Vaadin
Encyclopedia
Vaadin is an open source
Web application framework for rich Internet application
s. In contrast to JavaScript
libraries and browser-plugin based solutions, it features a server-side architecture, which means that the majority of the logic runs on the servers. Ajax technology is used at the browser-side to ensure a rich and interactive user experience. On client-side Vaadin is built on top of and can be extended with Google Web Toolkit
.
(using a Java EE
platform) as the programming language
, while creating content for the Web
. The framework incorporates event-driven programming
and widgets, which enables a programming model that is closer to GUI
software development
, than traditional Web development
with HTML
and JavaScript
.
Vaadin Framework utilizes Google Web Toolkit
for rendering the resulting Web page. While Google Web Toolkit operates only on client-side
(i.e. a browser
's JavaScript
engine) – which could lead to trust issues – Vaadin adds server-side
validation
to all actions. This means that if the client data is tampered with, the server notices this and doesn't allow it.
Vaadin Framework's default component set can be extended with custom GWT widgets and themed with CSS
.
From application developers point of view, Vaadin is just one JAR-file that can be included in any kind of Java Web project developed with standard Java tools. In addition, there are Eclipse and Netbeans plugins for easing the development of Vaadin applications as well as direct support of (and distribution through) Maven.
Vaadin applications can be deployed as Java Servlets to any Java server, including Google App Engine
. Applications can also be deployed as Portlets to any Java portal, with deeper integration to Liferay Portal.
Web framework released in year 2002. It introduced an Ajax
based client communication and rendering engine. During 2006 this concept was then developed separately as a commercial product. As a consequence for this, a large part of Vaadin's server-side
API
is still compatible with Millstone's Swing-like
APIs.
In early 2007 the product name was changed to IT Mill Toolkit and version 4 was released. It used a proprietary JavaScript Ajax-implementation for the client-side rendering, which made it rather complicated to implement new widgets. By the end of year 2007 the proprietary client-side implementation was abandoned and GWT
was integrated on top of the server-side components. At the same time the product license was changed to open source Apache License 2.0
. The first production ready release of IT Mill Toolkit 5 was made on March 4, 2009 after over one year beta period.
On September 11, 2008, it was publicly announced that Michael Widenius
, the main author of the original version of MySQL
, invested in IT Mill, the developer of Vaadin. The size of the investment is undisclosed.
On May 20, 2009, IT Mill Toolkit changed its name to Vaadin Framework to attract more community. The name originates from the Finnish word for doe, more precisely put, a female reindeer
. It can also be translated from Finnish as "I insist". In addition to name change, a pre-release of version 6 along with a community web-site was launched. Later, IT Mill Ltd, the company behind the open source Vaadin Framework, changed its name to Vaadin Ltd.
On March 30, 2010, Vaadin Directory was opened. Directory added a channel for easily distributing, for free or commercially, add-on components to the core Vaadin Framework. On launch date there were 95 add-ons already available for download.
On Feb 25, 2011, Vaadin Pro Account - a commercial support model was launched.
, ICEfaces
and ZK
- frameworks that use a similar server-side
programming model. The server-side APIs
are quite similar, providing both events and GUI components, but the client-side (i.e. web-browser) interaction differs in that Vaadin uses Java-programmed GWT widgets (ICEFaces uses JSF
, ZK uses jQuery
, and Echo has its own implementation). the most frequently compared frameworks include Adobe Flex
, Google Web Toolkit
, Apache Wicket and RichFaces
.
For C++, the Wt toolkit
offers similar capabilities.
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
Web application framework for rich Internet application
Rich Internet application
A Rich Internet Application is a Web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software, typically delivered either by way of a site-specific browser, via a browser plug-in, independent sandboxes, extensive use of JavaScript, or virtual machines...
s. In contrast to JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
libraries and browser-plugin based solutions, it features a server-side architecture, which means that the majority of the logic runs on the servers. Ajax technology is used at the browser-side to ensure a rich and interactive user experience. On client-side Vaadin is built on top of and can be extended with Google Web Toolkit
Google Web Toolkit
Google Web Toolkit is an open source set of tools that allows web developers to create and maintain complex JavaScript front-end applications in Java. Other than a few native libraries, everything is Java source that can be built on any supported platform with the included GWT Ant build files...
