1.1 Writing Sophisticated Applications ¶

Kiss comes as a very basic running application. Since the front-end and back-end can be changed while the system is running, it is intended that a developer would start with this basic application and build it into the desired application.

The basic application the system comes with does not represent the kind of application that can be built with Kiss. It is intentionally kept basic so that it is easy to see how it works. In a real application, all of the possibilities made available with HTML and CSS are at your disposal without limitation. In other words, the only limitations to the sophistication of the application are your imagination and the amount of work you’re willing to put into it.

Kiss comes with a complete front-end framework that includes most of the things needed for a modern business web application. In fact, it is currently being used as the sole framework in some very large production systems. It works well. However, there is nothing in Kiss that prevents you from using other front-end frameworks such as React, Angular, Vue, etc. In fact, except for dealing with web services and authentication, you could exclusively use your preferred front-end framework.

The Kiss back-end is a complete back-end. It is currently being used by large web applications involving many hundreds of screens and SQL tables and thousands of users. The Kiss back-end contains many built-in features to efficiently handle many, many simultaneous users. Like the front-end, the Kiss back-end is designed to be as simple as possible to build production-quality web applications. For example, a web service can be built with a single source file containing just a handful of lines of code. Everything in Kiss is designed to be simple to understand, simple to use, and yet be fully compiled and run at top speed.

1.2 Kiss Highlights ¶

Some highlights of the Kiss system include:

• Back-end Highlights
• Front-end Highlights
• Back-end Web Service Example
• Front-end Web Service Usage Example

class MyWebService {
    void myWebMethod(JSONObject injson, JSONObject outjson) {
        int num1 = injson.getInt("num1");
        int num2 = injson.getInt("num2");
        outjson.put("result", num1 + num2);
    }
}

let data = {
    num1:  22,
    num2:  11
};
let res = await Server.call("services/MyWebService", "myWebMethod", data);
if (res._Success) {
    let result = res.result;
    //...
}

1.3 Supported Environments ¶

• Development Environment
• Production Environment
• Databases Supported
• Java

1.4 HTML component usage ¶

To use a component, add to HTML:

<my-component></my-component>

Add to JavaScript:

Utils.useComponent('MyComponent');

The component can put any HTML in the component location, have any functionality, have its own modal windows, and use other components. The component can have custom and non-custom attributes (like style). Non-custom attributes do what you’d expect them to do.

The system also supports tag-less components. This provides an easy way to package arbitrary blocks of code (that can have screens too).

1.5 System Maturity And Stability ¶

The Kiss system has been used in production environments for several years. Additionally, several commercial applications utilize Kiss. In spite of this, however, Kiss is constantly being adjusted in response to additional needs, evolving environments, and bug fixes.

We use Kiss daily in a Linux and PostgreSQL environment. Therefore, it is best tested there. While we support all of the listed environments, they receive a bit less testing. If you encounter a problem, please reach out to us. It is probably easy for us to fix, and we are happy to do so.

1.6 Getting All Source Code ¶

Source code for all of Kiss and its dependencies is freely available. The builder program located at src/main/core/org/kissweb/builder/Tasks.java contains the paths to all of the external dependencies (those not included in the Kiss distribution). The following lists the paths to the internal dependencies (those included with Kiss):

abcl.jar

https://common-lisp.net/project/armedbear

json.jar

https://github.com/blakemcbride/JSON-java

SimpleWebServer.jar (only used during development)

https://github.com/blakemcbride/SimpleWebServer

1.7 Support, Contact, And Links ¶

The Kiss main website is at https://kissweb.org

Source code is at https://github.com/blakemcbride/Kiss

Public discussion and support are available at
https://github.com/blakemcbride/Kiss/discussions

Issue tracking is at https://github.com/blakemcbride/Kiss/issues

Commercial support is available. Contact us via email at blake@mcbridemail.com

1.8 License ¶

Copyright (c) 2018 Blake McBride (blake@mcbridemail.com)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions, and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.9 Acknowledgments ¶

The Kiss design, code, documentation, and web site were written by Blake McBride. The author gratefully acknowledges and appreciates, among others, the following:

Apache Groovy located at https://groovy-lang.org

Dynamic Loader located at https://github.com/dvare/dynamic-loader

JSON-Java located at https://github.com/stleary/JSON-java (although I am using a modified version available at https://github.com/blakemcbride/JSON-java)

C3P0 located at https://www.mchange.com/projects/c3p0

Texinfo located at https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/

ABCL project located at https://common-lisp.net/project/armedbear

Melaine Sarbey (melswildart@gmail.com) for creating the Kiss logo.