Java Beans from Smalltalk Code ?

> Steve,
>
>
>>Has anyone created a Java Bean from Dolphin Smalltalk Code?
>>(or any smalltalk dialect?)
>>
>>Is this possible?   What is involved?
>
>
> In part it depends on what sort of Java Bean (stupid name!) you want to create.
> Many Beans are intended for use as visual components (like ActiveX controls),
> others do not have GUIs.
>
> If you want to use Dolphin to create an element of a Java GUI application, then
> I think you will have some problems.  The biggest is getting Java and Dolphin
> to agree about who owns the window and runs the input loop ;-)   It's
> essentially the same problem as is involved in using Dolphin to implement
> visual ActiveX controls -- and as far as I know there is no pre-packaged way of
> doing that.  I know that some people have created COM components with Dolphin
> which have GUIs, but I've assumed that they don't /share/ the Dolphin windows
> with any others in the application (but maybe I'm assuming wrong).   If that
> problem can be solved, then you have the separate problem of getting real
> window handles out of Java so that Dolphin can put sub-windows inside it.   You
> can use the "AWT native interface" (an extension to JNI) to get a handle of a
> Windows Canvas to paint on, but I don't know whether Dolphin (or any other
> Smalltalk implementation) would be capable of working with just that (I think
> that Dolphin wouldn't, but I'm not certain).
>
> OTOH, if you can work out how to create a true visual ActiveX control in
> Dolphin (or another Smalltalk -- maybe ST-MT can do it) then there are
> ActiveX<->Java bridges which I think you could use to create the implementation
> of your Bean (or maybe even would do all the work for you).
>
> If your Bean doesn't share windows, or you are willing to reimplement the GUI
> part in Java, (or your code doesn't use a GUI at all), then I suggest looking
> into creating a COM object with Dolphin, and then using one of the COM<->Java
> bridges to create your Bean.
>
> Another possibility might be to use some sort of Web-Services-based
> architecture (such as SOAP), or even a roll-your-own solution built directly on
> TCP/IP.  But that does depend on you being able to run Dolphin as a separate
> process, which I guess isn't what you are looking for.
>
> So, sticking with the COM/ActiveX idea, there are a number of bridges
> available, some commercial (J-Integra seems to be mentioned most often on
> comp.lang.java.programmer), and some free.  Here are some commercial URLs, in
> no particular order.  I haven't used /any/ of these things, and I haven't heard
> much about most of them either, so I can't comment on
> quality/reliability/completeness.
>
> http://j-integra.intrinsyc.com/products/com/
> http://www.jniwrapper.com/  (the server is down as I write this)
> http://www.ezjcom.com/
> http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/bridge2java
> http://www.jacozoom.com/en_jacoZoom.shtml
>
> And some non-commercial (which I also haven't used at all).  As far as I can
> tell, none of them can handle visual ActiveX controls.
>
> https://com4j.dev.java.net/
> http://danadler.com/jacob/
> http://www.nevaobject.com/_docs/_java2com/java2com.htm
> http://www.nexb.org/open-source-it-asset-management/Wiki.jsp?page=Jcom
>
> Oh, one last possibility.  You might be able to translate your Dolphin code
> into something which will run on a JVM.  To the best of my knowledge there is
> currently no really /solid/ way of doing that, but two suggestions may be worth
> a little investigation.  One is that Jun-for-Java
>     http://www.sra.co.jp/people/nisinaka/Jun4Java/index_en.html
> appears to have been implemented primarily in VW, and then sort of
> hand-translated into Java using lots of Smalltalk-like support libraries.  The
> other is Bistro
>     http://bistro.sourceforge.net/
>
> BTW, you may be wondering why I'm not taking the chance to push my JNIPort.
> The answer is simple -- JNIPort is designed to allow me to embed Java code into
> a Dolphin application, it doesn't work the other way around.
>
>     -- chris
>
>