Integrating multiple GWT applications into a pluggable platform

Question

I am asking for your ideas about how to combine multiple GWT based web applications into a flexible, pluggable system little bit similar to the new Google portfolio. Here are the details/ideas/requirements:

• on the top of the screen there should be a bar
• the system bar contains the menu buttons for each "plugin-application". the list should be somehow configurable or even fully dynamic
• the system bar contains login/logout widgets
• each plugin applications are below the system bar
• the user can switch application by choosing its name on the system menu bar
• the plugin applications should be in separate Eclipse projects so that they can be developed/tested separately
• the plugin applications would share some custom widgets, so these widgets should be kept in a common Eclipse project
• it would be nice if the plugin applications could be deployed as separate WAR files on the server so that they could be upgraded one by one
• it would be nice if the system bar automatically detected new plugin applications

Is it possible to use sources from different Eclipse projects when building a GWT application? If the login is owned by the "system bar" then how is it possible to secure the separate war files? Can the login state be shared somehow?

Answer 1

The answer lies in GWT with JAX-RS REST: http://h2g2java.blessedgeek.com/2011/11/gwt-with-jax-rs-aka-rpcrest-part-0.html.

REST on JAX-RS and RestyGWT using JAX-B and Jackson as object schemata will allow

• RPC on steroids,
• Mashups, multi-war, multi-services scenario.

However, the weakness of REST is that your UI cannot be a mashup bundle of cross-domain portlets. Some people might see this as a strength, since cross-domain has to use the security-risky script-include technique. In order to overcome that, you could write a proxy servlet (aka http tunnel), which is a rather simple affair.