Metawidget provides a Live Demo that's ready to evaluate right here, in your browser: http://metawidget.org/live-demo We've put together a Groovy applet, pre-loaded with the Metawidget JAR and a short script, so you can just click 'Run'. The script demonstrates using a Groovy/JPA/Hibernate Validator business model with a Swing-based Metawidget - though Metawidget also supports a wide variety of back-ends (JEXL, Hibernate, JavaBeans, jBPM, Swing AppFramework) and front-ends (Android, GWT, JSF, JSP, Spring, Struts). You can play with Metawidget by changing the business model (adding fields, altering annotations etc) or even import your own business object JARs to see how Metawidget renders them! Your continued feedback is invaluable to us. Please let us know what you think.

WHAT IS METAWIDGET!!?!? You tell me I can try it, that's great... but I still have no idea what it is! Do I have to read the whole post and inductively figure out what the heck it is? if it's that hard to define, I don't want to bother. Come on, guys, there're two "how to write posts on TSS" links in every "submit news" page... try to read them!

MetaPost provides a true framework for your TSS posts including: * Links * Buzzwords Simply extend and provide your own name and product description! :)

Joseph, Dean, I apologise for not including a description of what Metawidget actually is. I usually do, but this time I was too focused on the Live Demo. To answer your question: Metawidget is a 'smart User Interface widget' that populates itself, at runtime, with UI components to match the properties of your business objects. I will remember to write that in future posts. Regards, Richard.

Metawidget is a 'smart User Interface widget' that populates itself, at runtime, with UI components to match the properties of your business objects.

Is Metawidget comparable in any sense to Oracle's ADF solution? Not in UI technology sense but in unified from backend to frontent integration sense.

Chief Thrall, Thanks for your interest in Metawidget. Metawidget is complementary to Oracle's ADF rather than comparable. It is intended to be used alongside ADF components. Although the distribution does not include an ADF example, it does include a JBoss RichFaces one (so you can see how Metawidget works with third-party component libraries like ADF) and a Seam one (so you can see how Metawidget works with state-management frameworks like ADF). Metawidget is not a UI framework, or a web framework, or an app framework, and has no overlap. It simply automates your existing UI framework, web framework and app framework to save you both writing, and maintaining, a lot of duplicated code. If you get time to have a look at it, I'd be very interested in hearing how you go. Regards, Richard.

You can reach that via the overview button on the left where the demo runs... But in case you are lazy: http://metawidget.sourceforge.net/index.html

I'm sure it's on their site. But why should I go to their site? I'm not being given the slightest reason to do so - besides the name, "MetaWidget," which honestly doesn't mean anything to me offhand.

I can live with poor posts. It was perhaps a bit too difficult to get a post approved by Joe sometimes. :-) I agree that Metawidget is worth taking a look at. What is with all of this SPAM on TheServerSide though? Maybe someone should post about how to prevent SPAM in forums? Javalobby and InfoQ are starting to get a leg up on TheServerSide it seems. :-( I hope to see TheServerSide return to it's full glory soon! Flux - Java Job Scheduler. File Transfer. Workflow.

I can live with poor posts. It was perhaps a bit too difficult to get a post approved by Joe sometimes. :-)

I agree that Metawidget is worth taking a look at.

What is with all of this SPAM on TheServerSide though? Maybe someone should post about how to prevent SPAM in forums?

Javalobby and InfoQ are starting to get a leg up on TheServerSide it seems. :-(

I hope to see TheServerSide return to it's full glory soon!

Flux - Java Job Scheduler. File Transfer. Workflow.

It's well known how to prevent spam, in a lot of ways: I actually wrote a project (https://ci-bayes.dev.java.net) to do it, but it never got integrated into TSS itself. I was always willing to hear why your post should have been approved when it wasn't...

I am not sure why people are jumping on Kennard, with respect maybe it is being jaded to all the "news" flowing through TSS these days. I have taken the time to evaluate Metawidget, and I must say it is worth a look, at least. I am actually using it (albeit slightly modified) in code for a client of mine. Metawidget provides good dynamic UIs, but in addition, it is well worth taking a look at it in the role of a rapid prototype development tool. That was a huge value add for me personally. As far as cons, I would suggest that it tries to be a jack of all trades, and the particular metawidget implementations (I have used SwingMetawidget) need a bit of touch up code to really look how you want them. Very impressive web demo, Richard!

i k, Thanks for your kind words. I'd be most grateful if you could contact me at http://kennardconsulting.com/contact/index.jsf. I'd really appreciate understanding the touch up code and modifications you found you needed, so that I can see about rolling them into the main trunk. Regards, Richard.

Looks interesting. It sounds conceptually like NakedObjects.

Looks interesting. It sounds conceptually like NakedObjects.

LOL. Looking at the FAQ now - http://metawidget.sourceforge.net/doc/faq/comparison.html