Brian Walsh has a new article up describing how to transform a Struts2 CRUD application into an RIA using TIBCO General Interface. Walsh walks through changing one of the sample Struts2 applications to use some of TIBCO GI's components.
TIBCO General Interface is a toolkit for creating Ajax applications that was released as open-source in October. Walsh provides a high level look at TIBCO GI and Struts2 and then delves into the CRUD application that ships with Struts2. He starts by creating a XML service that will map the Struts action values to and from TIBCO GI's Common Data Format (CDF). Walsh describes how to use the CDF:
In our work here, we’ll create an XML service in Struts2 that returns CDF. In cases where a service returns something other than CDF, GI’s XML mapping utilities provide visual tools for client-side transformations to and from non-CDF formats, to and from CDF. In this way you can also use GI with existing XML, SOAP or other HTTP services.
Walsh goes on to describe the Ajax editable data grid and the mapping rules to use it. Lastly, he describes using TIBCO GI's JavaScript logging and how the deployment structure is affected by the changes.