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Scout/Articles/130719 EclipseNewsletter
Contents
Eclipse Scout 3.9 adds Support for Mobile Applications
Scout is a framework to build business applications based on the Eclipse platform. So far, Scout client applications included support for Swing or SWT to build desktop applications, and Eclipse RAP for web applications.
New with the Kepler release, Scout has added support for creating mobile applications that run on tablets and smart phones. Thanks to the clean separation of the Scout application model from a specific UI technology Scout applications may now be deployed on mobile phones, as web applications or to the desktop with a single code base. This feature greatly reduces maintenance costs for larger applications that need to be available on multiple frontends.
Being independent of specific UI technologies is one of Scout's major assests. Among other benefits, it reduces the long term risks of "marrying" large and important business applications to the "wrong" UI technology to almost zero. In fact, the default setup of Scout applications enforces the separation of business code from UI technology codes.
As this article has been written for software developers without prior knowledge of Scout we want to provide a hands-on introduction based on the Scout package provided on eclipse.org/downloads. To install the Scout package you only need working installation of a JDK version 6 or 7. In case you prefer to go through detailed installation instructions, have a look at these pages.
The Hello World
A "Hello World" program is a traditional way to begin any new framwork or programming language. The special aspect of the Scout "Hello World" is the fact that it is a client server application that runs on the desktop, in a web browser, and on mobile devices.
In the text below we will first introduce the "Hello World" from the user perspective before we dive into the actual implementation. Once
What the User sees
finished app
- client server roundtrip
- several ui
- swing rayo (to match look and feel of desktop, web, mobile)
book/tex/intro/figures/
- helloworld_message_rap_mobile
- helloworld_message_rap_rayo
- helloworld_message_swing_rayo
- helloworld_message_swt
The Implementation
start with bla
Next Steps
In case you have been intrigued by what you have seen from Scout so far you might consider the following steps
Do more tutorials. In addition to the Hello World tutorial presented above, a significant amount of additional tutorials and how-tos is available on the Scout wiki. Depending on your time and interest, this will keep you occupied an addtional hour - or several days. In case you run into difficulties or have general questions regarding Scout we are happy to answer your questions in the Scout forum. Please bear in mind that July and August is summer vacation time and we are less responsive during these months.
Browse the Book. A more comprehensive introduction is available in the Scout book, also new with the Kepler release. So far, the book provides a good introduction and a general overview of the possibilities of Scout applications. For the next releases we plan to add more material to the book that cover various aspects of Scout and the development of Scout applications in greater detail. The Scout book is free and available in HTML format for online browsing. For offline usage the book is availabe in PDF, EPUB and ZIP (zipped HTML) formats.
Follow Scout. For more recent updates, check out the Scout blog or the @EclipseScout Twitter account. If you happen to live near Zurich also have a look at the local Eclipse Community page on Google+. This is the place where we usually announce public Eclipse events that frequently include Scout presentations.