Instantiations purchased by Google

According to the Instantiations web site they have been purchased by Google.  Here is a little info from their site:

We’re excited to announce that Instantiations is now part of Google!
Yes it’s true. Instantiations’ award-winning Java and Ajax development tools and our incredible Eclipse team have been acquired by Google. We are all very excited about taking our technology and team to the next level - and there is no bigger step up than Google!........

They also said that you should watch the official GWT blog for more information and I assume an official announcement from Google.
Google Web Toolkit Blog

New GWT 2 Development book: Essential GWT

I recently had the opportunity to be one of the technical editors for the book Essential GWT: Building for the Web with Google Web Tookit 2.

Some of the topics in the book are:


Getting started 

• Some background on GWT, what it is, etc.
• Understanding the tools you will need while developing with GWT such as Eclipse
• Client side code vs server side code
• OOPHM, compiler options, GWT application layout.

 Client Side Coding

• User interface programming
• Form designing using HTML, XML, UiBinder.
• Other GWT packages such as ExtGWT

Server Communications

• Remote Procedure Calls 
• Communicating with other serivces like XML and JSON
• Sending and receiving files

Building rich internet applications

• Integrating JavaScript and calling it from GWT
• Exception handling
• Using other services and APIs such as Google search, Yahoo search
• Internationalization (i18n) and Localization (i10n)
• Testing your GWT app with Junit and test cases

I really enjoyed being a technical editor for this book.  The author Federico Kereki did a great job covering just about every topic you would need to create a powerful GWT application.

There were a couple of topics that were not covered in much detail, but I find they are things that I use in my daily GWT development:

1. Building ANT tasks that can automate your build process.  I have built scripts that compile server side code, gwt code and deploy to my Tomcat server of choice.  

2. Using GWT app engine with your GWT application.  You can either pay to have Tomcat hosting on the internet or you can use GWT app engine to host your GWT project for free.

I highly recommend this book, you can pickup a copy from Amazon:

Upgrading GWT code from version 1.7 to version 2.0

I have already starting converting several of my GWT apps from older version of GWT to version 2.0.  According to this link the steps are as follows.

There are 3 tasks involved when upgrading a GWT 1.7 project to a GWT 2.0 project:

• Download GWT 2.0 and update your launch configurations
• HostedMode has been replaced by DevMode, so you will need to update your Eclipse project settings accordingly.
• Tests now run in HtmlUnit by default. You will need to modify some of your tests to work with HtmlUnit.
  

So far I have not run into any issues with upgrading.  As of this post I have not seen any mention of a GWT 2.0 Incubator file, but my apps seem happy with the older version gwt-incubator-july-14-2009.jar.  I have seen several warnings however while compiling with this version such as:



         [WARN] Line 102: Referencing deprecated class 'com.google.gwt.widgetideas.table.client.overrides.HTMLTable'
         [WARN] Line 103: Referencing deprecated class 'com.google.gwt.widgetideas.table.client.overrides.Grid'
         [WARN] Line 104: Referencing deprecated class 'com.google.gwt.widgetideas.table.client.overrides.Grid'
         [WARN] Line 104: Referencing deprecated class 'com.google.gwt.widgetideas.table.client.overrides.HTMLTable'

GWT 2.0.0 is here. Get your copy today!

You can now download and start using GWT version 2.0.  If you are using Eclipse the links are below, and of course if you are already using Eclipse then you should be able to update to the latest plugin and GWT version automatically.

Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo)
http://dl.google.com/eclipse/plugin/3.5
Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede)
http://dl.google.com/eclipse/plugin/3.4
Eclipse 3.3 (Europa)
http://dl.google.com/eclipse/plugin/3.3

If you would like to download the latest version of GWT without using Eclipse you can find the download here.


Some of the new changes:
Speed Tracer
Speed Tracer is a Chrome Extension that allows you to pinpoint performance problems in your web applications.
Downloading & getting started with Speed Tracer for Google Chrome


Speed tracer tutorial video


What's New in GWT 2.0?


New Features

• Development Mode
• Speed Tracer
• Developer Guided Code Splitting
• Compiler Optimizations
• Draft Compile
• Declarative User Interfaces
• Layout Panels
• Bundled Resources via ClientBundle
• HtmlUnit for Testing

Video of changes in GWT Version 2.0:



Google Web Toolkit Gallery


Google Web Toolkit Showcase of Features

Announcing GWT 2.0 Milestone 1

If you are like me I am sure you have been patiently waiting for the release of GWT 2.0.  If you are ready to start some early testing of GWT 2.0 you can download a copy of the Milestone 1 release here.  It is interesting to note that you no longer need to download the appropriate version for you development environment.  Now you simply download this single version and then GWT will download the appropriate plugins for your browser. There are lots of changes in this Milestone 1 release so your best bet is to take a look at the release notes and also the GWT 2.0 Milestone 1 announcement  in the GWT group here.
Be on the lookout for bugs and you probably don't want to attempt to use this version in your GWT production environment at this time.

GWT Google Plugin for Eclipse 1.1.0

For those of you using the GWT Eclipse plugin there is a new version. Of course if you installed in Eclipse and have automatic updates enabled then you probably know about this update already.

Here are some of the main features of this release:

- Support for Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo)

- GWT RPC interface validation with quick fixes

- App Engine DataNucleus enhancer console no longer steals focus on save

The GWT group thread on this new version is here.

Depending on your version of Eclipse you have different URLs for installation:

- Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo) - http://dl.google.com/eclipse/plugin/3.5

- Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede) - http://dl.google.com/eclipse/plugin/3.4

- Eclipse 3.3 (Europa) - http://dl.google.com/eclipse/plugin/3.3

GWT Tetris - Great Puzzle Game from the 80s

I am sure there are some of you out there that have never heard of the puzzle game Tetris. Seems like the 1980s was just a few years ago, ah how time flys. I first played the game Tetris on my Tandy Color Computer 3, and played and played. I absolutly loved the game! Funny, I still love the Color Computer too. Here is a screen shot of Tetris on the Color Computer:

Some time ago I tought it would be a fun little project to take the game Tetris and write a GWT version of it. Well now someone has already done it. A few days ago on the Google Web Toolkit Group I noticed a post about Tetris. I had to give it a try, and I was quite impressed with the result:

I had a chance to talk to the author Janusz Prokulewicz and asked him a few questions about the development of this game.

Some time ago Janusz created a Java version of his Tetris game. Having created the same game as a linux shell application over 4 years ago he was able to get his Java version working in three days. So the real question, how hard was it to convert to GWT and how long did it take? To quote Janusz: "It took me 2 and a half days (or rather nights) to do it".

So we have an existing Java application that Janusz was able to convert it to GWT in two nights. The game can now be played in any modern browser with no special plug-ins and no goofy browser quirks to worry about. Write it once in GWT and compile and you are ready to go.

Unfortunately at this time he does not have a web site that contains his other work, maybe in the future he can set something up.

He used GWT version 1.6.4 with no additional libraries.

The game is deployed with a PHP backend using JSON to get/send data to the server.

Janusz's web site is here.

Update June-8-2009: Janusz now has a blog setup. You can see his site here.

Play GWT Tetris now!