Future Themes and Priorities for App Builder

Collection of ideas for sebring; to be sorted out later

• performance improvements
  • the base navigation and text editor need to be very responsive
  • locating and eliminating memory leaks - having the AB open for a development time scale, rather then a browsing time scale, results in a huge memory consumption that suffocates the developers machine
  • reduce the need for polling. for example, click Start should trigger an immediate status update -- no need to wait for polling to update the status. occasional background polling is still useful to catch external changes
• support for native browsers (IE and Safari)
• code cleanup for maintainability
  • e.g. refactoring Groovy-based resource handlers into Groovy for HTTP + Java for core implementation (no HTTP); see the refactoring of applications.groovy (zero.admin.resources) into applications.groovy + Java classes (zero.appbuilder.core.resources)
• plug-in model
  • plug-ins should be enabled based on whether the app's dependencies meet the plug-ins requirements; plug-ins should be able to contribute editors, menu entries for New File, templates, start/stop helpers, etc.
• Usability - this includes having a consistent L&F and behavior of editors, much more in place help for the developer, and decreasing the level of complexity of the AB
• Port DataGrid to dojo's 1.2 DataGrid; will allow us to take advantage of type validation and type-specific editors
• Means to deal with "virtual" files that doesn't require one-off hacks (e.g. iWidget support).
• Means to show that applications/files contain errors without having to open the app/file.
• I18N. Look at the pattern used by model and form editors (designed to improve overall client performance)

Silverstone

Base Improvements

• Continuous code and usability Improvements (High)
• Performance and scalability (High)
• Real command prompt (High)
• Improve Dependencies tab (Medium)
• SCM integration (e.g. SVN, CVS, Merge/Diff tool…) (Medium)
• Browser Compatibility (Medium)

App Editing and Utilities

• Logical views - Forms, Widgets, Resources, Configuration, Security, etc. (High)
• Dojo widget wizards (High)
• Database interaction (e.g. PhpMyAdmin, RunSQL) – (High)
• Search – (High)
• Editor Enhancements – Syntax checking, code complete (High)
• Style sheet helpers – (High)
• Empower the LOB to build the integration process with flow editor (High)
  • Refactor the visual appearance of flow editor with the BPMN graphical elements
  • Drive synergy between flow editor and BPM Zero front-end tooling
  • Change the artifact oriented UE to task oriented one
• Add templates (eventually user configurable) – (Medium)
• Doc wizards - (Medium)
• Snippets – (Medium)
• New editors – Images (Low)

Debugging

• Unit Testing support (High)
• Improved Error Handling and Error Messages, including CLI (High)
• Groovy Debugging (High)
• PHP Debugging (High)
• Integration with Firebug (Medium)
• RestDoc/Poster-like functionality (Medium)
• Better flow monitoring and management (Medium) - Flow engine will expose the flow runtime information as the REST resources. The AppBuilder provide the integrated UI to manage flows and visualize related information
• Java Debugging (Low)

Remote Access (High)

• Hosted environment
• Security
• Teaming

Integration and Extension

• General extensibility – plug-in points, dynamically added features (High)
• IWidget import/export support (High)
• Mashup Maker and Mashup Hub (High)
• Jazz (Medium)
• Integrate the flow editor with page editor to edit the generated Web UI (Medium)
• Integrate the flow editor and Lotus Mashups Builder (High) - The iWidget in Lotus Mashups can initialize or participate the Assemble flow.
• Integrate the fow editor and Mashup Hub which is as the feed repository (Medium)
• Wizard for creating the extension activity (Medium)