Vaadin for Desktop Applications

How to use Vaadin, Jetty and Electron for Desktop application development

See tutorial at https://github.com/cuba-labs/java-electron-tutorial

Transcript

1. Vaadin on Desktop ?
2. HELLO! I am Yuriy Artamonov I am here because I develop Vaadin applications for 7 years at https://cuba-platform.com 2
3. GitHub Electron How to use it with Java? There are two ways: ▪ Old-fashioned GWT client side ▪ Write code on Vaadin and bundle servlet container inside of an application Let’s try to use the second way! What is it all about? Electron is a well-known on-ramp for web developers to build desktop apps using familiar web technologies: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. In a nutshell: Node JS backend + Chromium web browser in a single application with additional Desktop integrations: native menus, installers, notifications, etc. 3
4. Why do we need this approach? 1. Usually desktop applications written in Java are horrible 2. Java Desktop technologies do not evolve 3. Web technologies are way better for UI 4. We can use all CSS / JS libraries 5. We develop web applications on Vaadin, so why not to reuse the same code/experience? 4
5. Browser + Backend Pack your Java application server with your favorite Web browser 5
6. OUR PROCESS IS EASY Build self-contained Java application Bundle all together Create Electron wrapper script 6
7. Demo Simple task manager based on Jetty + Vaadin + Electron https://github.com/jreznot/electron-java-app 7
8. Tips and tricks 1. Use Jetty servlet container as it can be embedded easily 2. Enable @Push(transport = Transport.WEBSOCKET) for UI to speed up communication and strip useless HTTP headers 3. Unpack all the static files and serve them directly from a file system instead of sending them via HTTP 4. Use Gradle node plugin com.moowork.node instead of manual Node installation 8
9. Our real-life use case CUBA Studio - a powerful enterprise application development tool for applications based on CUBA Platform. With Studio, applications are up and running within minutes. We used Vaadin for CUBA Studio for 3 years and all the time it was a web application inside of a web browser. Let’s fix it! Convert it all to a desktop installable app. 9
10. THANKS! Any questions? You can find me at: Booth 6023 CUBA Platform Twitter: @Yuriy_Artamonov artamonov@haulmont.com 10
11. CREDITS Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free: ▪ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival 11