Since no one else has, I will plug for Seaside here.  Seaside does *do* 
complicated stuff, but you generally don't see it (unless you are doing 
something that in other systems would be much more complicated if it was 
even possible at all).

Basically what you have to do in Seaside is derive your class from a 
specific Seaside class, then you do the class as a normal domain class not 
thinking about html at all.  To get it to show up on the web site, all you 
have to do is add a #renderOn: method that displays it in HTML and tell 
Seaside where to insert you class (which is done with a simple configuration 
on a web page).

For me the "painless" part of Seaside is that you write it like normal code, 
you don't really think about any of the normal web things except your html.

And if you are really brave, you don't even have to do that.  You could use 
Magritte that lets you add a class side method #description that specifies 
how the object should look, and Magritte will display it in Seaside or 
Morphic for you.  It just depends on what kind of site you are mocking up I 
guess.


>From: goran at krampe.se
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>Subject: Re: Fastest way to mock up web UI?
>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:12:28 +0200
>
>Hi!
>
>Giovanni Corriga <giovanni at corriga.net> wrote:
> > Il giorno lun, 26/03/2007 alle 20.15 -0700, Andreas Raab ha scritto:
> > > Folks -
> > >
> > > I have the need for mocking up a bit of a web UI as an administrative
> > > interface to some domain objects living inside Squeak. What is the
> > > easiest[*][**] framework to use for that purpose?
> > >
> > > I'm sure one of the options is Seaside but I'm not sure it is the only
> > > game in town, neither am I sure if it's the right thing for the task 
>at
> > > hand. Since I remember that various people had used a number of
> > > frameworks I'm curious about alternatives and tradeoffs. Any opinions 
>or
> > > recommendations?
>
>Well, I initially wrote HV2 and now I have been working with Seaside in
>Gjallar quite a bit. I have written a bunch of apps using HV2 (World Cup
>Betting site, SqueakMap server, some other odds and ends)and HV2 has a
>few things going for it IMHO:
>
>-Trivial to learn and debug, it is very small. No continuations or
>"magic stuff" going on.
>
>-Nifty URL "directory" to selector mapping. You just add a method in a
>View class and tada - you can instantly "call it" by typing it in as a
>URL. (HV2 uses a special method category for such selectors)
>
>-Uses the same HTML generation model as Seaside did before Seaside
>changed to the canvas model. Not sure if Giovanni has had time to move
>HV2 in the same direction yet (he was working on it).
>
>-Uses "real" URLs instead of Seasidish "weird" URLs.
>
>Seaside of course offers a true component model where each WAComponent
>can "live" on its own and removes all the need for state management
>using url args, hidden fields and so on. And then there are tons of
>other useful things in Seaside like Scriptaculous integration etc.
>
> > > [*] easiest = least painful install, reasonably quickly to learn, fast
> > > intermediate results, open to future extensions (in case that UI needs
> > > to become "not-so-mockup" anymore ;-)
>
>I guess HV2 fulfils this, but on the other hand so does Seaside IMHO.
>
> > > [**] One strict requirement though: It must work under 3.8/Croquet.
>
>Can't see any problem with either Seaside or HV2 - I use 3.8 in Gjallar
>and I can't imagine HV2 to not work in 3.8. And I can't imagine Croquet
>has any effect.
>
> > I'm currently using (and extending) Goran's HV2, the web framework used
> > for the SqueakMap server. It's not as advanced and innovative as
> > Seaside, but I think it's a nifty little framework.
> >
> > 	Giovanni
>
>Right, the SqueakMap server code might serve as a useful "larger"
>example to look at. HV2 also has some small examples in it.
>
>HV2 invites you to write each "page" in a single method - sure, they can
>get pretty large, but it works pretty nicely in practice. This is
>because of the trick commonly used in HV2 by letting the same method
>handle the GET and the Form POST giving automatic mapping of fields etc.
>
>regards, Göran
>

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