We’re not going to be shy about this, the GWT team loves tools and APIs that make developers' lives better. That’s why we’re happy to have reached an important milestone within the GWT 2.3 release, and are making the GWT 2.3 Beta available for public preview today. This release focuses on bringing Google Services and APIs directly into the Eclipse IDE, making it easier than ever to build fantastic apps using the GWT SDK and Google Plugin for Eclipse (GPE).
Easy Discovery and Access to Google APIs The number of new APIs hosted by Google has been on the rise lately, and we think this is great for developers looking to add cool features to their apps, such as Google Maps overlays, Buzz streams, and Google Docs integration. To help developers build out these features, we’ve added the ability to browse and add Google APIs directly from Eclipse. Simply highlight a project and the select the “Google - Add Google APIs” menu item to get started.
Import Projects from Project Hosting What developer tool would be cloud-enabled if it didn’t allow you to store your source code in the cloud? GPE 2.3 provides a simple UI that makes importing projects, from Project Hosting, into Eclipse a piece of cake. We’ve been eating our own dogfood for years, with Project Hosting being the home for GWT source, issue, tracking, wikis, and downloads, so we’re particularly excited to see this functionality within GPE.
One Login, Many Services As we’ve increased the breadth of services that GPE is communicating with, we wanted to make sure that the user experience remained streamlined. To do so, we’ve included an option to specify your Google Account information only once (using the same authentication mechanisms as Gmail and Google Docs), and deploy to App Engine and import projects from Project Hosting as many times as necessary.
Local Storage APIs One of the key differentiators between legacy desktop apps and modern web apps is their ability to access data quickly and continue to be usable offline. With the GWT 2.3 SDK we’ve included support for accessing Web Storage, leveling the playing field by allowing web apps to store and retrieve data locally. This is not only faster than typical RPCs, but more functional too, as it allows the app to access data even when there is no Internet connection.
Along with this new set of features and functionality, we have a handful of issue fixes such as updated IE9 support and better iFrame loading within Internet Explorer. The full list of fixes can be found within the GWT issue tracker.
If you're looking to get started, the Google Plugin for Eclipse, as well as other developer tools, can be downloaded here.
As always, if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it and the GWT Groups is the right place to submit it.
Posted by Chris Ramsdale, cramsdale@google.com