.
Features
One of the most prominent features of Vaadin Framework is the ability to use JavaJava (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
(using a Java EE
Java Platform, Enterprise Edition
Java Platform, Enterprise Edition or Java EE is widely used platform for server programming in the Java programming language. The Java platform differs from the Java Standard Edition Platform in that it adds libraries which provide functionality to deploy fault-tolerant, distributed, multi-tier...
platform) as the programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
, while creating content for the Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
. The framework incorporates event-driven programming
Event-driven programming
In computer programming, event-driven programming or event-based programming is a programming paradigm in which the flow of the program is determined by events—i.e., sensor outputs or user actions or messages from other programs or threads.Event-driven programming can also be defined as an...
and widgets, which enables a programming model that is closer to GUI
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
software development
Software development
Software development is the development of a software product...
, than traditional Web development
Web development
Web development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web site for the Internet or an intranet . This can include web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development...
with HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
and JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
.
Vaadin Framework utilizes Google Web Toolkit
Google Web Toolkit
Google Web Toolkit is an open source set of tools that allows web developers to create and maintain complex JavaScript front-end applications in Java. Other than a few native libraries, everything is Java source that can be built on any supported platform with the included GWT Ant build files...
for rendering the resulting Web page. While Google Web Toolkit operates only on client-side
Client-side
Client-side refers to operations that are performed by the client in a client–server relationship in a computer network.Typically, a client is a computer application, such as a web browser, that runs on a user's local computer or workstation and connects to a server as necessary...
(i.e. a browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
's JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
engine) – which could lead to trust issues – Vaadin adds server-side
Server-side
Server-side refers to operations that are performed by the server in a client–server relationship in computer networking.Typically, a server is a software program, such as a web server, that runs on a remote server, reachable from a user's local computer or workstation...
validation
Data validation
In computer science, data validation is the process of ensuring that a program operates on clean, correct and useful data. It uses routines, often called "validation rules" or "check routines", that check for correctness, meaningfulness, and security of data that are input to the system...
to all actions. This means that if the client data is tampered with, the server notices this and doesn't allow it.
Vaadin Framework's default component set can be extended with custom GWT widgets and themed with CSS
CSS
-Computing:*Cascading Style Sheets, a language used to describe the style of document presentations in web development*Central Structure Store in the PHIGS 3D API*Closed source software, software that is not distributed with source code...
.
From application developers point of view, Vaadin is just one JAR-file that can be included in any kind of Java Web project developed with standard Java tools. In addition, there are Eclipse and Netbeans plugins for easing the development of Vaadin applications as well as direct support of (and distribution through) Maven.
Vaadin applications can be deployed as Java Servlets to any Java server, including Google App Engine
Google App Engine
Google App Engine is a platform as a service cloud computing platform for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers. It virtualizes applications across multiple servers,...
. Applications can also be deployed as Portlets to any Java portal, with deeper integration to Liferay Portal.
History
Development was first started as an adapter on top of the Millstone 3 open sourceOpen source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
Web framework released in year 2002. It introduced an Ajax
Ajax (programming)
Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...
based client communication and rendering engine. During 2006 this concept was then developed separately as a commercial product. As a consequence for this, a large part of Vaadin's server-side
Server-side
Server-side refers to operations that are performed by the server in a client–server relationship in computer networking.Typically, a server is a software program, such as a web server, that runs on a remote server, reachable from a user's local computer or workstation...
API
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
is still compatible with Millstone's Swing-like
Swing (Java)
Swing is the primary Java GUI widget toolkit. It is part of Oracle's Java Foundation Classes — an API for providing a graphical user interface for Java programs....
APIs.
In early 2007 the product name was changed to IT Mill Toolkit and version 4 was released. It used a proprietary JavaScript Ajax-implementation for the client-side rendering, which made it rather complicated to implement new widgets. By the end of year 2007 the proprietary client-side implementation was abandoned and GWT
Google Web Toolkit
Google Web Toolkit is an open source set of tools that allows web developers to create and maintain complex JavaScript front-end applications in Java. Other than a few native libraries, everything is Java source that can be built on any supported platform with the included GWT Ant build files...
was integrated on top of the server-side components. At the same time the product license was changed to open source Apache License 2.0
Apache License
The Apache License is a copyfree free software license authored by the Apache Software Foundation . The Apache License requires preservation of the copyright notice and disclaimer....
