Too much Ajax in OFBIz an issue?

[Jacques Le Roux]

By chance I read http://seamframework.org/Home/WhySeam#H-ItsTheQuickestWayToGetQrichq (1st section only)
I then wondered if introducing too much Ajax in OFBiz could be an issue.

What do you think?

Jacques
PS : I discovered Seam while reading http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~mdailey/papers/Nattanicha-ERPCompare.pdf

[Scott Gray-2]

My concern more than anything is too much "unclean" code/hacked ajax.  Because we're not natively supporting these UI behaviors from within the framework, the code for using them in the applications has a real danger of becoming unmanageably messy.

I'm also slowly getting to the point where I think that our community's attempts to maintain our own UI framework is doomed and the amount of effort required is just too large for us to be able to even keep up, let alone innovate.  When was the last time you saw a truly wonderful improvement in the widget framework?

Regards
Scott

HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com

On 25/09/2010, at 8:06 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:

> By chance I read http://seamframework.org/Home/WhySeam#H-ItsTheQuickestWayToGetQrichq (1st section only)
> I then wondered if introducing too much Ajax in OFBiz could be an issue.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Jacques
> PS : I discovered Seam while reading http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~mdailey/papers/Nattanicha-ERPCompare.pdf
>

[chris snow]

Hi Scott, what do you think are the alternative options to ofbiz' home
grown UI framework?

[Jacques Le Roux]

Scott Gray wrote:
> My concern more than anything is too much "unclean" code/hacked ajax.  Because we're not natively supporting these UI behaviors
> from within the framework, the code for using them in the applications has a real danger of becoming unmanageably messy.

Yes, I know what you are talking about!

> I'm also slowly getting to the point where I think that our community's attempts to maintain our own UI framework is doomed and
> the amount of effort required is just too large for us to be able to even keep up, let alone innovate.  When was the last time
> you saw a truly wonderful improvement in the widget framework?

The lookups this winter, but yes it's not really deeply rooted. At the UI level things are often messy when you try to make them
sophisticated. Take the multiple select, I'm working on for instance (in jQuery only).
Maybe we should look at HTML5 and XFORMS...

Jacques

>
> Regards
> Scott
>
> HotWax Media
> http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
>
> On 25/09/2010, at 8:06 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
>
>> By chance I read http://seamframework.org/Home/WhySeam#H-ItsTheQuickestWayToGetQrichq (1st section only)
>> I then wondered if introducing too much Ajax in OFBiz could be an issue.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> Jacques
>> PS : I discovered Seam while reading http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~mdailey/papers/Nattanicha-ERPCompare.pdf 

[BJ Freeman]

when the ui depends on not home grown libraries you are always
susceptible to glitches you can not control.
then since this application also attempts to have security, you don't
know when the security to the data may be breached because of glitch
from the libraries.
this is more a general statement about libraries in general.

Personally I really don't like what ever happened that causes a black
semi-tranparent screen to come to ask for info and have not access to
the main screen. I freaked the first time it happened. :D


Jacques Le Roux sent the following on 9/24/2010 1:06 PM:

> By chance I read
> http://seamframework.org/Home/WhySeam#H-ItsTheQuickestWayToGetQrichq
> (1st section only)
> I then wondered if introducing too much Ajax in OFBiz could be an issue.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Jacques
> PS : I discovered Seam while reading
> http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~mdailey/papers/Nattanicha-ERPCompare.pdf
>
>

[samhamilton]

On 25/09/2010 05:37, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
> Scott Gray wrote:
>> My concern more than anything is too much "unclean" code/hacked ajax.
>> Because we're not natively supporting these UI behaviors
>> from within the framework, the code for using them in the applications
>> has a real danger of becoming unmanageably messy.
>
> Yes, I know what you are talking about!
>

When you guys talk about UI have you heard of http://jqueryui.com/
before? I get the feeling though really you are talking about the whole
lot right from the bottom of the system up to the top - something more
like a theme framework (probably the wrong word for it?).

