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When we think to a Joomla web application we can describe the entire system as a small or big group of functions that the software execute for us. Everything that you can imagine done by the Joomla web application is, at the end of the facts, due to an event generation and a correspondent activity execution. You generate the event and the server execute a correspondent activity. In certain case, when a function automatically call another one, event is generated by the software instead of you.
If we follow this simple concept, we can understand that all applications can be described as a series of events that will be intercepted by a specialized system capable of executing the correspondent activities. Then sit at your desk and try to write on a paper the idea for the software that you always had in mind. Think to buttons, menu, links, selectors, images, words, sentences, messages and all you want that it must do. When you described this first "aspect" of your software the next thing that you probably want to be done is to specify what happens when one of these "objects" will be clicked, filled, selected, modified etc etc.
You might notice that, for each event, the system must do some tasks. When these tasks are executed the software must update the screen (but this is not mandatory) and after it must wait for another event. Does it correspond to your vision? If yes, you will shortly understand that, when your software come bigger with a lot of functions, you will have less and less organization between the hundreds of event/activity couples. To solve this problem start examining carefully all the functions of your software and group them according to their purpose. Every group that you will define in this way is a scenery in Joomatic Devel.
Joomatic Devel get you capable to develop new Joomla based web applications starting with an high level approach. You can create sceneries, activities and events that are related between them without worrying about the tasks that the software must execute. You need only to describe the flow of the steps as in your imagination. When you are ready then you can also define the implementation of the tasks.
Joomatic Devel support three type of tasks development: Manual, Managed and Generated. The first modality give to developers some special tools to create hand written code units compatible with the highly appreciated MVC software pattern. The Managed modality, instead, help developers to simply design the various interfaces, with a drag & drop tool, and to write the behavioral code with an intelligent assistant. The Generated modality, finally, help normal users (or developers) to completely design their software without writing a single line of code. In the Generated modality users (or developers) have only to drag special icons (the joobjects) on a workarea and connect each of them to some others. The system automatically generate the relative code and show in a special area the "graphical output" that the schema of joobjects produce. WYSIWYG applied to software programming! Joomatic Devel rely on a standard set of joobjects available through the Joomatic Platform package, necessary to develop with the Generated modality, but anyone can develop new importable solutions to share with other users.
When you start to implement an activity of your project, using Manual or
Managed modality, you have to create some logic units relative to the architecture of Joomla and Joomatic. These logic units can be created/modified directly from Joomatic Devel but also with external editors. Logic units are divided into the following categories:
Data Unit
Reusable database table representation code. Visible to all the activities of the scenery.
Model Unit
Reusable data layer management code. Visible to all the activities of the scenery.
Controller Unit
Behavioral code. Executed when the event connected with the relative activity happens.
View Unit
Graphical code. Called from the Controller Unit to generate/update the user interface.
Toolbar Unit
Toolbar configuration code. Used to show necessary toolbar buttons relative to the activity.
Joomatic Devel get users capable to define more than one logic unit, of any type, for each activity but only one can be really connected to that. The implementation of an activity is the result of a particular "configuration" of logic units connected to it. This is useful in making tests and in helping developers to work together, on the same project, producing different versions of the same logic units.
If you start, instead, to implement the activity using the Generated modality, you will have only to "design your software" through special Joomatic Devel controls.
Joomatic Devel can manage all these development modalities at the same time but only projects totally developed with the Generated method can be compatible, for sure, with all Joomla future versions. This is possible because, when you develop with the Generated modality, you don't create code but only descriptive xml diagram that can be next trasformed in code by particular versions of Joomatic Devel and Joomatic Platform.
When a new project is started, Joomatic get users capable of setting the Joomaticization level. with which is possible to define how activities, and therefore all the relative tasks (represented by code units), could be developed. There are three Joomaticization level: Low, Normal and High. A project set to Low Level cab be implemented using Manual, Managed and also Generated modality. With Normal Level, developers can create Managed and Generated activities but not Manual ones. Finally, if Joomaticization is set to High Level, users (and also developers...:) ) can create only Generated activities. Projects with a High Level of Joomaticization are very portable and simply to develop, while others with different Joomaticization Level could be less compatible but more efficient for skilled developers.
All steps that you have imagined are for sure relative to public operations of private ones. This is especially true in the case of Joomla Web Application accessible from internet. This is why there are two place where users can interact with the system in the Joomla Framework: Front-end and Back-end. The Front-end is the place where general users access the application. Back-end is instead the place where trusted users access the administrative system. Joomatic Devel allows developers and users to define each sceneries as a front-end one or a back-end one and also to manage different access privileges on both scenery types.
Finally Joomatic Devel help you in adding additive files of all type to your project and to connect events to the right menu voices under the components section of the Joomla Framework menubar. When you add external files to the projects, Joomatic Devel get you capable of positioning these resources in particular subdirectories of the final exported extension and help you also in editing the content of all text based ones.
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