Java One Part 2 - Java Studio Creator
One of the most promoted items was Sun's JSF development tool, JavaStudio Creator. Since Sun runs JavaOne, they have the ability to heavily promote their own tools along with the other external Java presentations. (A pretty nice deal for them...)
I actually had a chance to attend one of the many Creator session including the Hands On.
Overall I like the visual approach Sun has with it's Creator tool but I'm curious to know what the public reaction is to several key areas.
1. The exact positioning of each component on the design canvas using CSS's style attribute. I can see how this offers a similar experience to what you get with a Java client visual editor but I found that if I edit sometimes edit the source, it can become confusing because I can lose track of where the component is because the order it appears in the source of the JSP has no bearing on where it will render in the canvas/browser.. I found myself looking for a way to turn off this option. Microsoft offers this ability.
2. The Faces Only approach. I find in Studio Creator that I can only work with JSF components as opposed to being able to use other JSP tag libraries. IBM WSAD actually provides an environment where I can intermix Faces components with other JSP Tag libraries.. I'm curious if the public prefers the ability to have both JSF components as well as other tag libraries in their JSP pages, or are folks happy with just using JSF components.
There are also some serious issues with regards to the JSF lifecycle which could cause problems with the mixed approach.. If this is true, I hope the JSF EG will give more guidance on this..
3. The JSF visual page flow designer.. I actually like this feature very much but I see that it's still very simplistic but has promise. At present I seem to be able to only create horizontal page flows.. I definitely like the ability to connect specific components from inside of one page to another..
I'm definitely curious to know people's feedback with Java Studio Creator as we are building JDeveloper JSF support and there are number a similarities to Creator as well as differences. At present JDevelopers approach is a little more broad than Creator's. It will provide a fully visual environment for Faces developers but will also have a complete white box approach to Faces development. We'll also be offering a rich UI component set in addition to the core HTML components that you get with the reference implementation..
We actually demo-ed our early faces support at JavaOne where we showed how to visually build a JSF app which used both a RI DataTable as well as our ADF Face Table component which has built features for sorting, rendering etc.. Pretty cool!
7:31:35 PM 
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