Building a CRUD Application with ZK Framework

The history

ZKoss was founded in the 1990s by Tom Yeh and Henri Chen. Potix, a software company, owns and develops the ZK Framework.

The primary reason for developing the ZK Framework was to enable desktop applications features available at the time to be published on the web as well.

What is Zkoss

Zkoss is a UI framework component-based that enable to develop Rich Internet Application (RIA) and cellular application without needed to learn JavaScript or AJAX.

A Rich Internet Application (RIA) is a web application that has similar functionality to a desktop application.

RIAs are designed to combine the flexibility and portability of web applications with the reliability and real-time execution capabilities of desktop applications.

Say when you have previously desktop applications, then to transitioned into web using Zkoss, the the change requires are small.

Zkoss Archtecture

The main idea is you build UI using ZK widgets that is built upon Zk Client Engine and Zk Update Engine. The Zk Client Engine and Zk Update Engine behind the scene proceed any AJAX request-response so we don’t have to write the AJAX or JavaScript on our own. All managed by this framework.

Why use Zkoss?

Easy to use since we don’t have to use JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

Use view based on XML with extension of .zul. The controller itself is use Java. So if we have Desktop application using Desktop, then we just have to bring the code to ZK.

Available IDE tools for drag n drop component and autocomplete code on Eclipse or Netbeans.

Complete component like listbox, datebox, combo, etc.

JavaScript handles are handled by ZK, like onChange, onClick, onBlur, etc.

Code technique included MVC (Model View Controller, MVMM (Model View ViewModel) or hybrid

Available mobile feature to create web app that will run on mobile device

Cons of Zkoss?

Because everything handled on server, then there will be slightly decrease in performance. But this is also a pros to since all data variable aree on server then it is increased security because there are not variable manipulation on client.