I would like to develop a cross platform (Linux/Windows) desktop service.
This service needs to run a local HTTP server and needs to have access to a local DB.
It doesn't have any GUI components though.
Also I need to be able to create an installer for both Linux and Windows.
What is the best language/framework/SDK to build such service ?
Java could be perfect for this but I'm not sure there is a decent installer builder out there.
10x
Gilad
Have you considered the Dlib C++ Library found at http://dlib.net/? It includes "A simple HTTP server object you can use to embed a web server into your applications."
As for an installer, perhaps you should consult the following resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_installation_software#Cross-platform.
Related
I have simple web application built on html5 and RoR. It is simple application where user records his voice(html5 web audio) and then it is saved locally. Application won't be hosted on server instead it would be hosted on individual user machine. I need to develop some portable package like exe which will be run on Windows and Mac.
Is this possible? If yes, then what are the ways to achieve it?
You might find some useful info here
Here are some more recent tools
I am building a client-server application, this is all running locally on my computer whilst I am developing the system. However, eventually I would like to deploy the server-side part of the application to a server to run 24/7, enabling client applications to connect and consume the service at will. What I would like to know is, when I come to doing this would I simply just install the server-side application on the server, hit run and that's it? That just seems... well not right (to me), is this the way it is done? or is there a lot more to it? I imagine there is, but I can't seem to find any content on this subject.
FYI - the server is a self hosted WCF application.
You'd want to take your program's executable, support dlls and config files and drop them into a folder. Then create a Windows Service to run the program; if you don't use a Windows Service, the program will only run while you're logged on, which isn't good. As a Windows Service, a reboot of the server will bring the program back online even if you're not logged on.
Here's a knowledge base article from MS on how to make a windows service.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/251192
If you're program is compiled as a DLL, then create a small .exe program to run it (a wrapper) then deploy the program as described in the article.
Good luck.
I am trying to move a web application that currently runs on WebSphere 6.1 application server over Glassfish 3.X. I currently have a set of WebSphere jacl files that configure an instance of a WAS for my web application (data sources, queues, etc.) and a .bat and a .sh file that execute the jacl files (I think via wsadmin). I develop on a WAS instance on my Windows PC and the software is tested on a WAS instance installed on a Solaris test machine.
Is there the equivalent concept for Glassfish?
That is, does Glassfish have a concept of a platform independent administration scripting language like WebSphere jacl/jython that can be executed from a call from a Windows .bat file or a Unix .sh file?
I'm relatively new to web development and so I may have made some conceptual mistakes and you may also have to fill in some gaps in my question.
Thanks
You can feed a configuration script to asadmin, that contains asadmin subcommands like deploy and create-jdbc-resource, etc...
The 'language' does not have any real flow-of-control or looping constructs, so you would need to flatten those types of things out of the script that would get called by your dot-bat or dot-sh.
If you are really leveraging jacl/jython this might not be possible... but if you aren't putting these interpreters through their paces, the asadmin 'language' may be rich enough for you.
Yes, take at a look at the "asadmin" command. It should be able to configure most anything you need from a script.
I have the following scenario:
We develop a silverlight 4 app for our customers, that will be used as an out-of-browser app. The app is working offline, i.e. app and database are on the users local machine. The app is using WCF-RIA-services to connect to the local database. The database will be an SQL Server Express, SQL Server CE or MySQL. We are using MVVMLight and MEF.
An external webserver is only used for updating the app from time to time or adding new modules to the app. To achieve this we do something similar as shown in Jeremy Likness blog (http://www.wintellect.com/CS/blogs/jlikness/archive/2010/05/25/silverlight-out-of-browser-dynamic-modules-in-offline-mode.aspx )
The reasons why we are doing such a scenario are complex. But to keep a long story short it is mainly for compatibility reasons for a later online version and we don't want to use WPF. So we need to get this working with Silverlight and WCF-RIA services.
Ok, that's the scenario and here's the question:
Do we need a local webserver in this scenario? The app is programmatically installed as out-of-browser, the database is local and connected via WCF-RIA.
If yes, which webserver would be sufficient? It should be installed and configured via an initial setup that is executed by the customer. The customer should not have to do anything with configuring the webserver.
Any other ideas or comments on this scenario? Any other possible solutions for this?
