Re: Modeler (modest) ambition

Hi Hugi,

Thanks. I am glad we could put the new superpowers to good use. I am =
actually holding myself back from further UI improvements to focus on =
the MCP work now :)=20

Andrus

> On May 8, 2026, at 3:51=E2=80=AFAM, Hugi Thordarson <[email protected]> =
wrote:
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> Hi Andrus!
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> Loving this. Been building and using the updates for the last few days =
as the commits roll in (have a couple of private projects running Caynne =
5).
> Looks great, works like a charm (JDK 25) and the improvements are very =
visible for a frequent user. Just the "table columns are pretty wide by =
default" thing alone has made me very happy :).
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> Cheers,
> - hugi
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>> On 6 May 2026, at 14:58, Andrus Adamchik <[email protected]> wrote:
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>> I am mostly done with the massive refactoring effort. So I guess I =
can finally start looking at the MCP task.
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>> There's definitely more code to clean up, but it is fairly well =
isolated. At the top level, I think the structure is solid. The main =
changes:
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>> 1. Abandoned the idea of separating controllers from Swing components =
and treating components as mere "views". It only took us 20 years to =
give up fighting the framework :) Vanilla Swing components are this =
old-school beautiful OO: deep inheritance hierarchies (something frowned =
upon these days), easily composable, cleanly encapsulated. Web =
development is all stateless processors, so stateful component-based OO =
design is a lost art in Java.
>>=20
>> 2. All the Modeler state is stored in two classes - Application and =
ProjectSession. Common component superclasses are created to pass those =
two around the hierarchy (so there's AppPanel, AppDialog, ProjectPanel, =
ProjectDialog, etc. classes.) Make sure you use them when creating new =
components. On a side note, the use of DI in the Modeler is completely =
alien and is getting in the way. Have to keep it only for the purpose of =
overriding defaults from cayenne, cayenne-project and cayenne-dbimport =
(I'd rather we use builders in those instead of DI).=20
>>=20
>> 3. Fixed preferences mess. There's a single "repository" to map prefs =
locations (PreferencesRepository), and a bunch of highly custom =
PreferenceAdapters. Very easy to create new preferences (and hence =
capture more user selections, component sizes etc.) Feature wise:
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>> * A 5.0-specific preference tree root, so that we don't pollute =
common JVM preferences namespace
>> * Auto-migrations of most existing preferences to the new root
>> * GUI for preferences export as JSON=20
>> * GUI for resetting preferences back to defaults (with or without 4.x =
re-migration)
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>> (still a few issues remain around renaming DataMaps and projects... =
working on those)
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>> 4. Small UI fixes: clean window resizing behavior, borders around =
editable table fields, etc. Haven't done FlatLaf yet.
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>> 5. Proper event hierarchies (clean immutable events); removed project =
events from the core.
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>> 6. Logging console - still ugly, but consistent and functional.=20
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>> I have a request for the community - before we make an M2 release, =
could you create a local Modeler build and take it for a spin? Due to =
the sheer volume of changes, there may be some regressions. If you see =
anything broken, please open a Jira and assign to me.
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>> Thanks,
>> Andrus
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>>> On Apr 20, 2026, at 10:23=E2=80=AFAM, Andrus Adamchik =
<[email protected]> wrote:
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>>> So I feel like the advent of agentic coding opens up new =
possibilities for CayenneModeler. While some want you to think you can =
simply prompt Claude to "Rewrite CayenneModeler in JavaFX" (or Electron =
or JetBrains Compose Multiplatform), still with our limited resources, =
building and supporting an entirely new thing is realistically out of =
reach.=20
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>>> But I think we can take the current Swing app to a new level by =
augmenting our rusty Swing skills with AI. A few of my experiments =
adding this or that UI piece were mostly successful. A few idea on top =
of my mind:
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>>> 1. A built-in MCP server for DB Import and CGen. This is to close =
the loop on agentic coding, allowing to use both of these tools from an =
agent CLI. (The MCP idea was what prompted me to look into this to begin =
with)
>>> 2. Fix table editors UX (selections conflicting with cell editors)
>>> 3. Write unit tests
>>> 4. Modernizing L&F. Not sure how far we can get while staying in =
Swing, but worth a try. Looking at FlatLaf lib, which is a successor of =
JGoodies that we already use
>>> 5. Implement dozens of small usability features (such as showing =
currently selected Obj|DbEntity in tab view headers, etc.)
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>>> My first pass (about 70% done) was not anything visual, but rather =
refactoring the existing messy code to rid it of various architectural =
experiments accumulated over the years (such as auto-bindings) and =
unifying the MVC structure to be as close as possible to vanilla Swing. =
Ironically, Claude was not that helpful in this process. It was good old =
IDE refactoring, manually going through hundreds of files chasing dead =
code and inconsistencies.=20
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>>> Anyways, just putting this on the radar.
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>>> Andrus
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