multiple smartGWT applications under one portal

[Isomorphic]

Ah, the problem being solved was actually loading multiple, separately compiled GWT applications into a single browser frame and having them work as a portal. However, the gist of the response still holds: the problem is that GWT assumes a single compiled application takes over the entire page. Code in separately compiled GWT applications is separately obfuscated and cannot communicate directly; it can only communicate by going through a JavaScript intermediary layer and passing data around. This style of communication is similar to what's required to communicate between separate browser frames, in fact, in some ways multiple frames would be easier!

SmartGWT is the only GWT-based technology that could make what you want possible at all - it's not possible in any framework that uses GWT's core widgets.

As far as the situation today, GWT continues to take as a basic assumption that only one compiled GWT app will exist in a page, and you continue to be the only customer that has asked us to try to work around this.

Here again, there's nothing to "mature" in our design - it works in the way it has to. As the far as the API seeming "rough", we did a POC for you and took it exactly as far as requested. This is not a product feature (and we have no plans to make it one) so nothing has changed in the meantime.

It would be possible to build extensions to the GWT compiler to make it easier to make cross-application calls in GWT, by causing the compiler to generate additional JavaScript code triggered by annotations that you would add to certain method calls that need to go between GWT applications. If you want us to think through the details of this and show you how the resulting code might work, contact our Consulting team to get started. However bear in mind, core GWT is somewhere between indifferent and actually hostile to your proposed use case. Changes in future versions of GWT could plausibly make the whole thing impossible just as Isomorphic finishes making it easier on current versions of GWT.

[ssequeira]

I am not sure we are referring to the same problem/context.

The problem I am trying to solve is not having multiple separate browser frames / windows communicating.
There will be only one frame / window. The content of this frame / window would come from different sources (smartGWT JS files. After all from client side perspective a smartGWT app is just a bunch of static files, including the module's JS file).

If the portal would be written with plain JS this could be achieved: the content would be able to cooperate, even with functions coming from different JS files.
Since smartGWT is "just" a wrapper for JS (in the context of client side only) one would suppose this to be achievable as well using smartGWT.

The process to achieve it today with smartGWT, using the solution you provided is not inherently complex, but rather rough; in the sense that there are a couple of things that could be hidden from the "API", or at least moved to a lower level layer. That's what I meant by "mature", in the context of the problem and solution provided.

Again there are no multiple frames or windows involved here.
There is one frame / window, the content which populates it and the interaction between the different content is described in multiple JS files instead of one.

Would appreciate if you can confirm that this is the application/context you had in mind.

[Isomorphic]

We recall this application - the problem being solved was not a portal per se but actually the requirement of having multiple separate browser frames / windows communicating, whereas in typical portals, all content is loaded into a single browser frame and all content plays by special rules that allows it to cooperate.

The idea of instead creating a portal out of several browser frames is still considered a poor architecture and not one that any other customers have pursued. There is nothing really to "mature" about the solution we provided - doing things this way is inherently complex, and the approach we provided was the best available, and still is the best available.

[ssequeira]

Hello.
A few years back we have worked together in a concept which would allow multiple smartGWT applications developed independently to be combined under a single portal.
The portal would be a smartGWT application itself. The portal would show different links or buttons which when clicked would trigger a screen from another smartGWT application, deployed somewhere else under the same domain, to be displayed seamlessly on the portal.

I would like to know if during these years you have matured this concept and if the newest versions of smartGWT already allow such a construct out of the box.

Thank you.