The Branch Transformation Toolkit provides two sets of visual components that allow the development of the graphical user interface (GUI) for a Java(TM) client. Both sets integrate with the underlying transaction posting infrastructure. These visual components are the XML (eXtensible Markup Language) Desktop and the GUI Beans.
XML Desktop
The XML Desktop component is a fully customizable desktop layout that provides the default behavior for interacting with the transaction processing of the toolkit infrastructure. It can be used as the entry point for an application, either as a standalone application, or as the main applet when started from a browser.
The XML Desktop implements reusable Desktop components that provide access to transactional processing and other features in a hierarchical manner and are easily added, removed, repositioned, and resized. The toolkit builds the desktop dynamically at runtime by adding the components defined in an external file that has the standard XML format. The following image shows a specific configuration of the XML Desktop that has most of the possible interactive elements enabled, such as Task Launcher Buttons, Icon Buttons, Menu Items, and LeafTree Nodes:
Some XML Desktop components implement the TaskLauncher interface, which the component uses to open a new task and display the initial panel for that task. The TaskLauncher associates the task with a single navigation flow, which steps the user through the different panels and executes the operations associated with the business process that the flow represents.
The TaskArea, which can resemble a task bar if desired, displays tasks. In the TaskArea, users switch from task to task by clicking on a button. The navigation controller assigned to the selected task handles navigation events resulting from the user's actions within the task's panels. The navigation controller is responsible for displaying the appropriate panel for each navigation event and for keeping track of previously displayed panels if the user navigates backwards.
The XML Desktop is fully localizable and can reference any locale-dependent resources (such as text and icons) from an external file. A LanguageBox desktop component is available so that users can change the active language at any time. If a user changes the active language, the toolkit regenerates the Desktop so that the text and icons are in the new language.
Visual beans
The Branch Transformation Toolkit provides a set of visual beans that:
Panel-related visual beans are an extension of Swing panels that update a given context when the user enters new data, generate navigation events that the navigation controller captures. They also refresh their own contents when the toolkit updates the context with data from a response.
The XML Desktop or any other view manager can manage views that users develop with visual beans. Formatters do field-level validation and format data for display. The toolkit provides a hierarchy of extensible formatter components and supports cross-field validation. It also supports displaying multiple errors simultaneously.