[xwiki-devs] [GSOC] help choosing a js lybrary/wrapper

[Sergiu Dumitriu]

Miguel Bento wrote:
> First of all, hi again!
> 
> I'm developing the collaborative business drawing framework to integrate on
> XWiki and currently need some feedback.
> 
> In order to provide the abillity of drawing SVG/VML/Canvas objects in the
> browser, this framework has many options that i shall explain:
> *
> A) Tatami, the GWT wrapper of the Dojo Toolkit library (
> http://code.google.com/p/tatami/)*
> 
> This is by far the most used option, and the reasons are somewhat obvious.
> 
>    - It wraps up the dojo toolkit code for GWT providing access to the GFX
>    package's functionalities and thus giving us the possibility to draw objects
>    in SVG/VML/Canvas. This is a very important point as it provides support for
>    Safari with canvas objects and IE with VML objects, accomplishing  thus a
>    better product.
>    - Provides the creation of basic and advanced drawing figures from
>    squares to paths with drag and drop, scale, rotate and parameters
>    specification.
>    - It has the biggest active developer's base, having a lot of activity on
>    their forum (http://groups.google.com/group/tatami)
>    - It gives us efficiency and usability by being well developed.
>    Personally, this is a key point for me as i've seen a lot of svg drawing
>    boards slow and badly done.
> 
> A demo of the tatami can be found here (
> http://tatami.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/site/samples/TatamiDemo/index.html )
> but don't mind the slow reaction of the site as it's using aloot of dojo
> objects(Fisheye, etc) and it's runing from the svn. After some coding with
> it, i realized it can indeed be very fast.
> 
> IMHO, this looks like the winner.. we should use this wrapper for the job
> and if necessary develop some new items on it to provide us the required
> functionalities, which will also be needed in any other option.
> 
> *B) JSGraphic's library (
> http://www.walterzorn.com/jsgraphics/jsgraphics_e.htm)
> 
> *As it's the case with Dojo Toolkit, this library can be used in GWT by
> including a wrapper on the project. The downsides of this alternative are
> obvious as, for example, it doesn't support's drag and drop or any
> interaction with the objects and is a one man project.
> 
> It's allways good to have options heh!
> 
> *C) Develop an API fit to the job*
> 
> As this option might bring some (? small) benefits in efficiency and
> additional funcionalities, on the other hand, it's slowed by the time
> required to develop the API knowing that there are some fully functional
> good options out there.
> 
> Talking about functionalities, Tatami provides every svg object and property
> that i remind me of and it's efficiency and usability are high, so there
> shouldn't be much more to do in this area. (besides implementating screw
> transformations, which aren't included in the latest realease of Tatami :)
> 
> 
> In the next days i'll be building a propotype of a drawing API so please
> give me your opinions.
> 
> My vote : +1 Tatami

Tatami looks like the best option, indeed, although I don't like the demo page they have. The 
graphics libraries are still immature, mostly because people still prefer to use Flash for dynamic 
pages. Option C would be good if we had infinite time or infinite manpower, but right now it would 
be just a waste of time.
-- 
Sergiu Dumitriu
http://purl.org/net/sergiu/