Backbase 4 RIA Development -- Table of Contents -- Backbase 4 RIA Development -- Credits -- About the Authors -- About the Reviewers -- Preface -- What this book covers -- What you need for this book -- Who this book is for -- Conventions -- Reader feedback -- Customer support -- Errata -- Piracy -- Questions -- 1. Hello Backbase! -- What is Backbase? -- What can Backbase do for me? -- The Backbase Explorer -- Setting up a web development environment -- The web server and a server scripting language -- The browser -- Using an IDE -- Download the Backbase framework -- The Backbase page skeleton -- "Hello Backbase" in four variations -- Verifying the installation of the Backbase framework -- "Hello World" using a Backbase balloon -- The JavaScript balloon -- The XEL balloon -- Hello Server! -- The page with the form -- The PHP response -- XML and namespaces -- Why do we need XML namespaces? -- Declaring XML namespaces -- Use of namespaces with Backbase -- A basic page layout -- Summary -- 2. User Interface Development -- Squaring the circles of web applications -- The Backbase Reference -- UI markup languages -- Where is the source code? -- XHTML -- The Backbase Tag Library -- Backbase Tag Library widget overview -- The BTL abstract elements -- Abstract element inheritance structure -- element -- visualElement -- positionElement -- dimensionElement -- cardStack and card -- The layout widgets -- Accordion -- Box -- deck -- navBox -- panelSet -- tabBox -- The BTL utility elements -- codeHighlighter -- label -- populator -- skinSettings -- xhtml and xml -- Styling techniques for GUI widgets -- Using CSS -- Skinning -- The BTL skinSettings widget -- Height problems -- A BTL Exerciser -- The application structure -- index.html -- app.xml -- Tab panel content -- The menu in each tab panel -- Summary -- 3. Writing the Application Logic.

The application programming model -- Overview of the Backbase APIs -- The bb object -- Low level APIs-the W3C DOM family -- The Document Object Model -- Traversing the document tree -- Modifying the document tree -- Dealing with events -- Events -- DOM event flow and cancelable events -- Registering event handlers -- Using markup with an XEL handler element -- Using markup with XEL handler attributes -- Using JavaScript and the DOM events API -- APIs relevant for dealing with events -- Event types -- BTL widget custom events -- Custom event creation -- Backbase utility functions -- The bb object utility functions -- Backbase Commands -- The Backbase XML Execution Language (XEL) -- XEL features -- Variables in XEL -- Declaring variables -- Variable scope -- Retrieving variable values -- Setting properties and variables -- Getting and setting attributes -- Conditional execution in XEL -- Conditional logic -- Iterators -- Functions in XEL -- Calling a function or method -- Passing a function argument -- Passing context -- Using JavaScript in XEL -- XPath -- Evaluating attribute values -- String mode -- XPath mode -- Commands to manipulate the DOM or elements -- Manipulating elements -- focus and blur -- fireEvent -- position -- scrollTo -- setText -- show, hide, and showHide -- sort -- tile -- transform -- param -- Manipulating the DOM -- copy -- create -- attribute -- copy-of -- value-of -- destroy -- move -- Info and Notify BTL widgets -- balloon -- infoBox -- loadingMessage -- toolTip -- A Backbase Command Exerciser -- Summary -- 4. Client-server Communication and Forms -- AJAX -- Asynchronous communication -- The XMLHttpRequest object -- The JSONRequest object -- The load command -- header -- The JavaScript load command -- Working with forms -- The forms profiles -- Form elements -- The extended form element -- The extended input element.

fileInput -- The abstract BTL form elements -- focusableElement -- dropDown -- formField, formList, and rangeFormField -- The BTL form widgets -- calendar -- checkBoxGroup -- comboBox -- listBox -- slider -- spinner -- suggestBox -- Validating input fields -- Required fields -- Data type validation -- AJAX and architecture -- Model-View-Controller -- Implementing MVC on the server -- The server controller -- The server model -- The server view -- Scriptlets -- The C3D travel blog site -- Requirements for the C3D site -- Design -- Data model -- Page layout -- Good use of IDs -- Server application structure -- The C3D controller -- The C3D model -- The C3D view -- Login and logout -- Add a trip -- Summary -- 5. Data-bound Widgets -- Why is data binding important? -- The server-side of data binding -- Data-binding fundamentals -- dataSource -- Local data sources -- Remote data sources -- Static data sources -- dataObserver -- The dataUpdate method -- Make an HTML element data bound -- Creating the data source -- Define the new widget -- The dataUpdate method -- Show the data-bound bulleted list -- The data-bound widgets -- dataGrid -- Grid editing and fieldEditor -- The eleven features of dataGrid -- Common header menu -- Header context menu -- Data paging -- Column drag-and-drop -- Column freezing -- One-click editing -- Editing and focusing together -- Instant editing -- Collapsible info block -- Form editing -- Live scrolling -- Continue the development of the C3D application -- Adding a trip entry -- Show trips and trip entries -- Summary -- 6. More Dynamic Behavior -- Behaviors -- Drag-and-drop -- dragBase -- drag -- dragTarget -- Basic dragging and dropping with widgets -- Drag constraints -- dragItem -- dragGroup -- useDragClass -- dragConstraint -- Reverting a dragged element -- Advanced dragging and dropping with widgets.

