Remember learning about Model-View-Controller (MVC) in university? For most, at least from what I hear when speaking to others, they had to actually create an app following this design paradigm, which greatly helps any future use of this pattern in the "real world."

For me, that class was right in the middle of COVID. Our instructor was a nice enough guy, but between the Zoom fatigue and lack of experience (I'm fairly sure it was his first or second term teaching), not only did we not end up actually building anything, but we spent time doing theoretical explorations of the various design patterns out there, with MVC only receiving a few days of review.

All this to say that when I started working with webforJ, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to finally get hands-on with MVC—not just to understand the pattern properly this time, but also to learn how webforJ fits into this paradigm. Building a stereotypical todo app seemed like the ideal way to explore both.

Modern applications need flexible theming systems. Users expect dark mode support, but they also want apps that reflect brand identity and adapt to different contexts. Building themes traditionally meant maintaining separate stylesheets, duplicating CSS rules, and coordinating updates across multiple files.

webforJ takes a different approach with a theming system built around CSS variables and semantic color palettes. You can implement dark mode, create custom brand themes, and switch between them at runtime.

Let's walk through how it all works together.

We all probably know this situation; browsing a website or webapp, make a simple misclick and instinctively try to go back or undo it. Only to then be somewhere completely else, worst case not even on the site anymore.

Seeing that user experience is one of the most important factors in modern web development, that scenario is one of the many reasons why a robust and well-maintained routing system is so important for your Single Page Application (SPA).

In this article, I will give a quick overview on how to achieve that with webforJ. First we will take a look at movement between views, preserving different states, and in general intuitive interaction with our app. In around 10 minutes, you should be able to set up routes, handle advanced navigation scenarios, and follow the best practices for future maintenance.

webforJ version 25.03 introduces new capabilities for configuration management, Spring integration options, routing improvements, and Table component updates.

One of the great benefits of creating web apps is gaining access to the powerful styling and layout capabilities of CSS. In particular, CSS lets you create responsive layouts, allowing your apps to smoothly adjust their layout according to parameters like window size and device type. Apps with responsive layouts look and feel better, and they allow users to use your app in their preferred context and size. With webforJ, you have that power in Java!

But, knowing what to do with that power is another story. Perhaps you're used to carefully laying out forms with a rigid structure, and the prospect of creating designs that are adaptable and dynamic seems intimidating and complicated. So where do you start? With webforJ's FlexLayout!

I've spent the better part of a year building webforJ demos and documentation, and honestly, it's taught me that I knew a lot less about CSS than I thought. I thought I knew enough to get by, some selectors, basic properties, maybe a flexbox here and there. Turns out there's a difference between writing CSS that works and writing CSS that actually makes sense.

Working on webforJ's styling system has changed how I approach CSS. It handles common tasks well and gets out of your way for the interesting parts. Plus, I no longer spend half my time wondering why my styles disappeared into the void.

Several kinds of forms exist online: sign-up forms, order/checkout forms, and surveys. Regardless of the type of form you’ll need for your business, a bad UI can cost you returning customers. A staggering 88% of users won’t come back to a website if they had a negative user experience, so you’ll need to get it right on the first try.

While the majority of this content focuses on the single-line TextField component, you can apply these principles throughout your webforJ app to help prevent abandonment and make your forms stand out.

As I went through my computer science education at Oregon State, I realized pretty quickly that I enjoyed the UI side of things. Messing around with CSS (yes, even trying to center a div) and making pages that looked nice appealed to me way more than databases and business logic.

Somehow, I ended up working at a company that primarily used Java. Lucky for me, the project I ended up on was a Java web framework - back in my comfort zone!

I've been able to keep myself pretty much in UI land since then, in my comfort zone and happy to let my colleagues deal with all that back end stuff.

Recently our framework, webforJ, released Spring integration, and with that, my blissful isolation in UI land came to an end. As my first foray into full-stack development, I was asked to build a (very, very simple) CRUD application using Spring and webforJ both so I could learn more about the back end, and also showcase webforJ and Spring together in one project.

TLDR: It went well.

webforJ version 25.02 is here! This release introduces integration with popular tools to keep your apps running as efficiently as possible. Top on the list is exciting new integration capabilities with Spring Boot.

25.02 also builds on data management with Repository improvements, introduces better control over app lifecycle with listener support, and streamlines asynchronous UI updates with the new runLater API.

webforJ 25.01 is a targeted release that introduces the Tree component and marks the debut of startforJ, a new tool designed to simplify project scaffolding for webforJ developers.

webforJ version 25.00 is out now! This release includes brand-new UI components, functional improvements, and key architectural updates. Let's walk through some of the most exciting additions.

webforJ version 24.22 is now available! This release introduces Namespaces, expands Installable Apps with support for dynamic icon generation, and brings other important improvements.