Handling Flex Events in GWT

Tightly integrating Flex components in GWT applications requires that GWT is notified on events triggered in Flex. For example, when the user performs an action in the Flex component, e.g. double-clicking a node in a graph widget, we might want to perform some operations on the GWT side, e.g. updating a dependent view to show information about the double-clicked node. This tutorial shows how UI event from Flex can be forward to and handled by GWT code. The example contains a GWT text box and a Flex text box and buttons for copying the text from one to the other. This tutorial is the third part of a series of blog posts about using Flex components in GWT with the library gwt2swf:

1. GWT Wrapper for Flex components
2. Notifying GWT when a Flex widget is loaded [Demo, Source Code]
3. Handling Flex events in GWT [Demo, Source Code]

This tutorial is based on the previous one, notifying GWT when a Flex widget is loaded, and assumes that you have a similar project setup and that you have created the classes and files with the source code from that tutorial. The main ideas are similar those from the previous tutorial, but we will explicitly register our event handler bridge as a callback in Flex. That way, the Flex component can expose operations that might not be used by our GWT application, but in other applications, e.g. separate JavaScript projects, without requiring the GWT wrapper to provide hooks for those operations.

The Flex component is first extended by adding a 'send' button and changing the text to a text input. Then a method for adding a JavaScript method as event listener is implemented and exposed. When calling registered event listeners, the Flex components adds the content of the text field, so we can use it on the GWT side. Alternatively, one could implement and expose a method for getting the content of the Flex text field from JavaScript.

Text.mxml

<mx:Button id="sendButton" x="200" width="80" label="Send"/>
<mx:TextInput id="textWidget" x="0" width="200"/>

...    

public function addSendListener(jsFunctionName:String):void {
  sendButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, function(event:MouseEvent):void {
    ExternalInterface.call(jsFunctionName, swfID, textWidget.text);       
  });
}
      
private function init():void {
...
  addJSCallback("addSendListener", addSendListener);
}

The complete Flex component should look like this:

Text.mxml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" 
  layout="absolute" creationComplete="init()"
  backgroundColor="0xffffff" paddingBottom="0" paddingLeft="0" 
  paddingRight="0" paddingTop="0">
  
  <mx:Script>
    <![CDATA[
    
    import mx.events.FlexEvent;

    public function displayText(text:String):void {
      textWidget.text = text;
    }   
      
    private function init():void {
      addEventListener(FlexEvent.APPLICATION_COMPLETE, onApplicationComplete);
      addJSCallback("displayText", displayText);
      addJSCallback("addSendListener", addSendListener);
    }
    
    private function onApplicationComplete(event:FlexEvent):void {
        callLater(function():void {
          ExternalInterface.call("_swf_application_complete", swfID);
        });
      }
    
    public static function addJSCallback(jsFunctionName:String, flexFunction:Function):void {
        try {
          if (ExternalInterface.available) {
          ExternalInterface.addCallback(jsFunctionName, flexFunction);
          }
      } catch (error:SecurityError) {
        trace("Couldn't add javascript callback: " + error);
      }
      } 
      
    public function addSendListener(jsFunctionName:String):void {
      sendButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, function(event:MouseEvent):void {
        ExternalInterface.call(jsFunctionName, swfID, textWidget.text);       
      });
    }
      
    public function get swfID():String {
      return Application.application.parameters.swfid;
    }

    ]]>
  </mx:Script>
  
  <mx:Button id="sendButton" x="200" width="80" label="Send"/>
  <mx:TextInput id="textWidget" x="0" width="200"/>
  
</mx:Application>

Now we can build the Flex project and copy the generated .swf file into the GWT project. It should be under the 'public' folder below the folder that contains the .gwt.xml file, e.g. in my case as 'src/de/larsgrammel/blog/flexgwt/public/Test.swf'.

