Chapter 7. RIA and other web frameworks
This chapter covers
In the last chapter, we discussed how the Roo custom tag libraries add dynamic behaviors such as client-side validation, and how you could customize the form elements, messages, layout, and look and feel of your web pages.
In this chapter you’ll learn how to work with more advanced web frameworks in Roo. You’ll set up a simple Ajax interaction using the Dojo Toolkit and Spring MVC’s Ajax support. Then we’ll discuss some of the other web platforms available to Roo developers today via add-ons: Google Web Toolkit, Vaadin, and JSF.
Roo can provide dynamic, rich application features out of the box, providing both client-side widgets such as tab folders and tree views, and server-side support for Ajax. It does this by installing two key technologies in every Spring Roo web application: Spring JavaScript and Spring MVC Ajax support.
In this section, you’ll learn how Roo mounts Spring JavaScript and how the Roo tag libraries use it to create rich widgets. Then you’ll wire a text field to an Ajax server-side method and invoke it using a JavaScript event.
Roo includes the Spring JavaScript library when it generates a Spring MVC web application. This library includes the following components: