Google Web Toolkit Solutions: More Cool & Useful Stuff Review

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(More customer reviews)I've tried at length to obtain the source code used in the book. Geary leaves it to the user to acquire the addons that he uses in his examples. Yes I've tried going the Safari route. Without signing up for a "90 day free then we charge you big" trial, you won't have any luck. I also read the previous post where he mentioned that he obtained the code from the website. If you go there now, the code has been pulled so I'm back to being forced to sign up for Safari which I won't do. I did read through the examples and do what I could. Instead of this book, I'd recommend "Google Web Toolkit Applications" by Dewsbury. The examples may not be as advanced as these, but at least you can run them.

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Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is an open source Java development framework for building Ajax-enabled web applications. Instead of the hodgepodge of technologies that developers typically use for Ajax–JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and XMLHttpRequest–GWT lets developers implement rich client applications with pure Java, using familiar idioms from the AWT, Swing, and SWT. GWT goes beyond most Ajax frameworks by making it easy to build desktop-like applications that run in the ubiquitous browser, where the richness of the user interface is limited only by the developer's imagination.

This book focuses on the more advanced aspects of GWT that you need to implement real-world applications with rich user interfaces but without the heavy lifting of JavaScript and other Ajax-related technologies. Each solution in this practical, hands-on book is more than a recipe. The sample programs are carefully explained in detail to help you quickly master advanced GWT techniques, such as implementing drag-and-drop, integrating JavaScript libraries, and using advanced event handling methodologies.

Solutions covered include
• Building custom GWT widgets, including both high-level composites and low-level components
• Implementing a viewport class that includes iPhone-style automated scrolling
• Integrating web services with GWT applications
• Incorporating the Script.aculo.us JavaScript framework into GWT applications
• Combining Hibernate and GWT to implement database-backed web applications
• Extending the GWT PopupPanel class to implement a draggable and resizable window
• Creating a drag-and-drop module, complete with drag sources and drop targets
• Deploying GWT applications to an external server
• Dynamically resizing flex tables
• Using GWT widgets in legacy applications developed with other frameworks, such as Struts and JavaServer Faces

Complete Sample Code Available at www.coolandusefulgwt.com

All of the code used in this book has been tested, both in hosted and web modes, and in an external version of Tomcat (version 5.5.17), under Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. For Windows and Linux, we used 1.4.60, and for the Mac we used 1.4.61. NOTE: There are three separate versions of the code. Please download the correct JAR file for the operating system you are using.


Foreword xiii
Preface xvi
Acknowledgments xviii
About the Authors xix

Solution 1: GWT Fundamentals and Beyond 1
Solution 2: JavaScript Integration 53
Solution 3: Custom Widget Implementation 71
Solution 4: Viewports and Maps 103
Solution 5: Access to Online Web Services 133
Solution 6: Drag and Drop 167
Solution 7: Simple Windows 199
Solution 8: Flex Tables 237
Solution 9: File Uploads 283
Solution 10: Hibernate Integration 303
Solution 11: Deployment to an External Server 325
Solution 12: GWT and Legacy Code 343
Index 371

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Developing with Google App Engine (Firstpress) Review

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(More customer reviews)I was really looking forward to reading this book. I've been working with the Google App Engine from the first week it was released, but as a Python newbie, I still thought I'd get a lot out of a book dedicated to GAE development.
Unfortunately, the book doesn't go far enough beyond the Google online documentation to be useful. The book is thin, but it also uses an incredibly large font size throughout. It's like a junior high school student trying to stretch a book report to meet the teacher's page number requirement.
There are plenty of topics that warrant discussion but are strangely absent. Performance profiling and the performance of the datastore are topics that many developers are struggling with but the book says little or nothing on these topics, and others.

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Google has been able to create a massively scalable architecture so that they can run their applications on literally hundreds of millions of machines without a hitch. Now they are making that technology available to the public in the form of Google App Engine. This book discusses what it takes to develop cloud computing applications using the GAE and walks you through the process of not only developing the applications but also deploying them.

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Beginning Java Google App Engine Review

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(More customer reviews)I was very frustrated with my purchase and I was contemplating to write a review out of frustration. However, after I've seen the 5-star reviews from other users, I couldn't believe my eyes. One review was raving about the code samples (absolutely ridiculous) and then I saw one other reader leaving a comment for the review saying that he's been working on the sample code for weeks and still couldn't make it work and I can relate to that.
I pre-order this book from Amazon and when I start reading it, it was a total disappointment. I've been working on GAE/J for a while now and I bought this book specifically to learn more about Google Accounts. The example projects are not complete and it requires you to fill in the blanks to make them work. I've also looked at the other chapters and they lack in content. The book tries to give you overall, breadth-first view of the technology (as you would expect from a beginner level book), but while doing so it mentions about bunch of GAE topics, but fails on giving good coverage for that topic. Especially in chapter 4, when the author(s) talk about frameworks, they don't mention about gotchas on how to make these frameworks work at the first place, because if you're using Spring, BlazeDS and GraniteDS (or any other frameworks, you need to do certain tweaks to make these frameworks/technologies/APIs work with GAE, because some of the Java APIs are "black-listed" by the App Engine for the obvious reasons.
If you're a beginner, this is not a book for you. If you're advanced, then again this book doesn't give you enough in-depth information of the GAE/J topics. In conclusion, it's sad to say, but this book is useless! You can save money just by going to Google's App Engine website and find more up-to-date and complete information, because they keep changing/upgrading the SDKs for GWT and the App Engine almost every month.

