User interfaces are one of the most frequently changed part of any application. Tracking these changes makes client GUI development one of the most labor-intensive parts of system development and maintenance. The solution is to decouple the GUI building code from the rest of the application code using the MVC (model view control pattern).

XgMLui lets developers specify the UI (view) using an XML file, instead of hundreds or potentially thousands of lines of Java code. Describing interfaces using the power of XML instead of coding turns the gui building process to an automatic stage of the software development. To support a rapid build procedure XgMLui rejects the use of code generation or byte processing. Instead a fast engine is used to generate the GUI objects at runtime. XgMLui is based on XML, the technology which rapidly changes the face of computing today.

Develop interfaces to J2EE applications. Using XgMLui the development process is reduced to a few models for your business logic. Check this presentation of such an application we developed.

Features

• SWT and Swing support: XgMLui is designed to support SWT (Simple widget toolkit) the lighting fast user interface developed by IBM but also SWING the standard java interface.
• simplicity: XgMLui is designed to be simple and easy to learn for any developer. The one to one mapping from GUI objects to XML tags makes the transition from writing java code to XML an easy one.
• event handling can be implemented either using XML handlers or by calling methods in your code.
• extensibility: you can define your own XML tags or even define them dynamically in the XML.
• interface elements (tables, dialog forms, lists, trees, checkboxes etc) follow the model-view-controller(MVC) paradigm for GUI elements and you can define their models or connect to predefined ones (like db models).
• multiplatform: XgMLui fully benefits the multiplatform advantages of java and speed of SWT.
• any developer is familiar with the time spent changing the code for user interfaces, only for a simple button a multitude of declarations and code fragments need to be modified. XgMLui automates the gui development, each gui modification requires only changing the XML descriptor.
• speed: The XgMLui SWT interface is expected to run as fast as any other native application.
• power: XgMLui has build in support for a complete set of graphical widgets including menus, forms, tables, trees, progress bars, toolbars , tabulators, file, print and color dialogs, also custom modal dialogs support
• high java inter-connectivity: XgMLui allows you to: call java code from XML, access XML GUI objects from java or access XML objects from XML

Extension points

• O/R systems integration. The MVC offers the great flexibility of connecting to different data models. One of them is Hibernate, a powerful java based O/R mapping system.
• NEW: XgMLui has now high integration with Hibernate. The following DB enabled models are available: DbComboModel, DbTableModel, DbListModel, FormModel, BoModel, DbPagedTableModel
• NEW: J2EE interfaces and remote clients made easy. Check the DMSPilot description for more informations.
  Business systems integration. XgMLui can be easily connected to existing business systems with minimum effort

Examples

Check these simple examples to see how easy is to build gui applications using XgMLui. You can inspect the XML document or download the full sources archive.

• DIX (Document Indexer) is a complete application sample. Includes hibernate integration, bean connectivity in a simple and useful tool. DIX is an efficient organizer for files and documents stored in different locations, like CDs and hard drives. It has the ability to automatically index a datasource (a CD or folder). Indexed documents can be searched using as filter the name and the type of documents. Search is speed optimized and DIX handles efficiently browsing through a large search result.
• Allbutton shows how you can use complex structures like iterations and even connect them to your sources.
• Login simple login dialog, logic included. Try user demo with password demo for a successful login. It uses the XgMLui event handling features and it took only five minutes to "describe".
• FlowerTree shows how you can connect a user defined model to a tree gui representation.
• Dummy shows some simple controls and default dialogs. It proves that creating complex user interfaces becomes with XgMLui as simple as writing a line of text.
• Editor a simple application which could not have missed, how much time would you have spent writing it. Well it took us only 10 min to write it in XgMLui. Is uses a classic gui format (pop-up and drop-down menus), uses native file dialog for file opening, has menu support for cut, copy and paste operations, uses a custom about dialog.