vaadin-framework/documentation/articles/IntegrationExperiences.asciidoc

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title: Integration Experiences
order: 34
layout: page
---

[[integrating-vaadin-applications-with-other-technologies]]
= Integrating Vaadin Applications with other technologies

[[preface]]
Preface
~~~~~~~

The intention of this article is not to show how to integrate
http://vaadin.com/[Vaadin] with some other technology, but to tell
user-stories from both easy and hard customer cases where Vaadin has
been combined with something else. It should also give you a pointer to
what is possible and what is not.

Please see the http://vaadin.com/wiki[wiki] for more extensive technical
articles on various subjects. If you are interested in learning more
from our developers, please contact us through
http://vaadin.com/forum[our forums]. The forum messages are usually
answered very rapidly (read: within a few hours during business hours).

[[user-stories]]
User stories
~~~~~~~~~~~~

[[cloud-computing-and-vaadin]]
Cloud computing and Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
Amazon's EC2 really takes creating and serving Vaadin applications to
a new level. You can literally have a new server running with server,
portal and application in couple of minutes and it all just works. Of
course this not only applies to Vaadin applications, but together they
are a perfect fit! -*Joonas Lehtinen*
===============================

link:https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/[Amazon EC2]

[[cms-ala-liferay-and-vaadin]]
CMS (ala Liferay) and Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
We wanted to be able to show some pop-up application windows that were
part of our Vaadin application and that the customer themselves could
write the links in their CMS without hassle. What we did was that we
created an invisible Vaadin application that listened to the URL and
whenever it changed due to a click on a link, it launched a new pop-up
window. The solution was also highly scalable as 30.000+ users are using
it daily already. -*Johannes Tuikkala*
===============================

[[custom-ui-components-to-browser-with-java]]
Custom UI components to browser with Java
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
Creating your own widget for Vaadin is very easy thanks to the new
eclipse plugin. All you need to do is select "Create new Widget" in
eclipse and all the server and client side code is automatically
generated for you. Then you'll just create the widget using Java and
GWT. Using the eclipse plugin it is also much faster to set up a new
Vaadin project. -*Matti Tahvonen*
===============================

[[drools-and-vaadin]]
Drools and Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
We required a flexible way to validate internal dependencies in highly
dynamic data structures. We solved our need by integrating the Drools
rule engine in our application, and with it we got a powerful
content-triggered autocompletion mechanism as a freebie. We wrapped the
rule engine behind a general API in a EJB, so the rule mechanism can be
used by all components of the application architecture. -*Henri
Muurimaa*
===============================

http://jboss.org/drools[Drools]

[[extending-existing-components]]
Extending existing components
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
We had a real business need for few important widgets that just were
not available in Vaadin. So we extended the current table and came up
with hierarchical table aka treetable. Another simple but important
widget was multilingual text field. It acts just like normal textfield
but when opened, you get the java field opened with multiple locale
instances, it has nice UI too including user friendly flags. Great for
handling i18n based data in your UI. We got multiple customer cases that
enjoy these new widgets. -*Jani Laakso*
===============================


[[flex-and-vaadin]]
Flex and Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
Flex is really excellent for animations and flashy things and in this
way is an ideal candidate for creating something really good looking
together with Vaadin. I created a proof-of-concept flex-Vaadin
application that communicates through GWT by wrapping the flex component
and implementing Vaadin's paintable interface. If you know flex from
before or have teams that know flex and others that know Java then this
is an ideal combination. -*Kim Leppänen*
===============================

http://demo.vaadin.com/coverflow/[Coverflow example with Flex+Vaadin]

[[google-analytics-integration]]
Google Analytics Integration
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
For the Sampler application, we wanted to be able to see which
'samples' are interesting to the users. GWT makes it easy to integrate
with JavaScript APIs, and thus making a Google Analytics component was a
breeze, even without using existing GWT/Java efforts. -*Marc Englund*
===============================

http://demo.vaadin.com/sampler/[Sampler]

[[graphics-with-jfreechart]]
Graphics with JFreeChart
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
It turned out surprisingly easy to add various charts to reports
generated by a web application. All we needed to do is create the
JFreeChart chart object and an Vaadin component automatically displays
it as SVG or PNG graphics depending on the browser used. -*Henri Sara*
===============================

http://dev.vaadin.com/browser/incubator/JFreeChartComponent[Vaadin:JFreeChart
Component] +
http://www.jfree.org/jfreechart/[JFreeChart]