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Google App Engine is one of the key technologies to emerge in recent years to help developers build web applications. A great number of the developers approach the App Engine are Java developers, and this title is especially focused for this large audience sector.

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Essential GWT: Building for the Web with Google Web Toolkit 2 (Developer's Library) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Essential GWT" covers the intermediate to advanced level features of Google's GWT2. While a little time is spent getting the reader set up, it is certainly not aimed at beginners and rapidly dives into the topics that receive inadequate coverage in starter books. There appears to be plenty of confusion about this book, but in my opinion this is caused by assuming that the basic topics will be covered.
I liked it a lot. The prose is easy to read and often amusing and the author is experienced and well aware of the realities and limitations of GWT and doesn't try to over sell the product. Even excluding the value of the technical content this alone makes it easy to consume.
Between the covers lies a wealth of information to help design your next application or improve an existing one. While each chapter covers an important subject, the code samples and best practices are of equal value in boosting the strength of any GWT app. The range of topics covered in the chapters will help elevate your applications to enterprise level stable and mature applications and allow you to apply full testing rigor.
So while I understand the negative comments regarding this book, in my opinion it is an excellent GWT resource provided it is not your first GWT resource.
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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.

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With Google Web Toolkit, Java developers can build sophisticated Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and complete Web sites using the powerful IDEs and tools they already use. Now, with GWT 2, Google Web Toolkit has become even more useful. Essential GWT shows how to use this latest version of GWT to create production solutions that combine superior style, performance, and interactivity with exceptional quality and maintainability.
Federico Kereki quickly reviews the basics and then introduces intermediate and advanced GWT skills, covering issues ranging from organizing projects to compiling and deploying final code. Throughout, he focuses on best-practice methodologies and design patterns. For example, you'll learn how to use the MVP (model-view-presenter) pattern to improve application design and support automated testing for agile development.

Kereki illuminates each concept with realistic code examples that help developers jump-start their projects and get great results more quickly. Working with the latest versions of open source tools such as Eclipse, Subversion, Apache, Tomcat, and MySQL, he demonstrates exactly how GWT fits into real Web development environments. Coverage includes


Using the Google Plugin for Eclipse and the GWT Shell Script
Detecting and working with browsers—and solving the problems they cause
Building better user interfaces with the MVP pattern
Using APIs for visualization, mapping, weather data, and more
Internationalizing and localizing GWT code
Securing GWT applications with cryptography, hashing, and encryption
Testing with JUnit, Emma, GWTTestCase, Selenium, and Mock Objects
Deploying client-only and client-plus-server GWT applications

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Programming Google App Engine: Build and Run Scalable Web Apps on Google's Infrastructure (Animal Guide) Review

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(More customer reviews)I've worked with the App Engine for about six months and have gained most of my knowledge from the online documentation. I wish I had had this book when I started. This is the best explanation I've seen of entities and how they relate to transactions. The code examples in Python and Java are extremely helpful and give great insight into how the two languages approach the App Engine abstractions. The sections on data modeling and Django integration are particularly good. Not only did this book fill in gaps in my knowledge, but it is sufficiently detailed that I'm sure I will keep it on my desk as a reference. I've tried the other App Engine books and this is by far the best. If you have any interest in the App Engine, start here.

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As one of today's cloud computing services, Google App Engine does more than provide access to a large system of servers. It also offers you a simple model for building applications that scale automatically to accommodate millions of users. With Programming Google App Engine, you'll get expert practical guidance that will help you make the best use of this powerful platform. Google engineer Dan Sanderson shows you how to design your applications for scalability, including ways to perform common development tasks using App Engine's APIs and scalable services.

You'll learn about App Engine's application server architecture, runtime environments, and scalable datastore for distributing data, as well as techniques for optimizing your application. App Engine offers nearly unlimited computing power, and this book provides clear and concise instructions for getting the most from it right from the source.