Drag-and-drop columns inside a table -- Resize -- Using the resize behavior -- resizeEdges -- resizeMin and resizeMax -- resizeType -- resizeConstraint -- Resize custom events -- Custom Grippies -- Resizing table columns -- Commands for the behaviors -- addBehavior -- removeBehavior -- setBehavior -- Broadcaster/observer -- Animating the UI -- SMIL animation -- Adding animation to the C3D example application -- Summary -- 7. Creating UI Components -- Component models and technologies -- Introduction to the Tag Definition Language (TDL) -- Widgets -- The advantages of using TDL -- Object-orientation -- Object-oriented concepts -- OO and TDL -- OO and web applications -- Model-View-Controller -- Widget creation with TDL -- Overview of the TDL elements -- Simple widgets -- Building a TDL widget definition -- The template, attribute, and resource tags -- Templates -- The content tag -- Templates with JavaScript -- Attributes -- Positioned yellow notes -- Changers and mappers -- Resources -- The yellow notes example using resources -- Named resources -- Widget event handling -- The handler tag -- Updatable yellow notes -- Widgets as objects -- Defining classes with TDL -- Inheritance -- Composition -- The element tag -- Properties -- Property definition -- Property getters -- Property setters -- A web lamp example -- Methods -- The argument tag -- The body tag -- Sliding thumbnails -- Constructors and destructors -- Composite widgets -- Compose a pedestrian light -- Order form building blocks -- Inheritance -- Yellow notes using inheritance -- Interfaces -- Extending BTL -- Behaviors -- Behavior example -- Uses -- The limits of creating UI components -- TDL as a macro language -- TDL as an object-oriented language -- Squaring the circles -- Namespaces -- Conclusion -- Summary -- 8. Widget Wrap-up -- Action and menu widgets -- button -- contextMenu.

menuBar -- menuPopUp -- toolBar -- pager -- Data-bound menus -- The dataSource for a menu -- The menuActivate event -- dataContextMenu -- dataMenu -- Windows and dialogs -- window -- windowArea -- taskbar -- modal -- Multimedia widgets -- applet -- flash -- An example with menus and windows -- Is the sq:windowMenu widget useful? -- Miscellaneous commands -- trace -- alert -- bookmark -- Summary -- 9. Debugging, Optimization, and Deployment -- Debugging -- The Backbase debugger -- Overview -- The information/error bar -- The debugger window -- Console tab -- The Model and View tabs -- TDL tab -- Network tab -- Reports tab -- Preferences tab -- Help tab -- Application optimization -- Optimizing content -- Making fewer HTTP requests -- Making AJAX cacheable -- Post- or preloading components -- Reducing the number of DOM elements -- Optimizing the server -- Compression -- Flushing the buffer early -- Using GET for AJAX requests -- Optimizing cookies -- Optimizing JavaScript and CSS -- Placing JavaScript code at the end of the page and CSS at the top -- Minify JavaScript and CSS -- Removing duplicate scripts -- Minimizing DOM access -- Developing smart event handlers -- Optimizing images -- The TDL Optimizer -- Creating a configuration file for the optimizer -- Running the TDL Optimizer -- Deploying the optimized bindings -- Deployment on a server -- Install -- Installation in a Java environment -- Defining alias locations -- Summary -- 10. Framework Comparison -- The landscape of client-side technologies -- Server-side and client-side -- Client-side libraries and frameworks -- Flash, Silverlight, and JavaScript-based frameworks -- Client-side GUI framework and application framework -- Backbase and other client-side GUI frameworks -- Programming model -- Widgets -- Component model -- Data binding -- Standards support -- Internationalization -- Performance.

Long-term viability.