Re: UI toolkit for the future Modeler

> Another concern I'd have is
> learning/mastering another language (Kotlin). It might be the right path,
> ultimately, but still a concern.


This is a real concern. Similar to what we previously discussed about writing the Modeler in JS. At least Kotlin is kinda Java though :)

> Would we be "encouraged" to use IntelliJ
> (for Kotlin support)? Haven't looked into Eclipse or even VSC support for
> Kotlin.

Kotlin is big on Android. Android Studio supports it. For non-Android use cases, looks like there are alternatives, but IntelliJ is still the best. As long as they have a non-crippled free Community Edition of IntelliJ, shouldn't be a big deal.

Andrus


> On Dec 11, 2021, at 4:21 PM, Michael Gentry <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> I've not heard of it before. It seems that Google is kind of the upstream
> provider, but Google is known to drop things all the time, too. If that
> happened, I wonder what JetBrains would do? Another concern I'd have is
> learning/mastering another language (Kotlin). It might be the right path,
> ultimately, but still a concern. Would we be "encouraged" to use IntelliJ
> (for Kotlin support)? Haven't looked into Eclipse or even VSC support for
> Kotlin.
> 
> Looks like it already has native packaging, menu management, etc support:
> 
> https://github.com/JetBrains/compose-jb/blob/master/FEATURES.md#features-currently-available-in-compose-for-desktop
> 
> 
> Hopefully this wouldn't remain "Experimental" for long:
> 
> https://github.com/JetBrains/compose-jb/raw/master/tutorials/Getting_Started/screen3.png
> 
> 
> As for JavaFX and Oracle, I'm still confused if they are involved. The
> latest release (JavaFX 17, September 2021) still has Oracle on some of the
> docs:
> 
> https://openjfx.io/javadoc/17/javafx.fxml/javafx/fxml/doc-files/introduction_to_fxml.html
> 
> https://openjfx.io/javadoc/17/javafx.graphics/javafx/scene/doc-files/cssref.html
> 
> 
> I also really liked using Scene Builder to create the FXML visually and not
> have the UI "code" in the Java code. Compose seems more traditional and
> with the UI in the source code. Perhaps I'm just more of a visual person in
> that regard, which is another reason why I like using CM to model a DB
> instead of annotations or whatnot in code.
> 
> 
> On Sat, Dec 11, 2021 at 3:15 AM Andrus Adamchik <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> A datapoint to our perennial discussion of technology to use for the
>> future CayenneModeler... With Swing being old and crusty, and JavaFX no
>> longer supported by Oracle, perhaps we should be looking for something
>> fresh. I just came across a new "Compose Multiplatform" desktop UI
>> framework by JetBrains [1]. It is programmed in Kotlin and is based on
>> Google toolkit for Android. Their GitHub examples [2] are not that visually
>> impressive, but I would imagine it is a matter of styling. A million $
>> question is whether it will be around and open source in 10-15 years.
>> 
>> Anyone knows anything about it?
>> 
>> Andrus
>> 
>> [1] https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/compose-mpp/
>> [2]
>> https://github.com/JetBrains/compose-jb/blob/master/artwork/readme/apps.png
>> 
>> 
>>