Discover the differences between traditional web development and development with App Engine
Learn the details of App Engine's Python and Java runtime environments
Understand how App Engine handles web requests and executes application code
Learn how to use App Engine's scalable datastore, including queries and indexes, transactions, and data modeling
Use task queues to parallelize and distribute work across the infrastructure
Deploy and manage applications with ease

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Python Web Development with Django Review

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(More customer reviews)We are a Python shop at work and have recently started developing in Django. So I picked this book up as a total beginner to Django, but an experienced Python programmer. I feel that the book would be more or less the same even for someone totally new to Python, because Django is definitely a different kind of beast.
Overall, this book was okay to good. I would give it 3.5 stars if I could. It is definitely targeted at beginners to Django (and possibly Python). As a Django beginner, I first ran through the tutorial on the Django website, because it is very thorough and good. I definitely recommend that as a starting place regardless of which book you end up buying. Then I cracked open this book. The first chapter is a 50-page introduction to Python, so I skipped that. Chapter 2 is a tutorial in which you build a simple blog. So by the time I had finished that chapter, I had built two different Django sites but not really read anything about the language or framework or theory thereof. I think this is a good thing, and this chapter is well-placed. Chapter 3 introduces Django. It covers dynamic web sites, communication, data storage, presentation, separating the layers (MVC), general django architecture, and "core philosophies of Django". It is a decent introduction, though I read through it quickly so I could get to the next three chapters.
The next three chapters make up the Django in Depth section and are the bread-and-butter of the book. The first chapter covers models, the second URLs/HTTP/views, and the third templates and form processing. For me, these were the chapters I was most looking forward to, where I would learn everything I needed to know to get started really understanding. And they let me down a bit. Each one was good in what it covered, but the problem was that it left out quite a bit. The part on the models themselves was pretty good and covered the necessities. But the part on querying was a little sparse. They left much for the reader to go to the documentation and find out. (But what's the point of the book, then?) I did think it was nice that they mentioned fixtures, as I had trouble finding that information online when I needed to set one up for work. The chapter on views was decent, but seemed to leave out too much detail. The section covering views specifically was short. Finally, the template/forms chapter again left the reader to find out critical details in the online documentation. First, the template section was short. Second, the forms section seemed long enough, but I just found that it wasn't that helpful when I was really creating forms for work.
The next four chapters are tutorials in which you build various applications. I haven't gone through these yet, but they look pretty good. I think Django is one of those things that is best learned in a very hands-on fashion. Perhaps some of the weaknesses of the previous three chapters are made up for here; but I doubt it, and if so feel that information should have still been included in the earlier chapters. (The book is fairly slim and could definitely be expanded.) Chapter 11 covers advanced Django programming, including customizing the admin, using syndication, generating downloadable files, enhancing Django's ORM with custom managers, and extending the template system. The chapter seems decent enough, although I haven't had to do any of these things yet. Likewise, with Chapter 12 covering advanced Django deployment, I haven't had to deploy anything yet so I only know that the chapter seems to cover some useful information.

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Using the simple, robust, Python-based Django framework, you can build powerful Web solutions with remarkably few lines of code. In Python Web Development with Django®, three experienced Django and Python developers cover all the techniques, tools, and concepts you need to make the most of Django 1.0, including all the major features of the new release. The authors teach Django through in-depth explanations, plus provide extensive sample code supported with images and line-by-line explanations. You'll discover how Django leverages Python's development speed and flexibility to help you solve a wide spectrum of Web development problems and learn Django best practices covered nowhere else. You'll build your first Django application in just minutes and deepen your real-world skills through start-to-finish application projects includingSimple Web log (blog) Online photo gallery Simple content management system Ajax-powered live blogger Online source code sharing/syntax highlighting tool How to run your Django applications on the Google App EngineThis complete guide starts by introducing Python, Django, and Web development concepts, then dives into the Django framework, providing a deep understanding of its major components (models, views, templates), and how they come together to form complete Web applications. After a discussion of four independent working Django applications, coverage turns to advanced topics, such as caching, extending the template system, syndication, admin customization, and testing. Valuable reference appendices cover using the command-line, installing and configuring Django, development tools, exploring existing Django applications, the Google App Engine, and how to get more involved with the Django community.Introduction 1Part I: Getting StartedChapter 1: Practical Python for Django 7Chapter 2: Django for the Impatient: Building a Blog 57Chapter 3: Starting Out 77Part II: Django in DepthChapter 4: Defining and Using Models 89Chapter 5: URLs, HTTP Mechanisms, and Views 117Chapter 6: Templates and Form Processing 135Part III: Django Applications by ExampleChapter 7: Photo Gallery 159Chapter 8: Content Management System 181Chapter 9: Liveblog 205Chapter 10: Pastebin 221Part IV: Advanced Django Techniques and FeaturesChapter 11: Advanced Django Programming 235Chapter 12: Advanced Django Deployment 261Part V: AppendicesAppendix A: Command Line Basics 285Appendix B: Installing and Running Django 295Appendix C: Tools for Practical Django Development 313Appendix D: Finding, Evaluating, and Using Django Applications 321Appendix E: Django on the Google App Engine 325Appendix F: Getting Involved in the Django Project 337Index 339Colophon 375

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