The GWT wrapper keeps track of event handler that are interested in this send event. For that purpose, we add custom event and event handler classes:

TextSentEvent.java

import com.google.gwt.event.shared.GwtEvent;

public class TextSentEvent extends GwtEvent<TextSentEventHandler> {

  public static final Type<TextSentEventHandler> TYPE = new Type<TextSentEventHandler>();

  private SampleFlexWrapperWidget swfWidget;

  private String newText;

  public TextSentEvent(SampleFlexWrapperWidget swfWidget, String newText) {
    assert swfWidget != null;
    this.newText = newText;
    this.swfWidget = swfWidget;
  }

  protected void dispatch(TextSentEventHandler handler) {
    handler.onTextSent(this);
  }

  public String getNewText() {
    return newText;
  }

  public Type<TextSentEventHandler> getAssociatedType() {
    return TYPE;
  }

  public SampleFlexWrapperWidget getSWFWidget() {
    return swfWidget;
  }
}

TextSentEventHandler.java

public interface TextSentEventHandler extends EventHandler {

  void onTextSent(TextSentEvent event);

}

Now, we add a method for registering TextSentEventHandlers to our SampleFlexWrapperWidget:

SampleFlexWrapperWidget.java

...

public HandlerRegistration addTextSentEventHandler(
    TextSentEventHandler handler) {

  return addHandler(handler, TextSentEvent.TYPE);
}

The next two methods forward the Flex events to the registered event handlers:

SampleFlexWrapperWidget.java

...

public static void _onTextSent(String swfId, String text) {
  swfWidgets.get(swfId).onTextSent(text);
}
    
private void onTextSent(String text) {
  fireEvent(new TextSentEvent(this, text));
}

Now we register the _onTextSent method as listener on the Flex component by exposing it as a JavaScript method. The GWT guide recommends that Java methods should be wrapped by $entry() when exposing them as JavaScript callback points. We thus register our wrapped _onTextSent method as JavaScript handle once the Flex component finished loading.

SampleFlexWrapperWidget.java

...

public static void onSwfApplicationComplete(String swfId) {
  _registerSwfListeners(swfId);
  ...
}

private static native void _registerSwfListeners(String swfID) /*-{
  var swfWidget = $doc.getElementById(swfID);
  swfWidget.addSendListener("_swf_on_text_sent");
}-*/;

private static native void registerCallbackMethods() /*-{
  $wnd._swf_on_text_sent=
  $entry(@de.larsgrammel.blog.flexgwt.client.SampleFlexWrapperWidget::_onTextSent(Ljava/lang/String;Ljava/lang/String;));
  ...
}-*/;

Finally, we change our main code to use the new functionality of our wrapper by updating the GWT text field when the Flex component sents over new text:

FlexGWTIntegration.java

...
flexWidget.addTextSentEventHandler(new TextSentEventHandler() {
  public void onTextSent(TextSentEvent event) {
    textField.setText(event.getNewText());
  }
});

The complete FlexGWTIntegration and SampleFlexWrapperWidget should look like this now:

SampleFlexWrapperWidget.java

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import pl.rmalinowski.gwt2swf.client.ui.SWFWidget;

import com.google.gwt.event.shared.HandlerRegistration;

public class SampleFlexWrapperWidget extends SWFWidget {

  private static Map<String, SampleFlexWrapperWidget> swfWidgets = new HashMap<String, SampleFlexWrapperWidget>();

  static {
    registerCallbackMethods();
  }

  private static native void _displayText(String swfID, String text) /*-{
    $doc.getElementById(swfID).displayText(text);
  }-*/;

  public static void onSwfApplicationComplete(String swfId) {
    _registerSwfListeners(swfId);
    swfWidgets.get(swfId).fireSWFWidgetReady();
  }

  private static native void _registerSwfListeners(String swfID) /*-{
    var swfWidget = $doc.getElementById(swfID);
    swfWidget.addSendListener("_swf_on_text_sent");
  }-*/;

  private static native void registerCallbackMethods() /*-{
    $wnd._swf_on_text_sent=
    $entry(@de.larsgrammel.blog.flexgwt.client.SampleFlexWrapperWidget::_onTextSent(Ljava/lang/String;Ljava/lang/String;));
    $wnd._swf_application_complete=
    $entry(@de.larsgrammel.blog.flexgwt.client.SampleFlexWrapperWidget::onSwfApplicationComplete(Ljava/lang/String;));
  }-*/;

  public SampleFlexWrapperWidget(int width, int height) {
    super("flexgwtintegration/Test.swf", width, height);
    addFlashVar("swfid", getSwfId());
  }

  public HandlerRegistration addSWFWidgetReadyHandler(
      SWFWidgetReadyHandler handler) {
    
