Vaadin Directory is now open. Your are welcome to browse, download and try number add-ons that can make you Vaadin-based applications even better!
Vaadin Directory is all about add-ons to Vaadin Framework. Most notably the add-ons are additional user interface components, but you'll also find themes, data integration components, tools and other helpers to Vaadin developers. Today, there are already 95 downloadable add-ons in Vaadin Directory - and this is just the beginning.
The key idea has been to make it as simple as possible to extend Vaadin Framework; To package and distribute those extensions as add-ons and especially to make it very simple for the developers to use add-ons. In most cases you just download and drop an add-on jar package in your project and it just works. No other framework bundles both the client-side and the server-side parts of add-on components in such an easy package.
Anyone can create and publish new add-ons easily. For Eclipse users there is even a handy wizard for making the process automatic. You are free to release your add-on with any of the most used Open Source licenses. In addition to that - if you want to - you can also set a (per developer) price for your add-ons and and start selling them. When there is even a mention of money in a context of free open source developer tool, it always raises questions and doubt. If you have any, please ask. I try to answer the questions at the forums.
And one more thing. We all wish that there will be several hundreds of add-ons by the end of the year. As a thank the future add-on developers who share their creations with the rest of the community,we will give away a number of different gadgets to the best add-ons during the year. First, there will be some free iPads for the best add-ons added to the directory before June. More info will be added after Easter to Vaadin Blog. So ladies and gentlemen, start you IDEs!
Happy Easter and happy experimenting with the new add-ons! Welcome to Vaadin Directory - come and see what the Easter bunny has hidden into http://vaadin.com/directory.
Yours,
Joonas Lehtinen
Update: Recorded 4-min demo on how to create a new Vaadin project from scratch, download and integrate an add-on (Vaadin Timeline) to it and run the resulting application. Watch the demo in HD at YouTube.