Starting out in Griffon: 1. Some links

Griffon

Griffon is a young Java desktop development framework, using Groovy as the main development language, and Model-View-Controller as the key development paradigm.

Griffon is a very young project, which has recently celebrated its first birthday. The documentation is still quite sparse.

I recently started using Griffon in earnest, and I'm really loving it. I'd like to share some experiences about this very young project.

Why me likey?

In the past, Swing development has made me want to pull my own teeth out and stab my eyes with them. Too much GUI code, ugly L&F, awkward APIs, etc etc.

Groovy itself helps matters in several ways, improving APIs and reducing boilerplate code.

Griffon builds on these features, and adds in MVC structure, sensible defaults (convention over configuration), a 'plugin' ecosystem, and command-line tooling for build, deployment, code generation, and plugin management.

FP, First Post

First up, I'm just going to list the main resources I've utilised to get going.

There's plenty of more experienced hands to offer introductions to the framework than me. They're just a bit spread out.

I'll describe my own experiences in later posts.

Griffon's own docs:

As I say, it's a bit sparse. I've been limited to the bundled sample apps, Griffon QuickStart, Griffon source code, and not least the user@ mailing list.

SwingBuilder documentation:

SwingBuilder is Groovy's main built-in helper for swing apps, and forms the basis for Griffon View objects.

View development in Griffon begins here, and returns here regularly:

http://groovy.codehaus.org/Alphabetical+Widgets+List

(still a bit sparse)

This page is also worth some study:

http://groovy.codehaus.org/Multithreading+with+SwingBuilder

(Remember, Swing doesn't manage threading for you, but SwingBuilder.doOutside and SwingBuilder.doLater make this task less of a chore)

The 'GriffonCast'

There's just one screencast so far, but well worth watching, particularly for the demonstration of how easy it is to enable/disable buttons by binding them to a model property. Downloadable source available.

http://www.griffoncast.com/episode-1/

Blogs

Andres Almiray is one of the Griffon developers and certainly its most vocal contributor:

http://www.jroller.com/aalmiray/

Josh has written one great post in particular about Multiple Document Interfaces in Griffon:

http://josh-in-antarctica.blogspot.com/ (maybe check out his Griffon app PSICAT)

James has some handy tips:

http://jameswilliams.be/blog/entry/tags/Griffon

Andres' E-Book (Early Access edition):

Andres Almiray is writing 'Griffon In Action'. There's only 4 chapters of 15 so far, one's free anyway and one needs updating, but he's a good writer so why not buy it now.

Edit: the multithreading chapter is really worth reading, especially for desktop noobs like me

http://www.manning.com/almiray/

Also the book's example code is here:

http://code.google.com/p/griffoninaction/

General Groovy resources:

Some Groovy docs I keep coming back to:

http://groovy.codehaus.org/JN1015-Collections

http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GROOVY/JN2015-Files

Mr Haki (very nice, concise & frequent posts for someone learning Groovy in their spare time)

http://mrhaki.blogspot.com/

General Swing resources (other than the Swing API Docs!!):

Java Desktop Links of the week (often contains Griffon snippets)

http://jonathangiles.net/blog/

IDE stuff:

NetBeans Griffon plugin (worked ok for me but still very alpha)

http://blogs.sun.com/geertjan/entry/griffon_pre_alpha_netbeans_plugin

Eclipse Groovy plugins work well for me (in conjunction with the ant plugin)

I am currently using SpringSource Tool Suite (a free but Spring-branded eclipse distribution):

http://www.springsource.com/products/sts

JetBrains now have a free version of their IntelliJ IDEA, including Groovy support.

Apparently it's as good as sliced bread

http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/nextversion/free_java_ide.html

Please throw back more Griffon links

Ta

Amir