Pushing data from one user to another in Vaadin web app - gwt

Question

I get the fact that it might take more than 10 lines of code (hopefully not more than 50), but I was wondering if you could help me anyway.
I'm trying to update one user's UI thread at runtime, based on another user's input. I've created a basic project which implements three predefined users (jim, tom and threeskin). I'd like to send a message from jim to tom and have it appear as a new Label object in tom's UI, without threeskin ever knowing about it, even though they're all logged in. Oh, and jim shouldn't have to refresh his page. The label should just spawn on screen out of it's own accord.
To say that I'd appreciate some help would be the understatement of the decade.
public class User {
public String nume;
public User(String nume) {
super();
this.nume = nume;
}
}
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
public class Engine implements ServletContextListener {
public static ArrayList<User>userbase;
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent arg0) { }
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent arg0) {
System.out.println("This code is running at startup");
userbase =new ArrayList<User>();
userbase.add(new User("jim"));userbase.add(new User("tom"));userbase.add(new User("threeskin"));
}
}
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
public class InfigeUI extends UI {
User us3r;
#WebServlet(value = "/*", asyncSupported = true)
#VaadinServletConfiguration(productionMode = false, ui = InfigeUI.class)
public static class Servlet extends VaadinServlet {}
protected void init(VaadinRequest request) {
VerticalLayout everything=new VerticalLayout();
setContent(everything);
if (us3r==null){everything.addComponent(auth());}else{everything.addComponent(main());}
}
ComponentContainer auth(){
final VerticalLayout layout = new VerticalLayout();
layout.setMargin(true);
TextField userField=new TextField();
Button login = new Button("Log in");
login.addClickListener(new Button.ClickListener() {
public void buttonClick(ClickEvent event) {
us3r=login(userField.getValue());
if (us3r!=null){
saveValue(InfigeUI.this, us3r);
layout.removeAllComponents();
layout.addComponent(main());
}else{Notification.show("I only know jim, tom and threeskin. Which one are you?");}}
});
layout.addComponent(userField);
layout.addComponent(login);
return layout;
}
User login(String nume){
for (int i=0;i<Engine.userbase.size();i++){
if (nume.equals(Engine.userbase.get(i).nume)){return Engine.userbase.get(i);}
}
return null;
}
static void saveValue(InfigeUI ui,User value){
ui.us3r=value;
ui.getSession().setAttribute("something", value);
VaadinService.getCurrentRequest().getWrappedSession().setAttribute("something", value);
}
ComponentContainer main(){
VerticalLayout vl=new VerticalLayout();
Label label=new Label("This is the post-login screen");
String name=new String(us3r.nume);
Label eticheta=new Label(name);
TextField to=new TextField("Send to");
TextField message=new TextField("Message");
Button sendNow=new Button("Send now!");
vl.addComponent(eticheta);
vl.addComponent(label);
vl.addComponent(eticheta);
vl.addComponent(to);
vl.addComponent(message);
vl.addComponent(sendNow);
return vl ;
}
}

Answer 1

Basically you want three things
UI updates for a user which does no action himself, or in other words a message sent from the server to the browser. To enable this, you need to annotate the UI class using #Push. Otherwise, the update will only be shown when the user does something which causes a server visit, e.g. clicks a button
Some way of sending messages between UI instances (there is one UI instance per user). You can use some message bus implementation for this (CDI, Spring, ...) or you can make a simple on using a static field (static fields are shared between all users). See e.g. https://github.com/Artur-/SimpleChat for one way of doing it. It's also a good idea here to avoid all *.getCurrent methods as they in many cases will refer to another UI than you think (e.g. sender when you are in the receiver code), and you will do something else than you intend.
Safely update a UI when a message arrives. This is done using UI.access, also visible in the chat example.

Answer 2

First of all you need to enable the server push on your project help
based on Vaadin Documentation.
However, below code example will give what you want:
Create an Broadcast Listener Interface:
public interface BroadcastListener {
public void receiveBroadcast(final String message);
}
The Broadcaster Class:
public class Broadcaster {
private static final List<BroadcastListener> listeners = new CopyOnWriteArrayList<BroadcastListener>();
public static void register(BroadcastListener listener) {
listeners.add(listener);
}
public static void unregister(BroadcastListener listener) {
listeners.remove(listener);
}
public static void broadcast(final String message) {
for (BroadcastListener listener : listeners) {
listener.receiveBroadcast(message);
}
}
}
Your UI with Push Enalbed (via Annotation):
#Push
public class BroadcasterUI extends UI implements BroadcastListener {
#Override
protected void init(VaadinRequest request) {
final VerticalLayout layout = new VerticalLayout();
layout.setMargin(true);
setContent(layout);
final TextArea message = new TextArea("",
"The system is going down for maintenance in 10 minutes");
layout.addComponent(message);
final Button button = new Button("Broadcast");
layout.addComponent(button);
button.addClickListener(new Button.ClickListener() {
#Override
public void buttonClick(ClickEvent event) {
Broadcaster.broadcast(message.getValue());
}
});
// Register broadcast listener
Broadcaster.register(this);
}
#Override
public void detach() {
Broadcaster.unregister(this);
super.detach();
}
#Override
public void receiveBroadcast(final String message) {
access(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
Notification n = new Notification("Message received",
message, Type.TRAY_NOTIFICATION);
n.show(getPage());
}
});
}
you can find the full link here.