Advanced RIA architecture with GWT - Part I (first overview)

Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are not really a new thing, but currently there are just a couple of web pages out there, using a real RIA architecture. So it's new enough to write a series of articles about creating a good RIA architecture with the Google Web Toolkit. I'm sure some of the patterns and concepts are also portable to other frameworks.

Enabling the cool developer tools in Safari

All web developers love Firefox because of the awesome Firebug Add-on. Sure, me too, but what is with all the other browsers?

Well, Microsoft will maybe offer real developer tools with IE 8. But for my favorite rendering engine WebKit (e. g. in Safari or Google Chrome), there are allready some cool tools availabe. On a Mac all you need to do is typing the following command into your Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitScriptDebuggerEnabled -bool true

Now open Safari's preferences and activate the develop menu on the advanced tab. That's all. You'll get a cupple of cool tools, which are as powerful as Firebug.

Here the network ananlysis of my iGoogle page:

Looking pretty nice, or?

More for Drosera (that's the name of the WebKit developer tool) can be found here.

Firebug and Firefox 3 Beta 5

After installing Firefox 3 beta 5 I had a lot of trouble with the Google Toolbar. After disabling the check for Extensions, Firefox didn't start anymore.
Now I fixed the problem by removing Google Toolbar, but an Add-on I really need is Firebug. For web development, there is no better tool for debugging your page.
Unfortunately the current version of Firebug doesn't support Firefox 3. But instead of the Google Toolbar it works after disabling compatibility check.
Or better it works pretty fine on my Mac and on a Windows XP machine, but it fails on my Ubuntu Hardy Heron machine, where Firefox 3 is the default browser.

Firebug on Firefox 3 RC1 (Mac OS X)

But thanks to Ubuntu team there is a great solution. You can install Firebug as a package from the Ubuntu repositories. This version of Firebug works great in Firefox 3 beta 5 in Ubuntu.