Thanks for your help
Dirk
silverlight wasn't meant to be used this way I think. So it would be like when you are developing app in visual studio and use Cassini to see result - everything runs locally - but you still need a web server. Maybe more info here - http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/06/WPF-vs-Silverlight
I´m not able to provide with a full answer to your problem, as we are currently facing the same problem. (WPF not being cross-platform, Very specific hardware on some clients)
But I may share some of our thoughts on our type of Thick-Silverlight-Client:
To keep deployment etc. simple we use a self-hosting process (installed as background process)
We may not use RIA as the background process has to run using Mono VM (but for MS-only solution see Can WCF RIA Services be self hosted? )
Architectural thoughts on standalone "Clients":
Depending on your requirements implementing a server for each client communicating with the "main"-server by messages (NServiceBus) may be overkill. But if you want to use a client database if offline and silverlight for ui you should consider using an event-driven-architecture.
There is a slideshow on combining "Event-Driven-Architecture" & "CQRS" with Silverlight. But i would not use it as a blueprint more like an inspiration.
http://www.slideshare.net/dennisdoomen/cqrs-and-event-sourcing-an-alternative-architecture-for-ddd
I'm in the process of providing a Web UI as an alternative to our current desktop UI for our C/S enterprise application.
When developing the client-side in our desktop version, UI developers could connect to any server so they only needed the client-side environment.
When developing a Web UI (Client-side JavaScript in the browser), we are bound by the browser's "Same origin policy" so the UI must talk to the same server from which the UI code is downloaded.
As far as I see it till now, the development scenario for the UI guys is:
Developer installs server on local
machine and runs it.
Developer edits the HTML+JS+CSS files on local installation.
Developer has to reinstall/update server on local machine each time there's a need to test UI code against new server behaviour.
This does not seem too comfortable, at least compared to our previous C/S style development.
Are there any other ways you can suggest to that will not require UI developers from installing and updating server side components on their development machine ?
Or anything else related that can simplify the development process ?
Thanks :-)
Editing in some clarifications:
I'm mostly interested in the aspects of UI coding, not UI design.
I need a lot of server interaction - getting data from RESTful web services, which are developed in parrallel - hence the need to have an up-to-date server
You haven't specified the development platform.
As far as pure HTML/JS/CSS is concerned, you don't need a server. The UI developer can fine tune UI components locally.
The moment you want to talk/integrate to Server (via AJAX, JSP, ASP...) then you need to connect a development server as now your changes have to be served by Server.
Most of UI fine tuning can also be done from Firebug
In our office when changes to styling are required we save the page as a local copy and send it to the UI designer, he makes his changes and we integrate them. So the UI designer don't have to maintain a development environment.
JSONP lets you work around the same-origin problem (with server support) -- check it out! If the front-end-in-the-browser developers are using a good framework suc as jQuery or (my favorite) Dojo, JSONP should be no harder for them than plain JSON.
Develop on a shared server, but depending on the size of the team.. that's challeging with respect to version control.
Or deploy automatically generated virtual machines with nightly builds, so the devs don't have to install, but always use a recent version.
In the case of UI developers depending on a common REST server, the UI development can be done on the local machine and the REST service should be on a central server. When changes are made to the REST service these should be deployed to the central server (when stable), so all developers can use the newest version (this also helps with testdata).
You could try using a proxy on the developer's machine where some paths redirect to the server and some paths redirect to local folders.
Hmm, I actually didn't really get any information on what kind of technology you're using. If - with UI Developers - you mean designers, which have to take care about the CSS, layout etc, then we do it the same as lud0h said. We (developers) send the UI designers a copy of the server-side produced HTML pages. They then edit the HTML pages according to accessibility guidelines, CSS and layout and send us back the outcome of their work. We use their HTML pages then for integrating them in our web applications.
If you don't just mean tuning CSS, but also to write JavaScript / Ajax functionality you HAVE to use a server with which you're communicating. As you said, normally this is done by having a local environment which is similar to the server-one. In .Net Visual Studio '08 provides an internal webserver, alternatively you have to install IIS locally. In Java environments you have to install Tomcat and related technologies. In my eyes this is a must. What you have to have is
Versioning system (CVS, SVN,...) where developers commit regularly (minutes/hours)
local environments where developers checkout the source from the repository and develop
Test server where you deploy on a daily basis (could be like daily builds) in order to test your running product
I guess this should be what a professional development environment should consist of. The difference to C/S application development is that web UI and web-client code are not that separable as a Client UI in C/S environment from the server-side. Unless you develop with technologies like GWT or Silverlight which are quite similar to C/S, just running inside the browser, but communicating over RPC calls or web services.
//Edit:
What I nearly forgot. Don't do something like developing on the server directly, meaning that all of the developers access the server's filesystem where the code, UI etc. lies!!
You can use CORS. a new technique just like Ajax, but with ability to make calls on other domains. so you will need only one UI on one server. think this can help you.