Vaadin

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As explained in Section 11.1, “Special Characteristics of AJAX Applications”, an AJAX web application usually runs in a single "web page" in a browser window. The page is generally not reloaded after it is opened initially, but it communicates user interaction with the server through AJAX communications. A window in an AJAX application is therefore more like a window in a desktop application and less like a web page.

A Window is the top-level container of a user interface displayed in a browser window. As an AJAX application typically runs on a single "page" (URL), there is usually just one window -- the main window. The main window can be accessed using the URL of the application. You set the main window with the setMainWindow() method of the Application class.

import com.vaadin.ui.*;
public class HelloWorld extends com.vaadin.Application {
    public void init() { 
        Window main = new Window("The Main Window"); 
        setMainWindow(main);
        ... fill the main window with components ...
    }
}

You can add components to the main window, or to any other window, with the addComponent() method, which actually adds the given component to the root layout component bound to the window. If you wish to use other than the default root layout, you can set it with setContent(), as explained in Section 6.2, “Window and Panel Root Layout”.

Vaadin has two basic kinds of windows: application-level windows, such as the main window, and child windows (or sub-windows) inside the application-level windows. The child windows are explained in the next section, while application-level windows are covered in Section 11.2, “Application-Level Windows”.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. Introduction
1.1. Overview
1.2. Example Application Walkthrough
1.3. Support for the Eclipse IDE
1.4. Goals and Philosophy
1.5. Background
2. Getting Started with Vaadin
2.1. Installing Vaadin
2.2. Setting up the Development Environment
2.3. QuickStart with Eclipse
2.4. Your First Project with Vaadin
3. Architecture
3.1. Overview
3.2. Technological Background
3.3. Applications as Java Servlet Sessions
3.4. Client-Side Engine
3.5. Events and Listeners
4. Writing a Web Application
4.1. Overview
4.2. Managing the Main Window
4.3. Child Windows
4.4. Handling Events with Listeners
4.5. Referencing Resources
4.6. Shutting Down an Application
4.7. Handling Errors
4.8. Setting Up the Application Environment
5. User Interface Components
5.1. Overview
5.2. Interfaces and Abstractions
5.3. Common Component Features
5.4. Label
5.5. Link
5.6. TextField
5.7. RichTextArea
5.8. Date and Time Input
5.9. Button
5.10. CheckBox
5.11. Selecting Items
5.12. Table
5.13. Tree
5.14. MenuBar
5.15. Embedded
5.16. Upload
5.17. Form
5.18. ProgressIndicator
5.19. Slider
5.20. Component Composition with CustomComponent
6. Managing Layout
6.1. Overview
6.2. Window and Panel Root Layout
6.3. VerticalLayout and HorizontalLayout
6.4. GridLayout
6.5. FormLayout
6.6. Panel
6.7. SplitPanel
6.8. TabSheet
6.9. Accordion
6.10. Layout Formatting
6.11. Custom Layouts
7. Visual User Interface Design with Eclipse (experimental)
7.1. Overview
7.2. Creating a New CustomComponent
7.3. Using The Visual Editor
7.4. Structure of a Visually Editable Component
8. Themes
8.1. Overview
8.2. Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets
8.3. Creating and Using Themes
8.4. Creating a Theme in Eclipse
9. Binding Components to Data
9.1. Overview
9.2. Properties
9.3. Holding properties in Items
9.4. Collecting items in Containers
10. Developing Custom Components
10.1. Overview
10.2. Doing It the Simple Way in Eclipse
10.3. Google Web Toolkit Widgets
10.4. Integrating a GWT Widget
10.5. Defining a Widget Set
10.6. Server-Side Components
10.7. Using a Custom Component
10.8. GWT Widget Development
11. Advanced Web Application Topics
11.1. Special Characteristics of AJAX Applications
11.2. Application-Level Windows
11.3. Embedding Applications in Web Pages
11.4. Debug and Production Mode
11.5. Resources
11.6. Shortcut Keys
11.7. Printing
11.8. Portal Integration
11.9. Google App Engine Integration
11.10. Common Security Issues
11.11. URI Fragment and History Management with UriFragmentUtility
11.12. Capturing HTTP Requests
A. User Interface Definition Language (UIDL)
A.1. API for Painting Components
A.2. JSON Rendering
B. Songs of Vaadin
Index