    return addHandler(handler, SWFWidgetReadyEvent.TYPE);
  }

  public HandlerRegistration addTextSentEventHandler(
      TextSentEventHandler handler) {

    return addHandler(handler, TextSentEvent.TYPE);
  }

  public static void _onTextSent(String swfId, String text) {
    swfWidgets.get(swfId).onTextSent(text);
  }

  private void onTextSent(String text) {
    fireEvent(new TextSentEvent(this, text));
  }

  public void displayText(String text) {
    _displayText(getSwfId(), text);
  }

  private void fireSWFWidgetReady() {
    fireEvent(new SWFWidgetReadyEvent(this));
  }

  protected void onLoad() {
    super.onLoad();
    SampleFlexWrapperWidget.swfWidgets.put(getSwfId(), this);
  }

  protected void onUnload() {
    SampleFlexWrapperWidget.swfWidgets.remove(getSwfId());
    super.onUnload();
  }
}

FlexGWTIntegration.java

import com.google.gwt.core.client.EntryPoint;
import com.google.gwt.event.dom.client.ClickEvent;
import com.google.gwt.event.dom.client.ClickHandler;
import com.google.gwt.event.dom.client.KeyCodes;
import com.google.gwt.event.dom.client.KeyUpEvent;
import com.google.gwt.event.dom.client.KeyUpHandler;
import com.google.gwt.user.client.ui.Button;
import com.google.gwt.user.client.ui.RootPanel;
import com.google.gwt.user.client.ui.TextBox;

public class FlexGWTIntegration implements EntryPoint {

  public void onModuleLoad() {
    final Button sendButton = new Button("Send to Flex");
    final TextBox textField = new TextBox();
    textField.setText("from GWT");

    final SampleFlexWrapperWidget flexWidget = 
      new SampleFlexWrapperWidget(300, 50);

    RootPanel.get().add(textField);
    RootPanel.get().add(sendButton);

    RootPanel.get().add(flexWidget);

    textField.setFocus(true);
    textField.selectAll();

    class MyHandler implements ClickHandler, KeyUpHandler {
      public void onClick(ClickEvent event) {
        displayTextInFlex();
      }

      public void onKeyUp(KeyUpEvent event) {
        if (event.getNativeKeyCode() == KeyCodes.KEY_ENTER) {
          displayTextInFlex();
        }
      }

      private void displayTextInFlex() {
        flexWidget.displayText(textField.getText());
      }
    }

    MyHandler handler = new MyHandler();
    sendButton.addClickHandler(handler);
    textField.addKeyUpHandler(handler);

    flexWidget.addTextSentEventHandler(new TextSentEventHandler() {
      public void onTextSent(TextSentEvent event) {
        textField.setText(event.getNewText());
      }
    });
  }
}

This example code allows you to send text from GWT to Flex and from Flex to GWT (demo). Together with the first two parts of this tutorial series, this should enable you to use a Flex component from GWT in a way that resembles the GWT API. There are a couple more details that I will cover in future posts.

Mashup Environments in Software Engineering

Software developers perform different kinds of analytical activities. For example, they want to find out which code might be affected by a change, which change caused a bug or build failure, or which source code was changing in work items related to performance issues. Similarly, project managers might want to learn from the latest iteration of product development by analyzing produced artifacts, e.g. work items, source code and build results. There are many tasks in software engineering that would benefit from tools that enable the flexible and integrated analysis of information stored in different places such as issue trackers, source code repositories, and requirements documents.

Together with Christoph Treude and Margaret-Anne Storey, I outlined the idea how mashup technology can be leveraged to achieve this. Our 2 page position paper "Mashup Environments in Software Engineering" was accepted at Web2SE, the First Workshop on Web 2.0 for Software Engineering, co-located with ICSE 2010. Here is the abstract of our paper:

Too often, software engineering (SE) tool research is focused on
creating small, stand-alone tools that address rarely understood
developer needs. We believe that research should instead provide
developers with flexible environments and interoperable tools,
and then study how developers appropriate and tailor these tools
in practice. Although there has been some prior work on this, we
feel that flexible tool environments for SE have not yet been fully
explored. In particular, we propose adopting the Web 2.0 idea of
mashups and mashup environments to support SE practitioners in
analytic activities involving multiple information sources.

Download Paper