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What is sieve?

Sieve is a framework to implement applications that allow collaborative work. Sieve by itself does not have a visual interface; that must be provided by an application that interacts with Sieve, although it assumes it will be used to build an application with a visual interface. It is important to differentiate the application (usually called the Sieve client) from Sieve itself.

Sieve achieves collaboration by replicating events to all the other members of the current collaborative session. All events are sent to a central server that broadcast them.

Any class that is a subclass of java.awt.Component can be shared in a collaborative session using Sieve. Usually that class will be a Java Bean, allowing Sieve to know its properties and, in turn making the linking mechanism possible.

Versions of Sieve

There are two versions of Sieve. Version 1 of Sieve is the original implementation, and is documented in "Sieve: A Java-Based Framework for Collaborative Component Composition". Version 2 extends version 1 In the following ways:

• Support asynchronous, non-blocking link creation.

• Components can be named, and ill-behaved components (returning properties with null values) can still be used without crashing the application.
• Workbench supports cut, copy and past of multiple components at once.
• Includes a Sieve client called Sieve inetBench, that works inside a web browser using the java plug-in. The GUI of the client was enhanced and polished compared to the version 1 client, that was a standalone java application.
• Fixes many bugs in version 1.

Version Compatibility

Version 2 is downward compatible with version 1; that is, anything working in version 2 will work in version 1. The opposite is true for most components, but not for special kind of components that reimplement particular parts of Sieve.

Version 2 Feature Symbol

Any change from version 1 to version 2 will be marked with this sign along this document.

How to use this cookbook

• If you want a deeper (but not so deep as to be obscure) understanding of how Sieve works, go to "The architecture of Sieve: An inner view".
• If you are only interested in what it takes to write a component that works in Sieve, then go to "How to Write for Sieve".

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