Introduction

The Natural Approach

ItsNat is an innovative open source Java AJAX Component based Web Framework, it offers a natural approach to modern web development.

Why natural? ItsNat leverages the old tools to build the new AJAX based Web 2.0 applications: pure (X)HTML and pure Java W3C DOM!

ItsNat is server centric using a unique approach called TBITS, "The Browser Is The Server". ItsNat simulates a Universal W3C Java Browser at the server, with ItsNat the server mimics the behavior of a web browser, containing a W3C DOM Level 2 node tree and receiving W3C DOM Events.

How it works

When the Java user code modifies the server DOM tree this modification is detected (using DOM mutation events) and automatically sent to the real web browser as JavaScript DOM based code, synchronizing the client DOM with the server. This approach fits perfectly well with AJAX! AJAX is not an addition is a core part of ItsNat.

From server the developer can register W3C DOM Event listeners listening for W3C DOM events. This registry is automatically propagated to the client, when the user, for instance, clicks a "listened" element the real browser event is sent to the server using AJAX, converted to a W3C DOM event and received by the server based listener(s).

The DOM is used to modify the original tree/layout on loading time or as a response of a AJAX event, this original layout is defined using pure (X)HTML/SVG/XUL/XML based templates with absolutely NO logic! (extreme separation of view and logic). If the modification is big ItsNat provides "template fragments", a template fragment is a piece of markup that can be inserted (included) as DOM into the main tree statically or dynamically (typically as a response of a user/AJAX event).

Don't worry about the memory size of a DOM tree, ItsNat provides a smart DOM tree cache in a serialized form (pure text not DOM) for the static parts of a page/fragment shared between pages and DOM subtrees no longer going to be used can be removed only in server.

In spite of the same client-server DOM contract and server-centric nature, ItsNat provides some tolerance to DOM nodes introduced by non-ItsNat JavaScript code, for instance static zones in server can be managed by non-ItsNat JavaScript code, DOM subtrees removed only in server can be changed freely in client. developer code can inject custom JavaScript from server, and in some locations (between and at the end of head and body elements), "intrusive" nodes are tolerated opening a new world of "hybrid" (client-centric and server-centric) Single Page Interface web sites/apps.

Features

Core features

ItsNat provides many more (core) features:

• DHTML on the server. Automatic client synchronization from server
• Some support of automatic server synchronization from client
• Web-continuations ("continue" events)
• User defined event types
• AJAX Timers
• Long running asynchronous server tasks (client is notified when finished)
• COMET without special application servers
• Server side DOM utils (to simplify DOM manipulation like lists, trees, ElementCSSInlineStyle
  support etc)
• Resolution of ${} based variables in markup (helps to keep Java DOM code as agnostic as
  possible of the concrete layout)
• Markup fragments (dynamic parts of the page to be inserted in any time very useful in
  Single Page Interface)
• DOM subtrees in server not going to be used anymore can be removed only in server saving memory (disconnected child nodes)
• SVG (and other namespaces) embedded inline on XHTML and application/xhtml+xml MIME
• SVG (and other namespaces) embedded inline on X/HTML and text/html MIME on
  • Browsers with native SVG
  • MSIE with Adobe SVG Viewer (v3.0 or v6.0 beta) plugin including dynamic processing
    of SVG DOM
  • Any browser with Flash support using SVGWeb
• Pure SVG documents including AJAX in browsers with native SVG or MSIE with Adobe SVG
  Viewer or Renesis Player v1.1 or Savarese Ssrc SVG/XUL plugin.
• Pure XUL documents including AJAX in Gecko browsers (like FireFox) or MSIE with
  Savarese Ssrc SVG/XUL plugin.
• XML generation
• IFrame/Object/Embed/Applet Auto-Binding: in server child documents opened by
  IFRAME, OBJECT, EMBED or APPLET tags are automatically bound to the parent document in server . This feature works with:
  • X/HTML loaded by an IFRAME
  • SVG loaded by an IFRAME/OBJECT/EMBED in browsers with native SVG or MSIE with Adobe SVG Viewer or Renesis or Savarese Ssrc SVG/XUL (only OBJECT and EMBED)
  • SVG loaded by Batik applet (custom version for ItsNat) in an APPLET/OBJECT/EMBED
• Java to JavaScript generation utilities
• Server-sent events (events fired by the server sent to the client simulating user actions) with the real browser or simulated for instance to test the client view simulating user actions or simulating the client in server
• Referrers: in page navigation, the previous document in server can be obtained to copy any data avoiding session data in page based applications. Navigation includes back/forward/reload support . Two modes: push and pull
• Degraded modes: Events disabled and JavaScript disabled modes
• Extreme Mashups
• AJAX bookmarking (or bookmarking in Single Page Interface applications)
• Pretty URLs
• Automatic page remote/view control of other users/sessions!!
• Remote Templates
• ...

