OpenLaszlo 4.0 is the only RIA technology capable of generating DHTML/Ajax or Flash out of the same code base. With the announcement of OpenLaszlo 4.0 in March we have triggered a new wave of interest in the OpenLaszlo technology. But still many developers wonder how they can integrate OpenLaszlo with their Java back end system. LZProject will provide answers to some of these questions and give you a good overview of the general architecture of an OpenLaszlo application.

LZProject includes both the client application, written in LZX, and all necessary back end components, including Java servlets and a small Apache Derby Java embedded database. It’s been designed to be simple to deploy and easy to modify. The application supports English, German and Korean locales at the current stage. We hope that you’ll download and use the application as you read the white paper, and, if you’re a software developer, that you’ll download the sources and play with them too.

You can download LZProject as a Java Web Application (WAR file) and deploy it on your own Java servlet container. The WAR file is the SOLO version of LZProject, containing two SOLO compiled files (SWF/Flash7 and JavaScript) of LZProject. It will run on any system capable of running a Java servlet container such as Tomcat 5.0 or higher. LZProject has been tested to run in DHTML mode in Firefox 2.x, Safari 2, Webkit, Opera 9.22 (still displaying a warning for DHTML runtime). The Flash runtime version will run in any Browser with at least Flash7 support.

The complete source is available from the OpenLaszlo Subversion server at svn.openlaszlo.org/labs/lzproject. Build instructions can be found in the Wiki, including a screen cast showing how to build LZProject.

We hope that the OL4 Blueprint App LZProject and the accompanying white paper will contribute to an even wider OpenLaszlo adoption around the world and are glad for any feedback on the application and the white paper.