Object-oriented techniques and component software environments are in wide use now, in the hope that they can help us build applications more quickly. Development tools like Microsoft’s Visual Basic have made it easier to build applications faster by taking a building-block approach to software development (developing the software as pieces of blocks and mending them up to deliver complete software for the proposed requirement). Such tools provide a visual programming model that allows you to include software components rapidly in your applications.

The Java Beans architecture brings the component development model to Java.

Component Model

Components are self-contained elements of software that can be controlled dynamically and assembled to form applications. There are set of rules and guidelines where all components must bind to them. The set of rules are set to provide a standards form for all components which encourages usability and a clear understanding. Components are expected to exhibit certain behaviors and characteristics in order to participate in the component structure and to interact with the environment, as well as with other components. Most articles would define components like a society of software citizens; the citizens (components) bring functionality, while the society (environment) brings structure and order.

Java Beans component Model

Java Beans is a component model architect brought to Java. It allows users to construct applications by piecing components together either programmatically or visually (or both). Support of visual programming is paramount to the component model; it’s what makes component-based software development truly useful and powerful.

The model is made up of architecture and an API (Application Programming Interface). Together, these elements provide a structure whereby components can be combined to develop an application. This environment provides services and rules, which allows a standard structure. This means that components are provided with the tools necessary to work in the environment, and they exhibit certain behaviors that identify them. One very important aspect of this structure is containment. A container provides a context in which components can interact. A common example would be a panel that provides layout management or mediation of interactions for visual components. Of course, containers themselves can be components.

The Java Beans Architecture

JavaBeans is architecture for both using and building components in Java. This architecture supports the features of software reuse, component models, and object orientation. One of the most important features of JavaBeans is that it does not alter the existing Java language (i.e. if you know how to write software in Java, you know how to use and create Beans). The strengths of Java are built upon and extended to create the JavaBeans component architecture.

Although Beans are intended to work in a visual application development tool, they don’t necessarily have a visual representation at run-time (although many will). What this does mean is that Beans must allow their property values to be changed through some type of visual interface, and their methods and events should be exposed so that the development tool can write code capable of manipulating the component when the application is executed.

Java Bean set of rules

Creating a Bean doesn’t require any advanced concepts. All you need is follow the following coding conventions

• Implements java.io.Serializable interface
• Provides no argument constructor
• Provides getter and setter methods for accessing it’s properties

Serializable interface allows objects to be stored/retrieved using ObjectOutputStream/ObjectInputStream

• class must be declared as public

• class must implement Serializable interface

• class must have a default constructor

• all data members must be primitive, serializable objects or declared transient 

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It is an idea that we were thinking of for more than a year, and thanks to Yamani it is slowly coming to the reality.

The Idea
As was discussed in many blogs few weeks ago, we need to find good and intelligent ways to teach our children and “programming children” (those who are not Childs in real but newbie in programming world) about programming.

Thinking about that we can see (as we think) the two biggest obstacles faced by these two groups are:
(1) The complex syntax:
come on how many people you know were able to understand the pointer of pointer of a function that takes a reference and a pointer in C++ from the first time .
(2) The Language:
by language we do not mean the programming language but the “English” language (even though it is becoming the universal language now, still lots of kids have problems in English learning it. (and come on who said programming must be in “English”).

What UPL can do about that!
Well so what do UPL do exactly?
It is not the direct solution to the problem, but it is one of the keys to the solution. It is a simple engine where you can create your own programming language with your own syntax, and with the human language that you desire.

The current version of UPL support a very simple syntax that is some how look like old quick basic. There is a language file where you can replace any keyword in the (English UPL) to any other keyword in any other language or any other word in English itself , for example the keyword “Declare” could be changed to “dim” to look like visual basic more, or it can be changed to “Aref” the Arabic word the means declare, or even you can write in Arabic writing, French , Japanese, and like that it gives endless choices of creating your own language.

What happens inside the upl Editor is what ever syntax you are using it will be translated to the English up and then again the English upl is translated into JAVA (in the current version the algorithim is updated to change any syntax to Java directly) and finally java file is produced compiled and executed.

the syntax of current English UPL is very simple:

download

UPL in action(Future)
Well yes it is not in action yet (well it is still alpha, still it don’t have loops,still … , ….,….) but lets talk about future , what UPL can do when it gets into action. So lets see some possible futures for upl:
1- Engine for creating lots of educational programming language syntax in different human language scripts (English , French, japanease, ….).

