Professional Java User Interfaces

Chapter 8. Form-Based Rich Clients

In this chapter we will explore a very popular class of GUI applications: rich clients (also known as 'smart' or 'fat' clients). While we focus our discussion on desktop applications, most of the concepts and approaches discussed here can be applied also to J2ME applications, as described in Chapter 10.

This chapter focuses on form-based GUIs, on their design, and on issues such as input validation, and distribution of code between client and server tiers, while other chapters complete the puzzle by providing related advice on this popular class of GUIs – Chapter 11 discusses various tools and technologies for Java GUIs, while Chapter 13 focuses on Java rich client platforms.

The chapter is organized as follows:

8.1, Introduction clarifies various details related to rich clients.

8.2, Reference functional model applies the abstract functional model discussed in Chapter 1 to rich clients.

8.3, Runtime data model introduces a general, simple, informal model for runtime data representation that is used in the example application.

8.4, The cake-ordering application, the XP way proposes an example form-based application created using this methodology.

Introduction

Figure 8.1 shows a screen shot of a fictitious application for Java-powered cell phones. This illustrates a type of Midlet^[111] (see Chapter 10) that is provided by the central transportation authority of a major city to its clients. The user is admitted into the transportation system by means of ...