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AjaxSwing can be thought of as a runtime Java to HTML converter that migrates Java graphical user interface to a browser-based front end.
It then emulates user actions as GUI events for the Swing application to ensure that the business logic executes correctly.
AjaxSwing is unique in that it requires no modifications to existing applications, and does not require programmers to learn any APIs other then AWT/Swing.
The same application can be run as thick Swing client or as a browser-based AJAX rich client.
This allows companies to leverage the time and money invested into building Swing applications, while enjoying the benefits of thin-client deployment.
For a full list of features see the Features page.
Our product has been used by numerous clients since year 2000 and most of them have been able to convert the applications in less then a week.
Conversion is a simple matter of installing AjaxSwing and creating a configuration file for the application. Naturally, not all applications are
well-suited for browser-based model, especially those with a lot of custom components. AjaxSwing is ideally suited for form-based applications
that fit into the request-response approach
Giving Browser-Based Interface to Swing applications
To illustrate how the product works, the images below
show how a sample Java Swing application looks in the browser when deployed in AjaxSwing.
On the left the snapshots show a running GUI application (the source).
On the right, the same application is managed by AjaxSwing and the windows
are represented by pages in the browser.
| Swing Application (Source) |
AJAX Page (Generated) |
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Companies that has invested years of development time and hundreds of thousands of IT budgets into building
Swing user interface have a tough decision to make. They can continue to develop using Swing and deploy using WebStart,
which requires client-side maintenance and is not a true thin client. Modern user demands a thin client so this path is not a long term solution.
The other choice is to rewrite the user interface from scratch using J2EE and an AJAX framework such as Google Web Toolkit (GWK),
Yahoo User Interface Library (YUL), AJAX-enabled JSF or a set of open source components.
While this path has long term advantages, it requires a heavy investment of time and resources into rebuilding what the company already has,
and due to the lack of standards there is no clear choice on which AJAX framework to use.
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