ZK – Documentation & Tools

Dietrich Kappe, Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 9:00 am

Documentation

The quality of the ZK documentation is very high by Open Source standards. The documentation includes:

• A 13 page PDF Quickstart guide - shows how to set up the demo application and a hello world app.
• A 169 page PDF Developer's Guide - steps you through the ZK framework with lots of small examples illustrating components and concepts.
• A 43 page PDF Developer's Reference. Documents component properties and behaviors. This document is only about 40% complete.
• A 1 page PDF Executive Overview.
• A 16 page PDF Product Overview - gives information on the motivations behind ZK and the architecture of the product.

The reference guide will need to be completed, otherwise developers will be guessing at specifics of components and the ZUML. Also, the documentation on CSS and "molds," i.e. the templates for components, is spotty. This will make it difficult for developers to change the look and feel in any significant way.

Tutorials

While there is a ZK demo application that shows off various components, there appear to be no tutorials or example/reference applications available to the would-be ZK developer. There is a wiki with a how-to/cookbook page, but just like the developer's guide, it consists of short examples, not a substantial application. There is also a port of a struts application over to ZK, but it seems to make use of so little of the AJAX capability of the framework that it can't really be considered a tutorial or reference app. For now the forums are probably the best source of information and support. Also, there is a "small talks" section of the project site that has some bits of information on integrating ZK with things like the Spring Framework.

Usability

Overall the framework is a joy to use. The ZUML makes it easy to do quick iterations -- edit, test, edit, etc. -- without a long compilation step. The ZUML is also easy enough so that non-programmers can compose or modify a UI. Exposing effects such as drag-and-drop, async update, etc., as components or attributes further eases the development of complex user interfaces for non-programmers and programmers alike.

Tools

As of this writing there is no IDE integration for ZK. This is really a crying shame, since the ZUML makes a WYSIWYG UI layout tool a natural fit.

Related posts:

1. An Interview with ZK Creator Tom Yeh
2. Where is all the Prototype Documentation?
3. Welcome to ZK Week
4. The Depressing State of IE Development Tools
5. Agile Development, Documentation and Bringing Projects back from the Dead

Comments (1)

Software Development

Comments: 1 so far

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1. 

   Hi,

   How can write Resourse bundles in zk frame work,That is where we need to configure the bundle path and where we need to keep the properties file.

   Regard’s
   Prasad A.

   Comment by venkata prasad alla, Wednesday, September 26, 2007 @ 12:20 am

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