Sharing RemoteService implementations between 2 GWT projects

Question

I have been struggling a while now to try to reuse the RemoteService implementation from one GWT project into a new one. Here's the big picture:

I have a working smartgwt-mobile project and we now decided we wanted a desktop version of the same project, using regular smart-gwt. The GUI of this new app will obviously be different but the server side code will be exactly the same.

I tried to just "borrow" the RemoteService interface, its async counterpart and the whole server package by either linking the package folders in the other project inside the new source structure (I am using Eclipse with GWT plugin) or by adding the borrowed code path as a filtered source folder to the build path, and while this satisfies the Eclipse dependency checker, the GWT compiler is unable to find the borrowed code suggesting I need to add "inherit" declarations in the module .gwt.xml file.

When I do this and recompile it now expects a second module .gwt.xml file in the root of the borrowed code which is not acceptable because it would affect the other project.

I have been reading up on the GWT module documentation but I fail to see how to implement such a scheme. It may actually be impossible to do what I am trying to achieve.

I would be willing, if that solves the problem, to create a third project that simply defines a GWT RemoteService module that then will be inherited by both the mobile and desktop smartgwt projects.

Does anybody have suggestions about how to tackle this issue?

Answer 1

I'l agree to "third project that simply defines a GWT RemoteService module that then will be inherited by both the mobile and desktop smartgwt projects"

Why because, I'm just already doing this. Yes that is Obviously an DAO project(DB layer) which has all my DB business logic methods there.

And its always better to maintain separate DAO layer to expose your data to services(ex.webservices).

Answer 2

So here's how I solved the issue. The problem with linking to an existing GWT project source folders is that the GWT compiler always (at least that's what it looks like) expects to find a GWT module definition file (.gwt.xml). I have not been able to link in the source folders in such a way that the GWT compiler is happy, even though the Eclipse dependency resolver has no problem with it.

So I created a third project using the GWT Eclipse plugin. I unchecked the "Create Sample Code" option, so I ended up with an empty GWT project. I then selected 'Add' > 'New' > 'Other' > 'Google' > 'Module', entered a module name, e.g. 'myModule', a package name, e.g. 'com.myCompany.myModule' and clicked 'Finish'. The GWT New Module wizard created the package and a child package under it named 'com.myCompany.myModule.client' and I created 'com.myCompany.myModule.server' myself.

Now I copied the RemoteService and related classes (The implementation and Async version ), plus all the server side code the RemoteService code calls from the original project I wanted to borrow from and pasted it into the new project. Very soon I had all dependencies satisfied and I opened the Build Path dialog on the new Smart-GWT web app project and included the GWT RemoteService Module Project in the projects tab. Last thing to do was adding an inherit element to the .gwt.xml file:

<inherits name='com.myCompany.myModule.MyModule'/>

Voilá: That's all there is to it. If you select 'GWT Compile Project' It compiles and runs in dev mode without warnings.

I now still have to delete the shared code from the first project and inherit from the module, bat that is simply a repetition of what I already did.

In the end this was much less painful as I imagined it to be, so I recommend this approach.