Canoo releases UltraLightClient 6.0

New features in version 6.0 include pause & resume of application sessions, new Border API, action support for listeners, and Swing layout support.

Basel, Switzerland, May 09, 2005 – Canoo Engineering AG announces the official release of UltraLightClient 6.0. The release includes out-of-the-box functionality to pause and resume application sessions in Rich Internet Applications. Used by enterprises to rapidly build and deploy rich, responsive user interfaces for enterprise web applications, the Canoo library now offers near-equivalence to Swing. Companies can reuse available Swing know-how and be productive almost immediately. Newly added Swing features include a new Border API, action support for listeners and full support of layouts.

The Java Solution for Enterprise Web Applications

UltraLightClient is a lean library that delegates tasks to the standard J2EE/J2SE infrastructure whenever possible. It uses Swing on the client, standard communication protocols set by the J2EE container, and standard lifecycle management on the server. In contrast to other more proprietary platforms, UltraLightClient is an add-on library for Swing and J2EE and can be easily integrated into existing web platforms. The principal design of UltraLightClient is based on the half-object and protocol pattern. Applied to Swing, this pattern is used to offer the Swing API in a server-side programming model, providing rich user interfaces in a web architecture. UltraLightClient-based applications can be deployed in any J2EE container, as a portlet, or even stand-alone without changing the code. On the client, a standard JRE from 1.3.1 upwards is all that is required. See Key Differentiators to find out how the Canoo solution compares with other technologies.

Pause and Resume Application Sessions

UltraLightClient 6.0 provides functionality to pause and resume a user session including its editing state, e.g. current windows opened, selections, and scroll positions. This means that when the application is paused on the client, the client-side engine is terminated, while the server-side session remains live. Once a client requests the server to resume a session, it can be downloaded to the client again, showing the user interface in the same state as before. Other brand-new features include action support for components with action listeners, a new Border API, and full support of Swing layouts. In addition, the extension API now supports Swing factory methods. Using this enhancement, developers can extend existing UltraLightClient classes more easily.

Minimal Learning Curve for Swing Developers

Developers familiar with Swing are productive with UltraLightClient within a very short time. The new release closely follows the Swing API. In many cases, code migration from Swing to UltraLightClient simply entails replacing the corresponding class and method names. With UltraLightClient, Swing developers have a homogeneous environment for developing web applications with complex GUIs. There is no need to juggle between JSP, JavaScript, and HTML to achieve interactive client/server applications.

Software Requirements

UltraLightClient requires JRE 1.3.1 or higher.

Pricing

A developer license of UltraLightClient costs US$ 1499 and includes free runtime distribution on any number of servers. A free evaluation license is available for 30 days.

Code Community for UltraLightClient Developers

The UltraLightClient Code Community (http://ulc-community.canoo.com/) provides a platform for developers to share useful extensions, add-ons and integration snippets. All code contributions are available for free.

About Canoo

Canoo (http://www.canoo.com/) is specialized in object-oriented, J2EE-based software, delivering solutions for business applications and products for software development. The software company is based in Basel, Switzerland and is participating in the Eclipse Visual Editor project. Currently, more than 50 customers use UltraLightClient. Besides UltraLightClient, the Canoo product range includes WMTrans, a software library for language analysis and generation; and Webtest, an open-source, XP-style functional testing tool for Java-based web applications.