Uphea

Uphea is an open-source real-world web application example built on Jodd frameworks. It presents many best-practices of using Jodd. Moreover, Uphea gives an excellent overview of key points and main strengths of Jodd framework; you will be able to feel the 'unbearable lightness' of Java web development. We decided to give you a chance to examine the real web application, and not only some half-baked pet-store example. Uphea will also be upgraded and enhanced in time, showing more and more Jodds features.

Download

Hey, you can try Uphea! Just download prepared Tomcat 7 bundle:

Unpack the bundle somewhere and execute run-uphea.bat or run-uphea.sh (cmod +x first!). And that's all! When Uphea web application is started for the first time, database will be initialized with demo data, so please be patient.

Then open your favorite browser and enter the following URL: http://localhost:8080 to see Uphea in action.

Source code

Source code is available on GitHub:

Key points

Small project size

Imagine… full blown web application with just less then 3 MB of runtime libraries; total of 3.2 MB of libraries.

Fast (re)start

Due to lightness of the project, Tomcat (re)starts really fast, just in 6 seconds on developers machine! Compare this to 20-30 seconds of common Spring/Hibernate web project. Calculate the difference and multiply by number of times you (re)start the application daily: you will have more time:)

Small memory footprint

As expected, memory footprint of live application is low (typically 200MB - 140 MB) and therefore it is a perfect match for just basic Java hosting plans. For comparison, similar project using other standard technologies leaves 60 MB of free memory or less.

Running web app out of container

With Jodd, you can simply run and test your web application from command line! Simple get any bean from Petite container and use it! Read more…

Easy transactions

In Uphea, we consider that Unit-Of-Work is encapsulated in Madvoc POJO action. Business services, from application layer, provide low-level logic that is used and combined in actions. Transactions are marked with annotations on action methods - and that is all! Of course, nothing stops you to mark any other method as transactional and to work in other way.

Custom annotations

Several frameworks in Jodd (Madvoc, JTX) allows users to define and use custom annotations with predefined values, to prevent repeating of common code. For example, annotations usage from previous example above, may be replaced with custom annotations that defines exactly the same element values - just with less code.

Don't write common SQL code

With Jodd Db you don't have to write common SQL code, for inserting, updating, finding by id and so on. Just use AppDao for that.

Template SQL for easy SQL scripts

Write (and also simplify) your SQLs using entity and property names.

Form validation

Did you know that besides the VTor (a Java validation framework in Jodd), you also have a JavaScript tool that simplifies form validation. It also offers a way to validate a form while user enters data (live validation), to validate using Ajax and so on.

Authentication and authorization as you like

Jodd also offers AuthInterceptor, a Madvoc interceptor that can be subclassed and used for auth* in standard ways. Using this interceptor it is easy to create Acegi-alike auth* system, where you can put definitions in xml files, or you can use some naming conventions and so on. In Uphea implementation of auth system is very easy; but this can be changed and enhanced to match most requirements.

Auto-magic configuration

If you take a look at the code, you will notice that there are no configuration files or code for Petite beans, Db entities and Madvoc actions. Jodd, by default, offers auto-magic configuration: the process of optimized (raw bytecode is examined) class path scanning and automatic configuration. So all you have to do is to put annotations in your POJOs. Of course, since in the nutshell all Jodd configuration is based on Java API, it is possible to have your own configuration system if you like (XML,…).

Easy dependency injection

Petite offers easy dependency injection using annotations; not only for wiring services, but also to inject services into Madvoc actions.

Rich entity DB mappings

Jodd DB offers to easily map database columns to various entity types. As seen in the User class, columns may be mapped to all common Java types, including primitives and Jodds types (such JDateTime). Moreover, it is very easy to add custom mappings, such as for custom enumeration (see UserLevel).

URL rewriting

Madvoc offers nice urls using URL rewriting with power of Java. Read more…

File upload

Madvoc works with uploaded files in the very same way as with parameters and attributes, using injection and annotated action fields.

Debug SQL mode for readable statements

If you ever logged prepared statement you will see bunch of '?' instead of real values. Not with Jodd!

Easy REST

Just anotate an action with required method name. Moreover, it is possible to control URL name extension per HTTP method name, e.g. to have all POST actions end with '.do'.

Easy REST mapping

With Madvoc it is possible to build more complex URL mappings, like the following one:

CSRF shield

A little, but precious tool. Again, easily available in Madvoc actions.

Optimize HTML and resources

HtmlStapler is a great tool to optimize multiple HTML resources into one big resource file, transparently! As result, instead of downloading several CSS and JS files, only two resource bundles will be downloaded. Moreover, Lagarto parser can optimize the HTML page and strip all unnecessary whitespaces.