solutions such as .NET.
Where is Sun’s massive services wing generating dollars from Java project after project? Where is Sun’s Application server and IDE for market share and familiarity in comparison to Websphere/Eclipse already?
IBM is improving Java manageability and Sun is focusing on branding SuSE’s linux distro as a Java Desktop System. A comparison in company direction.
Sun was great at Java inception, but as the product suite evolves, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that it takes another company/group to refine it. Typical evolution.
AUIML’s has made by ibm,and SUN ? what’s he doing ? yes sure he’s trying to buy novell…
ROTFL
…did they just take UIML (that’s http://www.uiml.org/index.php for you clickhappy folks) and add an ‘A’ in front of it?!
Is this the same kind of thing as XAML? The UIML website says they’ve been working on it since 1997. Any particular reason why it’s still so poorly known? Has anyone here used UIML for a project?
Isn’t there an existing XML-based UI language?
Mozilla for one has XUL/XBL, which it’s built around, and it can be used to build applications…
Probably there are others too…
When I read the headline:
“The Abstract User Interface Markup Language toolkit is a rapid-development tool to assist developers in writing GUIs to run as either Swing applications or on the Web …”
… it made me think this was another java-only technology, but when I follow the IBM link, it seems that AUIML is an XML dialect (as the name suggests), “that is a platform and a technology-neutral representation of panels, wizards, property sheets, etc.” Being an XML dialect, one could build tools for it, and applications using it, with any number of capable programming languages.
Not being quite the java fan, I might have skipped over this article (thinking it only applied to java), if not for my interest in GUI development.
(forgot to enter my name in the form)
Although I will not argue the usefulness of this technology, I find its method rather overkill. Anyone who has ever used GTK# + Glade# and Mono knows the true delightful experience of rapidly building GUI’s.
Like:
public class MainWindow
{
[Glade.Widget]
Gtk.Window MyMainWindow;
And know you can use MyMainWindow as any normal GTK window…
Something like this would become possible with Java 5, as this (still not released) new version of Java supports metadata, which is required for such an elegant solution.
… according to the system requirements.
>:/
Just feel the awsome power of WORA..