ZK Developer's Guide

Preface
Chapter 5 introduces the advantages and disadvantages of ZK. Then we will see how
to integrate ZK with the Spring Framework and also why it is useful to do so. We
will then move on to Hibernate and JasperReport.
In Chapter 6 we will learn how to customize existing components. We have the ability
to use styles that we know from HTML to change the layout of the components.
Additionally we will see that it is possibile to build new components (macro
components) on the basis of existing components. And, last but not least, in the last
section of this chapter we will learn how to create a complete custom component that
is based on a .dsp file.
Chapter 7 introduces zk-bench. Zk-bench is a very useful tool and it supports
much more than just designing ZUL pages. It simplifies the development of web
applications a lot and it's build around the ZK framework.
The Appendix A contains information about the configuration files, which are
important in the context of a ZK application. You should use this appendix in
conjunction with Chapter 1 to get a better understanding of how to configure your
ZK application.
What You Need for This Book
The following is the list of software that you need to install and configure in order to
start working with ZK:
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ZK 2.3.0
Tomcat version 5.5.x (apache.tomcat.org)
The demo application from ZK 2.3.0 is a simple WAR file. Just copy the WAR
file into the webapps directory of the tomcat installation.
Eclipse version 3.3
Who is This Book For?
This book is a Developer's Guide that steps you through the ZK framework with
examples. It starts with installing and configuring ZK and takes you on to integrate
it with other frameworks. By the time you are through the book you will be able to
build an application on your own.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between
different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an
explanation of their meaning.
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