Automatic generation of graphical user interface using annotated server-side java code

摘要

Due to increasing complexity and nature of data-driven business applications, graphical user interface contain nowadays great number of different components for managing business data. Furthermore, same applications run on different platforms. Consequently, developers tend to focus more on the user interface aspects and less on the business related code. In this thesis, we speak about the framework, that automatically generates GUI for web, desktop and mobile applications, based on the annotated server-side Java code. We analyze different platforms and development environments, where the framework can be applied, we describe key concepts for framework operation, describe annotations, that framework uses to render GUI components, communication between an application server and three different types of clients, and examine the framework on a small but generic test case. The framework operates on the principles of the Attribute Oriented Programming. By using framework’s annotations, developer describes the behavior of entity beans and their methods. As a result of the description, framework’s engine interprets and builds client-side GUI components. Main advantages of this approach are that applications developed for different platforms use common server-side architecture, annotated entity beans, business logic, validation, security, etc. The use of the framework consequently leads to a faster, easier and more uniform development.