[fusion-dev] Fusion Trunk Status Update

[Paul Deschamps]

Fantastic. I can't wait to use it in the next application. ;)

A 50% reduction of code is amazing. nice job

Cheers

Paul D.

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Paul Spencer <pspencer at dmsolutions.ca>wrote:

> I thought I would give everyone a quick update on the status of my Jx
> update and a couple of other things.
>
> There are four topics to address:
>
>  * the build process update
>  * the Jx update
>  * the new imagestrip generator
>  * overall improvements from the above
>
> The Build Process
> =================
>
> The build process has been cleaned up a bit and the logic for building a
> single file build has been improved, now if you run ant compress it will
> produce a single file build for everything, unless you specify an appdef in
> which case it will include just what is required for that app (plus the json
> version of the appdef) - and compress the whole thing using YUI compressor.
>  It is now simpler to build a compiled version of everything, which is
> ultimately what we want the default distribution to use.
>
> Jx
> ==
>
> The Jx update is basically done except for some testing and a few minor
> quirks that I need to address.  I have merged my changes from
> fusion/sandbox/jx2 into trunk today.
>
> Before you rush off to update, there are a couple of things to note:
>
> 1) the Jx API has changed, which means if you are using Jx in your template
> (index.html) to create tabs, panels, dialogs etc then some things will need
> to be updated.  I have updated the standard templates that ship with fusion
> in SVN (at least the mapserver one, I still have to check the mapguide one).
>  I will send a separate email describing the major API changes.
>
> 2) If you have created a custom skin for Jx (like the MapGuide templates),
> the CSS and images for those will need to be completely redone to match the
> new way we are doing things.  I seriously doubt anyone has done this except
> for DMSG otherwise would have heard about it ;) so the impact should be
> small (except for the mapguide templates).
>
> A quick background on the Jx changes.  The Jx update has been undertaken to
> achieve several goals (not all directly related to Fusion per se):
>
> 1) reduce the size of the library by switching from Prototype/Scriptaculous
> to MooTools
> 2) to standardize the Jx API and CSS files
> 3) to simplify the internal construction of various objects - now many
> things share a common base class that provides the basic structure
> 4) to simplify the process of creating a new visual skin for Jx
> 5) reduce CPU usage by relying as much as possible on CSS and the browser's
> layout engine rather than javascript
> 6) add some new features (such as menus that automatically adjust their
> position so they don't go off the page)
> 7) add more visual effects (drop shadows, animations etc)
>
> We have largely achieved these goals, although we didn't get to adding any
> animation effects yet.
>
> The end result is a slimmer library (almost 50% reduction), a much cleaner
> code base and CSS, reduced CPU load, better memory management, etc.
>
> Bringing this code into Fusion, though, presented a couple of challenges.
>  The mechanics of updating to use the new Jx API was relatively straight
> forward, but it highlighted a few things that I felt were pretty broken in
> the core architecture of how widgets are created and represented.  I took
> the opportunity to revise this core architecture with the end result of
> simplifying widget creation and activation logic, simplifying the creation
> of new widgets (less to do for simple widgets), and completely removing four
> base classes (several hundred lines of code) that were just not necessary
> anymore.  There is probably more that could be done with the core widget
> architecture but I am pretty satisfied with the work to date and don't plan
> to do any more at this time.
>
> Image Strip Generator
> =====================
>
> I have also added a new image strip generator (php command line script)
> that can be used to generate a single image and a CSS file from a set of
> icon images.  These can be used by an application to cut out a large number
> of requests for individual icons in buttons and menu items.  Here is how I
> used it on the MapServer standard template that comes with Fusion:
>
> 1) in a command prompt, change directories to the images/icons directory in
> the application and run:
>
> $ /path/to/php /path/to/fusion/utils/imagestrip.php -css ../../icons.css -o
> ../icons.png *.png
>
> This generates a CSS file in the root directory of the application (it can
> go wherever you want) and a single image in the images directory
>
> 2) edit the template index.html file and include the new CSS (after the jx
> skin CSS file)
>
> <link rel="stylesheet" href="icons.css" type="text/css" media="screen"
> charset="utf-8">
>
> 3) edit the application definition and update all the widgets by changing
> the ImageUrl to point to the new icons.png file (yes all of them point to
> the same image) and setting the ImageClass to be the CSS class for that icon
> (which was taken from the file name)
>
> So if you had:
>
>      <ImageUrl>images/icons/zoom-in.png</ImageUrl>
>      <ImageClass/>
>
> you would end up with:
>
>      <ImageUrl>images/icons.png</ImageUrl>
>      <ImageClass>zoom-in</ImageClass>
>
> my text editor has a regular expression search/replace feature that let me
> do it in one step:
>
> search for:
>      <ImageUrl>images/icons/(.*).png</ImageUrl>
>      <ImageClass/>
>
> replace with:
>      <ImageUrl>images/icons.png</ImageUrl>
>      <ImageClass>$1</ImageClass>
>
> Combined Improvements
> =====================
>
> Old method, worst case: the default install, not compressed, load
> individual widget files:
>
> 128 requests, 648 kb, 6.45 seconds
>
> New method (compressed, single file, image sprites for icons):
>
> 52 requests, 254 kb, 4.3 seconds
>
> both methods are using gzip compression from the web server so the actual
> file sizes are larger in both cases, but I think this is a fair comparison.
>
> Also, there was a compressed build option for 1.0/1.1 which would have
> reduced the number of requests and size somewhat, bringing it a bit closer
> to the new method in terms of requests and size, although it doesn't have
> the image sprite capability for icons which means more requests and the new
> Jx is quite a bit slimmer (almost half the size because of the underlying
> library change from prototype to mootools).
>
> Overall, I am moderately happy that we have achieved the improvements we
> were looking for in this update (less HTTP requests, smaller overall file
> size, improved runtime performance) and have a few new features to play
> with.
>
> There will be a few more things coming for the next version including an
> optimization to the LoadMap process to allow faster initialization - the
> goal is to get a map on the page as quickly as possible, after all - and
> possibly the ability to generate sprites for legend images (we have a
> tentative version for mapserver, not sure if we will have a mapguide
> equivalent or not).
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
>
> __________________________________________
>
>   Paul Spencer
>   Chief Technology Officer
>   DM Solutions Group Inc
>   http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
>
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> fusion-dev mailing list
> fusion-dev at lists.osgeo.org
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>
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