To add to the excitement around Google Developer Day, just a hair after our one-year launch anniversary, it turns out that Google Web Toolkit (GWT) has been downloaded more than 1 million times!
We're especially excited to see the amount of interest since GWT went open source. With advances like those in GWT 1.4, we feel we're making solid progress towards our mission "to radically improve the web experience for users by enabling developers to use existing Java tools to build no-compromise AJAX for any modern browser" (you can read more about our mission to make GWT better).
So try out GWT. You'll be in good company.
We hope you saw the recent announcement of Google Gears, which is being unveiled at Google Developer Day.
Well, we were so excited about the possibility of AJAX applications working even while offline, we went ahead and put together the Google API Library for Google Web Toolkit with support for Google Gears. This open source library allows developers writing applications with Google Web Toolkit to take advantage of the Google Gears APIs to develop applications that work offline — on a plane or anywhere else you happen to be.
Since interoperability is at the very core of GWT, we wanted to take this opportunity to show an example of how GWT applications can be built with JavaScript APIs, taking advantage of GWT's JavaScript Native Interface (JSNI).
Please keep in mind that this is an early prototype of this library, and so your mileage may vary. We are planning to add support for other Google APIs; if you'd like to help, please check out Making GWT Better, and contribute your ideas. If you're curious to get started, check out the project on Google Code.
I'm very happy to report that Google Web Toolkit (GWT) 1.4 Release Candidate is now available for download.
This is undoubtedly the biggest GWT release yet. In addition to 150+ bugfixes, GWT 1.4 RC includes a ton of new features, improvements and optimizations. You'll find the complete itemized list of changes in the GWT issue tracker, but here's the short(er) version:
GWT 1.4 RC is the first release developed with major participation from the GWT open source contributors. Many of the biggest improvements in GWT 1.4 RC came from ideas and patches contributed by the community. A big congratulations and thank you is in order to everyone who has worked so hard to make GWT 1.4 RC happen.
In other GWT news...
It seems like it's been one major event after another lately. Next up: Google Developer Day! It's happening Thursday! Please join us in Mountain View if you can, or if you'd rather, go to GWT sessions in Beijing, London, Paris, Sao Paulo, or Sydney.
With that, I'll leave you to go play with GWT 1.4 RC. As always, let us know what you think in the GWT Developer Forum.
Since JavaOne is where we first introduced you to the Google Web Toolkit (GWT), we're quite excited about all that we're doing at JavaOne this year. If you're attending the conference, be sure to check out Bruce and Joel's GWT session (Wednesday, May 9 @ 1:30pm). We hope you'll also be able to stop by the Google booth to chat. Feel free to let us know on the GWT Developer Forum, so we know to look for you.
For those of you near Seattle, Washington, if you've been waiting for a GWT presentation to get your feet wet, I'm happy to report that Bob Vawter is presenting at SeaJUG next week (Tuesday, May 15 @ 7pm).
We've also recently discovered a very elegant application built with GWT: eTripBuilder.com. Not only is their application small (136K, uncompressed) and speedy, but they're taking advantage of some of GWT's benefits: they are using history, they've built custom widgets (e.g. a date picker), and they've made great use of CSS. We're proud that GWT is a part of such a great app.