[[gwt-components-to-vaadin]]
GWT Components to Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
I wanted to create a Vaadin component out of Google's !GoogleMaps GWT
Widget. In order to do this you needed to create a widgetset that
includes the component and implement two methods that are required for
communication between the client and the server. Quite straight forward.
See the code in the incubator (link below). -*Henri Muurimaa*
===============================

https://vaadin.com/directory/component/googlemaps-add-on[GoogleMaps
add-on]

[[javascript-libraries-and-vaadin]]
Javascript libraries and Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
For the Sampler application, I made a code formatting and colorizing
component, which makes use of the "google-code-prettify" JavaScript
library. I've found existing JavaScript libraries are easy to use with
GWT on the client-side. -*Marc Englund*
===============================

http://demo.vaadin.com/sampler/[Sampler] +
http://code.google.com/p/google-code-prettify/[Prettify]

[[jquery-dojo-and-prototype-with-vaadin]]
JQuery, Dojo and Prototype with Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
Combining Vaadin applications and client-side javascript libraries is
a very interesting use-case and a very easy one to implement as well.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to use a !CustomLayout with the
Javascript you want. See a short demo I made below. -*Joonas Lehtinen*
===============================

http://vaadin.com/forum/-/message_boards/message/18611[Discussions on
the forum] +
http://jole.virtuallypreinstalled.com/JQTest/[Live example of
JQuery and Vaadin collaboration]

[[latex-and-vaadin]]
LaTeX and Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
This was no doubt a very exotic combination. Our customer wanted to be
able to create books that could be sent to printing based on huge
amounts of data. We wrote an advanced parser (using DOM and SAX parsers)
that created a file that LaTeX could interpret. LaTeX then created a PDF
that was saved in a database and a link showed up in the webshop.
Whenever you clicked on the link, you got finalized PDF that could be
sent to printing and as a result you got a full several hundred pages
long book. -*Jani Laakso*
===============================

http://www.latex-project.org/[LaTeX]

[[leveraging-existing-java-libraries-in-the-browser]]
Leveraging existing Java libraries in the browser
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
Recently, while making a gesture recognition component, I was able to
use the Levensthein Distance algorithm implementation from the Jakarta
Commons project, without any modification.The use of GWT makes it
possible to leverage existing Java code on the client side - within own
projects, or by making use of the vast amount of libraries available for
Java. -*Marc Englund*
===============================

[[moss-and-vaadin-through-iframe]]
MOSS and Vaadin through IFrame
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
The goal was to get a Vaadin application running inside the Microsoft
Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS) as a portlet. What we did was that we
wrote our Vaadin application and deployed it on a JBoss portal. We then
took the application's URL and used MOSS' !PageViewer Webpart to have it
include the application inside an IFrame. It was actually much easier
that I thought. -*Johannes Tuikkala*
===============================

http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2007/04/05/integrating-sharepoint-with-other-portals-and-web-applications.aspx[Integrating
Sharepoint with other portals and web applications]

[[moss-and-vaadin-with-sharepoint-sso]]
MOSS and Vaadin with Sharepoint SSO
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
The goal was to integrate a Vaadin application to MOSS as portal.
Priority was to use SSO by Sharepoint. This was accomplished doing
custom integration Webpart with C# that transfered authentication
information to Vaadin before it was opened with-in IFRAME. -*Mauno
Haukila*
===============================

[[n-tier-jee-architecture-with-vaadin]]
N-tier JEE architecture with Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
We have found in several larger customer cases that the best possible
architecture is to separate the UI-layer from the rest. Never mix your
business logic inside UI logic, there's no need to. This way the UI can
be replaced in the future and also when updating old systems to use
Vaadin (e.g. SWING applications that are written this way) it has been a
breeze when the only thing that needs to be rewritten is the UI. Another
very important factor is security, trust your data layer, do not trust
your clients, using enterprise beans with JNDI helps you. Scalability
and high-availability are also easier to cope with. Scale up with
multiple cheap Tomcat machines acting as Vaadin clients, few powerful
data servers as JBoss cluster and a good SQL server. -*Jani
Laakso*
===============================

image:img/n-tier.png[N-tier]

[[offline-standalone-applications]]
Offline / standalone applications
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
I've made offline / standalone Vaadin applications by integrating an
embedded servlet container (Jetty and Winstone so far) with Xulrunner.
This is actually a quite straightforward process, requiring only a few
lines of code for the basic functionality. It's really the distribution
(making installers and such), and the actual application that's the hard
part. -*Marc Englund*
===============================