If you guys are talking "theme frameworks" was there a reason why OFBiz
at that time built it rather than borrowed it? Does such a project now
exist that we could borrow from to improve our themes?

>> I'm also slowly getting to the point where I think that our
>> community's attempts to maintain our own UI framework is doomed and
>> the amount of effort required is just too large for us to be able to
>> even keep up, let alone innovate.  When was the last time
>> you saw a truly wonderful improvement in the widget framework?
>
> The lookups this winter, but yes it's not really deeply rooted. At the
> UI level things are often messy when you try to make them sophisticated.
> Take the multiple select, I'm working on for instance (in jQuery only).
> Maybe we should look at HTML5 and XFORMS...
>
> Jacques
>
>>
>> Regards
>> Scott
>>
>> HotWax Media
>> http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
>>
>> On 25/09/2010, at 8:06 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
>>
>>> By chance I read
>>> http://seamframework.org/Home/WhySeam#H-ItsTheQuickestWayToGetQrichq
>>> (1st section only)
>>> I then wondered if introducing too much Ajax in OFBiz could be an issue.
>>>
>>> What do you think?
>>>
>>> Jacques
>>> PS : I discovered Seam while reading
>>> http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~mdailey/papers/Nattanicha-ERPCompare.pdf 
>
>

[Jacques Le Roux]

From: "Sam Hamilton" <[hidden email]>

> On 25/09/2010 05:37, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
>> Scott Gray wrote:
>>> My concern more than anything is too much "unclean" code/hacked ajax.
>>> Because we're not natively supporting these UI behaviors
>>> from within the framework, the code for using them in the applications
>>> has a real danger of becoming unmanageably messy.
>>
>> Yes, I know what you are talking about!
>>
>
> When you guys talk about UI have you heard of http://jqueryui.com/
> before?

We work on it https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-3814

>I get the feeling though really you are talking about the whole
> lot right from the bottom of the system up to the top - something more
> like a theme framework (probably the wrong word for it?).

I guess Scott was speaking about the difficulty to handle cleanly Ajax right from widgets or templates.
For instance I have recently added a Dependent Dropdowns feature in widgets (trunk and jQuery branch). It's done in a way that needs
to set variables in screen and uses a script in a template called just before the form. It's easy to use following the existing
example but not really clean (more a hack I'd say). There are other cases in templates. It's from there that I built the widget part
which is more integrated but still not completly satisfying.
I have also used the asmselect jQuery plugin in the jQuery branch in the same way. There are 2 parts with it. The 1st one is to
better handle multiple http://www.ryancramer.com/journal/entries/select_multiple/ and I plan to better integrate it in dropdown
widgets and template macros. But the for the second, where 2 related fields are implied, I have to think more about how to handle
that...

> If you guys are talking "theme frameworks" was there a reason why OFBiz
> at that time built it rather than borrowed it? Does such a project now
> exist that we could borrow from to improve our themes?

I guess it was easier to create in than to integrate? jQuery has themes http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/ but that all what I know
about it yet. Bruno could maybe better answer on that... Note that it's not only a matter of font/size/colors in OFBiz where more is
involved (positions, menus styles, etc.). In OFBiz themes are a mix of css+js, I guess it's the same in jQuery, but I don't know if
we can extend their mechanism. And even in OFbiz, I'm not quite sure that all themes are able to handle the RTL way (Hebrew, Arab,
etc.) which is native in Flat Grey theme... This is an exmaple of why, I guess, some are seeing UI progress as sometimes
regressive....

