Introduction to Project jMaki

Project jMaki is a lightweight framework for creating web applications using built-in templates, a model for creating and using Ajax-enabled widgets, and a set of services to tie the widgets together and enable them to communicate with external services.

Project jMaki provides a set of pre-wrapped widgets, many of which are from Dojo, script.acu.lous, Yahoo UI, and other vendors. Because the widgets are wrapped, you can use them in a variety of server environments, including as JavaServer Pages^TM (JSP^TM) tags , as JavaServer^TM Faces components, within a Phobos application, with JRuby, or with PHP. This chapter focuses on using jMaki in a JSP application for the GlassFish v3 application server.

In addition to the set of widgets, jMaki also provides the following features:

• A way to easily customize a widget, such as set the value of its attributes and load your own data into the widget

• Mechanisms for responding to widget events, getting widgets to interact, and allowing widgets access to external services.

• A NetBeans IDE 6.1 module that enables you to quickly and easily create web applications with jMaki.