© 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

Bryan CampbellSoftware Engineer, Lombardi Software

March 14, 2008

Deep integration of GWT/JavaScript and Eclipse 3.3 using XULRunner and JavaXPCOM

Deep Integration of GWT and Eclipse 3.3 with JavaXPCom | © 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

Deep Integration of GWT and Eclipse 3.3 with JavaXPCom | © 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

Demo ….

Deep Integration of GWT and Eclipse 3.3 with JavaXPCom | © 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

Deep Integration of GWT and Eclipse 3.3 with JavaXPCom | © 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

MessagingComponent() { void addToList(String msg) { messageList.add(msg); updateView(); }}

XULRunner

XPCOM

JavaXPCOM

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

Deep Integration of GWT and Eclipse 3.3 with JavaXPCom | © 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

MessagingComponent() { void addToList(String msg) { messageList.add(msg); updateView(); }}

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

XULRunner

XPCOM

• By wrapping the eclipse browser widget with XULRunner, we gain access to its component object model – XPCOM.

Deep Integration of GWT and Eclipse 3.3 with JavaXPCom | © 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

MessagingComponent() { void addToList(String msg) { messageList.add(msg); updateView(); }}

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

XULRunner

XPCOM

• JavaScript can make calls to XPCOM through the XPConnect layer.

Deep Integration of GWT and Eclipse 3.3 with JavaXPCom | © 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

MessagingComponent() { void addToList(String msg) { messageList.add(msg); updateView(); }}

XULRunner

XPCOM

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

• Once the component is in place, the interface will be reflected to JavaScript through XPConnect

• A call to this component might look similar to:

IMessagingComponent messenger = xpcom.create(IMessagingComponent);messenger.addToList(“EclipseCon 08”);

Deep Integration of GWT and Eclipse 3.3 with JavaXPCom | © 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

XULRunner• The Java Implementation will be the actual code that is run when a call to addToList(String) is made from the web app

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

XPCOMMessagingComponent() { void addToList(String msg) { messageList.add(msg); updateView(); }}

Deep Integration of GWT and Eclipse 3.3 with JavaXPCom | © 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

XULRunner

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

IMessagingComponent { addToList(String msg);}

• Similar to XPConnect, JavaXPCOM is the layer between Java and XPCOM allowing calls to be made, and XPCOM components to be used and manipulated.

XPCOMMessagingComponent() { void addToList(String msg) { messageList.add(msg); updateView(); }}

JavaXPCOM

Deep Integration of GWT and Eclipse 3.3 with JavaXPCom | © 2008 by Bryan Campbell; made available under the EPL v1.0

More Info

• Check out http://development.lombardi.com for more coding examples and resources.

• Source also available at http://code.google.com/p/javaxpcom/