BTech (Information Technology) Project 2003 -

"Investigation of Thin-Client User Interface Alternative to Applets"

People | Project Description | Project Plan | Progress | Diary |  Reports | 


People involved

Project team

Vincent Leung                                Email: vleu005@ec.auckland.ac.nz

Ian Lin                                              Email: wlin037@ec.auckland.ac.nz

Supervisor (Academic)

Prof John Gordon Hosking           Email: john@cs.auckland.ac.nz

Prof John Grundy                           Email: john-g@cs.auckland.ac.nz

Supervisor (Peace Software Ltd.)

Dr Graham Allen                            Email: Graham.Allen@peace.com

Craig Bishell                                   Email: Craig.Bishell@peace.com

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Project Description

Peace Software Ltd develop leading-edge solutions for the energy sector. This includes a wide range of software support for energy companies, including customer management software with browser-based user interfaces, currently implemented using Java Applets. Peace are interested in an investigation into alternative technologies that could be used in the future to provide a suitable alternative to Applets for some of their software user interface needs. Our tasks is to investigate new technologies for thin client user interface, evaluate them and choose the best one and build some prototype.

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Project Plan

A basic outline of the project plan is as follow:

There are mainly two phase in this project. The first phase is to do a high level evaluation against Peace Software's requirements of the technologies (Altio/Digital Harbor, Curl, Flash Flex, JavaServer Faces, Java Web Start, Naked Objects, Struts, XUL). This should take 2-3 months of efforts.

The second phase is to choose the top 2-3 technologies from the previous phase and do a more in depth evaluation of each. And developed a prototype screen using the technologies we picked. This should take the remainder of the times.

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Progress

Week 4

Look for any thin client technologies. Do a a brief outline / plan of the project.

Finished

Week 5

Start studying the existing user interface, make a requirement list, do a template to rate each technologies, and also get our web-page up and running. Also research about “Altio”.

Finished

Week 6

Research about "Digital Harbor" , and work on the first presentation.

Finished

Week 7

Research about “Curl”.

Finished

Week 8

Research about “Flash Flex”.

Finished

Week 9

Research about “JavaServer Faces”.

Finished

Week 10

Research about “Struts”.

Finished

Week 11

Research about “Naked Objects”.

Finished

Week 12

Research about “XUL”.

Finished

Week 13

Research about "XForms".

Finished

  PHASE 1 DONE  
  PHASE 2 START  
Week 1 In depth evaluation of JavaServer Faces

Finished

Week 2 In depth evaluation of JavaServer Faces Finished
Week 3 Prototyping using JavaServer Faces Finished
Week 4 Prototyping using JavaServer Faces Finished
Week 5 In depth evaluation of Altio Finished
Week 6 In depth evaluation of Altio Finished
Week 7 Prototyping using Altio Finished
Week 8 Prototyping using Altio Finished
Week 9 Prototyping using Altio Finished
Week 10 In depth evaluation of Curl Finished
Week 11 In depth evaluation of Curl Finished
Week 12 Prototyping using Curl Finished
Week 13 Prototyping using Curl Finished
Week 14 and onwards Preparing the final report and presentation Finished
 

Project finished!!!!!

 
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Diary

12/3/2004 - Had a meeting with Prof John Grundy and Prof John Gordon Hosking to discuss about the project, found out what's the project is about and started to look through some web pages of thin-client technologies.

13/3/2004 - E-mail Dr Graham Allen to arrange a meeting time.

18/3/2004 - Worked out a brief outline / plan of the project

19/3/2004 - Had a meeting with Prof John Grundy and Prof John Gordon Hosking and some other SE students to discuss the progress of the project. Asked John to call Dr Graham Allen to arrange a meeting time to get more information and a demo of the interface.

24/3/2004 - Start working on my web-page.

25/3/2004 - Had a meeting with Dr Graham Allen and Craig Bishell to discuss about what Peace Software is looking for in this project and what technology they would like us to cover.

26/3/2004 - Start working on a requirement list which includes all the requirements of the UI, also writing up a project direction document.

29/3/2004 - Start researching about Altio. We have a meeting cancelled due to Craig sickness.

31/3/2004 - Put my web-page up.

2/4/2004 - Have a meeting with Craig, found out more functional requirement of the project by seeing how the existing interface works in action. Also have a meeting with John, he suggested that we work out a primitive list and redo the Altio research base on that list as well.

5/4/2004 - Start working on the primitive list. And add more to the Altio research base on the primitive list. Also start  researching on Digital Harbor

12/4/2004 - Start researching on Curl

19/4/2004 - Start researching on Flash Flex

26/4/2004 - Start researching on JavaServer Faces

27/4/2004 - Have a meeting with Craig to show our progress on our project.

30/4/2004 - Did my intro presentation to my supervisors at the project meeting group.

03/5/2004 - Start researching on Struts.

10/5/2004 - Start researching on Naked Objects.

11/5/2004 - Meeting with Craig and John, understand more about the background of the project and what Peace is aiming for.

17/5/2004 - Start researching on XUL.

21/5/2004 - Meeting with Prof John Grundy, he suggested when we start developing the prototype we look for the plus and minus of the technology we pick in term of coding. What's hard to code using this technology and what's easy etc.

04/6/2004 - Did our end of semester presentation

12/6/2004 - Did our end of semester presentation again to John Hosking and John Grundy  at the project group meeting.

16/6/2004 - Put my end of semester report on the web

5/7/2004 - Start in depth evaluation on JavaServer Faces

19/7/2004 - Start prototyping on JavaServer Faces

26/7/2004 - Start in depth evaluation on Altio

10/8/2004 - Trying to get Altio install in lab machince

11/8/2004 - Starting the Altio Prototype

23/8/2004 - We have to change our plan because we have not finish the prototype yet, we will spend 1 more week on Altio

6/9/2004 - Start in depth evaluation on Curl

20/9/2004 - Starting the Curl Prototype

4/10/2004 - Start preparing for the final report and presentation

22/10/2004 - Ian and I did our final presentation

30/10/2004 - Send my draft report to John Grundy and waiting for feedback

8/11/2004 - Got feedback from John Grundy about the final report and I will make some changes to it in the next couple of days

10/11/2004 - Got extension for the report until 15th Nov

15/11/2004 - Put my Final report on web

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Reports

End of semester Report

Final Report

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