. The first production ready release of IT Mill Toolkit 5 was made on March 4, 2009 after over one year beta period.
On September 11, 2008, it was publicly announced that Michael Widenius
Michael Widenius
Ulf Michael Widenius , born 3 March 1962, in Helsinki, Finland, is the main author of the original version of the open-source MySQL database and a founding member of the MySQL AB company....
, the main author of the original version of MySQL
MySQL
MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
, invested in IT Mill, the developer of Vaadin. The size of the investment is undisclosed.
On May 20, 2009, IT Mill Toolkit changed its name to Vaadin Framework to attract more community. The name originates from the Finnish word for doe, more precisely put, a female reindeer
Reindeer
The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...
. It can also be translated from Finnish as "I insist". In addition to name change, a pre-release of version 6 along with a community web-site was launched. Later, IT Mill Ltd, the company behind the open source Vaadin Framework, changed its name to Vaadin Ltd.
On March 30, 2010, Vaadin Directory was opened. Directory added a channel for easily distributing, for free or commercially, add-on components to the core Vaadin Framework. On launch date there were 95 add-ons already available for download.
On Feb 25, 2011, Vaadin Pro Account - a commercial support model was launched.
Competitors
Historically, Vaadin has been compared to EchoEcho (framework)
Echo is a web application framework that was created by the company NextApp. It originally started as a request-response web application framework that leveraged the Swing object model to improve the speed of application development...
, ICEfaces
ICEfaces
ICEfaces is an open source Ajax framework that enables Java EE application developers to create and deploy server-based rich Internet application using the Java language....
and ZK
ZK (framework)
ZK is an open-source Ajax Web application framework, written in Java, that enables creation of rich graphical user interfaces for Web applications with no JavaScript and little programming knowledge....
- frameworks that use a similar server-side
Server-side
Server-side refers to operations that are performed by the server in a client–server relationship in computer networking.Typically, a server is a software program, such as a web server, that runs on a remote server, reachable from a user's local computer or workstation...
programming model. The server-side APIs
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
are quite similar, providing both events and GUI components, but the client-side (i.e. web-browser) interaction differs in that Vaadin uses Java-programmed GWT widgets (ICEFaces uses JSF
JavaServer Faces
JavaServer Faces is a Java-based Web application framework intended to simplify development integration of web-based user interfaces....
, ZK uses jQuery
JQuery
jQuery is a cross-browser JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML. It was released in January 2006 at BarCamp NYC by John Resig...
, and Echo has its own implementation). the most frequently compared frameworks include Adobe Flex
Adobe Flex
Adobe Flex is a software development kit released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich Internet applications based on the Adobe Flash platform...
, Google Web Toolkit
Google Web Toolkit
Google Web Toolkit is an open source set of tools that allows web developers to create and maintain complex JavaScript front-end applications in Java. Other than a few native libraries, everything is Java source that can be built on any supported platform with the included GWT Ant build files...
, Apache Wicket and RichFaces
Richfaces
RichFaces is an open source Ajax-enabled component library for JavaServer Faces, hosted by JBoss. It allows easy integration of Ajax capabilities into enterprise application development.RichFaces is more than just a component library for JavaServer Faces...
.
For C++, the Wt toolkit
Wt - Web toolkit
Wt is an open source widget-centric web application framework for the C++ programming language developed by Emweb. It has an API that resembles the C++ desktop application library Qt, using also a widget tree and event-driven signal/slot programming model....
offers similar capabilities.
See also
- AjaxAjax (programming)Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...
- Web 2.0Web 2.0The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
- Rich Internet ApplicationRich Internet applicationA Rich Internet Application is a Web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software, typically delivered either by way of a site-specific browser, via a browser plug-in, independent sandboxes, extensive use of JavaScript, or virtual machines...
- GWT (Google Web Toolkit)Google Web ToolkitGoogle Web Toolkit is an open source set of tools that allows web developers to create and maintain complex JavaScript front-end applications in Java. Other than a few native libraries, everything is Java source that can be built on any supported platform with the included GWT Ant build files...