A Component System

ItsNat also provides a Component system (constructed over the Core level). These components are AJAX based from the scratch inspired in Swing and reusing Swing as far as possible such as data and selection models (but ItsNat does not want to be a Swing forced clone in web, is not a pixel based web framework).

ItsNat provides several button types, text based components, labels, lists, tables, trees (all of them with content editable "in place"), file upload based on AJAX...

The most interesting feature is: any element can be a component, for instance any element can be a normal button, a check box, a radio button, any element list may be a combo or a list component, for instance a group of SVG circles may be a multiple selection list component. Furthermore components can be used to generate XML!!

ItsNat components are not intrusive, they are not "black boxes", you can customize and control every element used, every attribute. Components are highly extensible and customizable, for instance there is no default decoration when selection ItsNat tells you when and what has been selected, ItsNat may be seen as a meta-framework.

To do user defined components, for instance compound components, is amazingly easy.

What ItsNat is NOT, what is MISSING (deliberately)!

No XML configuration (use Spring or the configuration technique you like more), no declarative navigation, no JSP, no custom tags, no declarative programming, no view-Java bindings, no logic mixed with view, no new (expression) languages, no "pull/active views" (ItsNat pushes data/markup to the view), no page based development (ItsNat is event based), no highly closed, not customizable and intrusive components, no obscure HTML and JavaScript generation, not fully programmatic view definition (ItsNat uses pure XML/HTML templates), not JavaScript centric, no big and obscure JavaScript libraries hard to debug and maintain open to modifications by malicious users in runtime, not AJAX as a forced add-on, not oriented to tools (use your favorite X/HTML designer and pure Java IDE), not developer/designer substitution by the framework, no loss of developer control.

Requisites / Platforms

ItsNat is pure Java and runs in any Java Virtual Machine v1.4 as the minimum configuration and virtually any Servlet compliant container.

ItsNat has been tested in Tomcat 5.5 and v6, GlassFish v2 and v3, Oracle’s Java SE 1.4 and 1.5 developer kits.

Google App Engine is supported including AJAX with some limitations.

Supported desktop browsers: Adobe AIR HTML Component, Arora, Google Chrome 1+, FireFox 1+, Internet Explorer v6,7,8, Internet Explorer v9, Moblin 2.0, Opera 9+, QtWebKit and QtJambi (Qt 4.4+), Safari 3+

Supported mobile browsers (all including AJAX): Android 1.0+ r2, BlackBerry JDE 4.6+ (Flip, Bold, Storm 1 and 2 etc) including JDE 6.0 (Torch), Bolt, Fennec 1.0a1 (a.k.a FireFox Mobile), Pocket IE 6 (Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1), IE Mobile 6 (since Windows Mobile 6.1.4), iPhone/iPod Touch 2.0+, Iris 1.0.8+, Minimo 0.2, Motorola Symphony 1.1 (ROKR EM35, MOTO VE66 phones), NetFront 3.4+ (WinMob and included in some SonyEricsson phones), Opera Mini 4.x and 5.x, Opera Mobile 8.6x (WinMob and UIQ), 9.5, 9.7 and 10, S60WebKit (since S60 3rd), S40WebKit (since S40 6th), Palm Pre webOS, QtWebKit of Qt for Embedded Linux (Qt v4.4) and Windows CE, SkyFire 1.0 and UCWEB 6+ (Java and WinMob).

Supported SVG plugins: Adobe SVG Viewer v3 and v6 beta, Renesis Player v1.1.1, Savarese Ssrc SVG/XUL (Ssrc also adds XUL to MSIE), SVGWeb, and Batik as applet.

Licensing

ItsNat is open source GNU General Public License v3 (LGPL v3) licensed, this license allows closed source applications developed on top of ItsNat.

Alternative commercial licenses exist if LGPL v3 is not for you. More info.

Online Demo

The ItsNat Feature Showcase, is a special Java AJAX web application developed with ItsNat. Follow this LINK.

More demos and web applications running ItsNat

Download

The ItsNat distribution includes binaries, source code, javadoc, manuals and the ItsNat Feature Showcase.

Visit the download section.

Documentation & Support

Visit the support section.

Credits

ItsNat is a product authored by the Spanish citizen Jose Maria Arranz Santamaria.

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