xModify: a Declarative Mechanism Designed to Modify UIs Using a Syntax

This session will introduce xModify, an important feature in Enterprise Web 2.0 platforms, as it enables developers to process a client request on the server and respond with declarative instructions on how to change the application state declaratively. With xModify any DOM modification that can be performed using programmatic APIs can be performed using modification instructions such as, append, clone, create-document, insert-after, insert-at, insert-before, remove, attribute, remove-element, replace-children, replace, set-attribute.

Contained within xModify is a set of instructions that tell the client how the UI is to be modified. Developers create server-side event handlers (JSP/Servlets, Struts Handlers, etc.) as they would in HTML applications but instead of responding with the complete application state, the response is a set of xModify statements that change the client to achieve the new state.

In addition, xModify increases productivity in developing applications by allowing the use of XML documents rather than writing/compiling Java code. An xModify page can be a static file, or a page that server pages or servlets dynamically generate.

The session will include code and the xModify schema reference.