Implementation of Maple, a browser-based staff management application using Google web development toolkit and Sencha GXT application framework

Software projects today are increasing in size and complexity. Planning and leading software projects can be challenging and require staff planning, monitoring and controlling. Software organizations can have multiple projects executed at one time and multiple people working on those projects. Software managers are responsible for managing the projects as well as the staff working on those projects. The web-based application, Maple, was implemented to help software organizations manage projects as well as the people working on those projects. The Maple application is capable of creating, editing and managing staff plans. The application keeps track of the staff and the number of hours allocated for each staff member for a specific project. Maple was developed using the Java programming language, Google's Web Development Toolkit (GXT) and Sencha Application Framework for Google Web Toolkit (Sencha GXT). GWT is a free, open source Google product containing a development toolkit which is used for building optimized browser-based applications. GXT is a layer on top of GWT that provides high-performance widgets, richer templates, layouts, charting, themes, and much more. Many contributions have been made toward GWT and Sencha GXT which will be discussed later in detail. The setup of the development platform is described, including the tools and packages used to develop the application.