Jacques

>>> I'm also slowly getting to the point where I think that our
>>> community's attempts to maintain our own UI framework is doomed and
>>> the amount of effort required is just too large for us to be able to
>>> even keep up, let alone innovate.  When was the last time
>>> you saw a truly wonderful improvement in the widget framework?
>>
>> The lookups this winter, but yes it's not really deeply rooted. At the
>> UI level things are often messy when you try to make them sophisticated.
>> Take the multiple select, I'm working on for instance (in jQuery only).
>> Maybe we should look at HTML5 and XFORMS...
>>
>> Jacques
>>
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Scott
>>>
>>> HotWax Media
>>> http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
>>>
>>> On 25/09/2010, at 8:06 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
>>>
>>>> By chance I read
>>>> http://seamframework.org/Home/WhySeam#H-ItsTheQuickestWayToGetQrichq
>>>> (1st section only)
>>>> I then wondered if introducing too much Ajax in OFBiz could be an issue.
>>>>
>>>> What do you think?
>>>>
>>>> Jacques
>>>> PS : I discovered Seam while reading
>>>> http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~mdailey/papers/Nattanicha-ERPCompare.pdf
>>
>>
>

[Jacques Le Roux]

BTW have we ever put http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~mdailey/papers/Nattanicha-ERPCompare.pdf in the news?

Jacques

From: "Jacques Le Roux" <[hidden email]>
> By chance I read http://seamframework.org/Home/WhySeam#H-ItsTheQuickestWayToGetQrichq (1st section only)
> I then wondered if introducing too much Ajax in OFBiz could be an issue.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Jacques
> PS : I discovered Seam while reading http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~mdailey/papers/Nattanicha-ERPCompare.pdf

[Ashish Vijaywargiya]

AFAIK, No.

--
Ashish

On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Jacques Le Roux <
[hidden email]> wrote:

> BTW have we ever put
> http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~mdailey/papers/Nattanicha-ERPCompare.pdf in the
> news?
>
> Jacques
>
>

[Sascha Rodekamp-3]

Hi Guys,
you know i'm working, with Jacques, on the jQuery migration, and during my
work i've have seen a lot of js code snippets. Some of them are really good,
some of them are not so :-). But in my opinion the right step is to minimize
the maintaining effort by removing the different JS Libraries (Prototype and
Dojo) and replacing them by one (jQuery in our case). On top of this one
library we can build up our own OFBiz JS Integration. And yes we need more
generic core support for all these JS, Ajax, JSON ... Scripts. We try to
make all Scripts more generic to make them better reusable and to have less
individual JS Code.
In my opinion it's absolutely usefull to have a Ajax featured UI (because
everyone wants it), but as Scott mentioned we should be integrate all cool
new features in our widget framework to make them easier to use (for every
user) and to have an eye of the security site.

Have a good day
Sascha

--
Sascha Rodekamp
    Lynx-Consulting GmbH
    Johanniskirchplatz 6
    D-33615 Bielefeld
    http://www.lynx.de

[Jacques Le Roux]

Cool Sascha,

We are on the same page :o)

Jacques

From: "Sascha Rodekamp" <[hidden email]>

> Hi Guys,
> you know i'm working, with Jacques, on the jQuery migration, and during my
> work i've have seen a lot of js code snippets. Some of them are really good,
> some of them are not so :-). But in my opinion the right step is to minimize
> the maintaining effort by removing the different JS Libraries (Prototype and
> Dojo) and replacing them by one (jQuery in our case). On top of this one
> library we can build up our own OFBiz JS Integration. And yes we need more
> generic core support for all these JS, Ajax, JSON ... Scripts. We try to
> make all Scripts more generic to make them better reusable and to have less
> individual JS Code.
> In my opinion it's absolutely usefull to have a Ajax featured UI (because
> everyone wants it), but as Scott mentioned we should be integrate all cool
> new features in our widget framework to make them easier to use (for every
> user) and to have an eye of the security site.
>
> Have a good day
> Sascha
>
> --
> Sascha Rodekamp
>    Lynx-Consulting GmbH
>    Johanniskirchplatz 6
>    D-33615 Bielefeld
>    http://www.lynx.de
>