2- The same engine mentioned before could be use to make programming look more like story writing for kids (I mean after a lot of modifications) a kid will be able to write some kind of story and clicking on run will show him the story happening infront of him ( well we will need to use graphical libraries for doing so).

3- Visual animated programming ( ummm imagine this ) : a kid opens a software he drags an icon of a hummer with declare written on it then he writes “x=12” , next he will drag an icon of wondering rabbit that have if written between it ears and write “x>10”, and continue programming in this way. We can see this drag and drop will create may be html document, and there will be a translation file from that kind of html into the English upl which will be automatically translated to java and run.

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This is one of my very first really usable softwares I have done in collage and just 3 months before now I have put it as open source project on source forge but it had lots of bugs, and there was no explanation on how to use the application.

The bugs I was reported about has been cleared and In this blog I hope I can demonstrate how to use the application.

You can run the application from your flash disk on any computer by running JCodeBase.jar, well if you don’t like to run .jar files and you are on windows you can click on JCodeBase.bat and you will get this screen:

As a first time user there is nothing you can do in this screen other than pressing “Add Code” button.

By pressing this button you will get another screen to add one of your codes that you need to remember.

Here lets add something useful, one of my colleges has a problem dealing with JComboBoxs in java he puts its data source a Vector of strings but he always forget how to update the Jcombobox if the string vector is updated. Well its simple lets add that code.

Now you can see some key words in the code is bold, well it happens depending on what language you are using it support some languages and the syntax colorizing changes from a language to another.

Also not the tags used in this screen (java, combobox, update)

Now lets click on “Add” and close this screen

In the main screen now we can see our tags in the select tags combo box

Well lets say I want to remember a code I have added to the application with a tag java

I just select this tag and click on search , then it will show me the result

For sure it will be usefull if you add all your important codes and when you come back after few months (most probably you have forgetten something ) then this application will come to the rescue. ( and the best thing it is portable , it can be stored easily with in your flash desk with you any where and run on any platform thanks to java and derby).

I really need to know what do you think about this application , is it useful should I continue to work on it, or is it waste of time,

If I should continue working on it what modifications do you really need.

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Creating a GUI for you application by writing scripts or Object Oriented code could be fun ( well when I first learned java I found that much fun than how it is done in Visual basic on those days). Any how in production that is not true, because each time you will design a GUI your client will ask some miner changes( for them it is miner) for your it is to re-create the whole design and rewrite the code again and again.

Fortunately the ability to create the GUI visually is possible in Java because of some beautiful open source IDEs. Such as Eclipse and Netbeans. The most popular tools available in such editors are:

• Visual Editor for Eclipse.

• Matisse for Netbeans.

• Jigloo for Eclipse

For me the first GUI builder I knew was netbeans GUI builder I don’t thing it had Matisse that time it was very simple and easy to use but it do not allow you to edit the code it creates !!!! I decided to not use it because of that ( as I said those days I though writing GUI code is fun).

After searching for a good GUI builder that creates the code but in the same time let me edit it I found Visual Editor it was so greate for me that time I loved it by all the means it creates the code ( well it has a style of creating the code ) and then I can re-edit by coding and by designing a s I wish, well it took a while to get used to it but if you get used to deal with it it is a greate tool.

I actually was so happy with VE that I never tried to get back to see what is Matisse ( all of the java world was talking about it that time) but recently when it people started to blog that no one is maintaining VE any more “even eclipse 3.3 came without VE support !!” , in the same time there was netbeans 6.0 M9 beta but it has lots other eclipse abilities that I had get used to it. This time I tried it and I tried Matisse and yes it is a great tool ( it still don’t allow you to edit the code but when you have all that control to do complicated things (VE breakes down if you try to do some complicated things) who needs to re-edit GUI code.

It sound like Matisse really is the ultimate cure to GUI building in Java, but no. if you ever done a real project in Matisse you will find out that it is yet not very stable once you put a button and you want it a certain size (by connecting it to other controls) sometimes it will get bigger to be attached to the end of the frame, and some times after creating you GUI it is impossible to re-arrange the controls again because they like to get longer and be place in any place you don’t want them to be in.

Few days ago I saw Jigloo which is a plug-in for Eclipse it gives me the power of Matisse designing and the ability of VE to re-edit the code. In the same time and most importantly in Jigloo controls really obey your wish about their placement and size unlike matisse.

The problem here is Jigloo is not free to create commercial application. ! L

In the end I find my self without any good GUI builder good enough to fulfill my needs, I want to know about your Idea in this topic !

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