Base class required for all Vaadin applications. This class provides all the basic services required by Vaadin. These services allow external discovery and manipulation of the user, {@link com.vaadin.ui.Window windows} andthemes, and starting and stopping the application.
As mentioned, all Vaadin applications must inherit this class. However, this is almost all of what one needs to do to create a fully functional application. The only thing a class inheriting the Application
needs to do is implement the init
method where it creates the windows it needs to perform its function. Note that all applications must have at least one window: the main window. The first unnamed window constructed by an application automatically becomes the main window which behaves just like other windows with one exception: when accessing windows using URLs the main window corresponds to the application URL whereas other windows correspond to a URL gotten by catenating the window's name to the application URL.
See the class com.vaadin.demo.HelloWorld
for a simple example of a fully working application.
Window access. Application
provides methods to list, add and remove the windows it contains.
Execution control. This class includes method to start and finish the execution of the application. Being finished means basically that no windows will be available from the application anymore.
Theme selection. The theme selection process allows a theme to be specified at three different levels. When a window's theme needs to be found out, the window itself is queried for a preferred theme. If the window does not prefer a specific theme, the application containing the window is queried. If neither the application prefers a theme, the default theme for the {@link com.vaadin.terminal.Terminal terminal} is used. The terminalalways defines a default theme.
@author IT Mill Ltd.
@version 6.7.1
@since 3.0