[[opensource-stack-for-customer-projects]]
Opensource stack for customer projects
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
One of our customers asked us to help them with selecting an open
source stack for their open source product portfolio. What we came up
with was based on our own experiences and is by no means the only
possibility. What it shows though, is how Vaadin is only part of the UI
layer and everything beneath it can be almost anything. -*Ville
Ingman*
===============================

image:img/OSStack.png[OS Stack] +
link:img/OSStack.pdf[OS Stack PDF]

[[pentaho-bi-suite-and-vaadin]]
Pentaho BI Suite and Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
Yet another way to create PDF files, but this time really tightly
integrated with Vaadin. We had some data in a Vaadin table that we
wanted to print as a PDF file. As each component in Vaadin has a
container, the most natural way was to take the data from the container,
send it through a wrapper and give it to Pentaho. Pentaho then created
the PDF files without any problems. So whenever somebody wanted to print
the data they were viewing in a scrollable table, they just clicked a
button and everything was taken care of in the background. -*Jani
Laakso*
===============================

http://www.pentaho.com/[Pentaho BI Suite]

[[portlets-with-vaadin]]
Portlets with Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
The only thing you have to do in practice when you want to write a
portlet is add the portlet.xml file, where you define Vaadin's
!ApplicationPortlet as the entry point. After this your application will
work inside the portal. The only situation where you need to edit the
Java code as well is when you want to use some portal/portlet specific
features. This gives you the possibility to first develop a standard
Vaadin application and then later, by just adding the portlet.xml file
you have it working inside a portal. -*Jonas Granvik*
===============================

http://dev.vaadin.com/wiki/Articles/PortalTools[Portal Tools]

[[pdfs-fopitext-and-vaadin]]
PDFs (FOP+iText) and Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
When creating my printing service I used Apache FOP and iText to
create PDF files from multiple XML/XSLT/PDF files just as you would
normally in any Java application. The thing I found the most powerful
however was the combination with these two products together with
Vaadin's Embedded component. I just created the object, setSource() to
my byte array and the PDF showed up in my browser together with all the
buttons and widgets I also wanted on the screen. The user experience was
significantly enhanced compared to having to download the PDF and click
on some button in an external window. -*Fredrik Rönnlund*
===============================

http://vaadin.com/book/-/page/components.embedded.html[Vaadin:Embedded] +
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/[Apache FOP] +
http://www.lowagie.com/iText/[iText]

[[saas-with-vaadin]]
SAAS with Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
When writing our application as a service we had to do some serious
planning beforehand as the application was going to be used by so many
people. What we did was that we had one database for all users and then
inserted the instance ID in all HQL/SQL clauses to be sure we were
always accessing the correct instance. The instance was select at login.
This didn't require any specific things from the UI part, which was
created using Vaadin. -*Jani Laakso*
===============================

[[single-sign-on-sso-to-liferay]]
Single Sign On (SSO) to Liferay
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
Writing a Single Sign On portlet was really easy. A Vaadin application
by default only requires to be packaged as a portlet in order to work
inside a portal and then by using the provided API to the portal you can
easily retrieve all login information. This way the user doesn't need to
login several times and context handling is also done easily. -*Jani
Laakso*
===============================

[[unit-testing-vaadin-applications]]
Unit testing Vaadin applications
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
Unit testing Vaadin applications is no different from unit testing any
java application. What we have done however is separate the GUI from the
!BusinessLogic (even so far that they are running on physically
different servers). This way our most extensive testing is done on the
business logic, but also on our Controller in the GUI. Having Unit tests
in general has helped us build more solid applications, on all
layers. -*Kim Leppänen*
===============================

[[web-2.0-apis-and-vaadin]]
Web 2.0 APIs and Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
Many "Web 2.0" APIs already have GWT bindings, making it trivial to
use these. Even without existing bindings, it's easy to use JavaScript
APIs from GWT, or REST/JSON/XML/etc APIs from the server-side.Google
Maps, Google Analytics, Flickr, Youtube - these are some "Web 2.0" APIs
that have been used. -*Marc Englund*
===============================

[[webservices-and-vaadin]]
Webservices and Vaadin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

===============================
Integrating a webservice with Vaadin was really a no brainer. What we
had was a UI that had to check something through a service-provider's
Webservice. So when ever the UI launched the check, we called the
webservice (with Pojos created by the WSDL file that we got from the
service provider) and got some other Pojos as a reply. The reply then
dictated what the UI would look like. -*Johannes Tuikkala*
===============================