Cairngorm Microarchitecture

Pronunciation

Cairngorm (kârn gôrm)

n. yellowish-brown variety of quartz,
especially found in Scottish Cairngorm
mountain.
 What is it?

Collection of classes/interfaces against which we can

compile
Elegant collaboration and partitioning of design
responsibilities
"microarchitecture" - Provide the skeleton or
internal structure of moving parts, around which the
flesh and muscle particular to a business domain can
be layered
A standard way of building a Flex app.
 Why use it?

Multiple developers working on the project, and run

the risk of them all solving the same problem in
multiple different ways
Unified approach to problems
Inject complex functionality in a well understood
manner
Promote, enable and encourage reuse (business
objects, business services, etc.)
 The Pieces of Cairngorm

 Model Locator: Stores all of your application’s Value Objects (data) and shared
variables, in one place. Similar to an HTTP Session object, except that its stored client side
in the Flex interface instead of server side within a middle tier application server.

 View: One or more Flex components (button, panel, combo box, Tile, etc) bundled
together as a named unit, bound to data in the Model Locator, and generating custom
Cairngorm Events based on user interaction (clicks, rollovers, dragndrop.)

 Front Controller: Receives Cairngorm Events and maps them to Cairngorm

Commands.

 Command: Handles business logic, calls Cairngorm Delegates and/or other Commands,
and updates the Value Objects and variables stored in the Model Locator

 Delegate: Created by a Command, they instantiate remote procedure calls (HTTP, Web
Services, etc) and hand the results back to that Command.

 Service: Defines the remote procedure calls (HTTP, Web Services, etc) to connect to
remote data stores.
Cairngorm 2 Microarchitecture
 Model

 All client “state” data

 Anything retrieved from server
 Implements ModelLocator Cairngorm interface
 The model locator in an application is a singleton that the
application uses to store the client side model.
 Summary: Model is a Singleton containing data.
 View

 User Interface
 .mxml files w/controls (text fields, combobox, datagrid,
etc.)
 All data is pulled from model via a binding
 Controller

Allows communication between tiers of application

via
 Events
extend class
com.adobe.cairngorm.control.CairngormEvent
 Commands
implement interfaces
com.adobe.cairngorm.commands.ICommand
com.adobe.cairngorm.business.IResponder (optional)
Tie Events and Commands together in Controller
class
Conduit between user events and model changes
 Events

Events classes usually just a

 Collection of properties
 Constructor with params to populate those properties
Used to pass data between layers of an application
 Event - example
package com.echoeleven.controller.event
{
import com.adobe.cairngorm.control.CairngormEvent;
import com.echoeleven.controller.ApplicationController;
public class LoginEvent extends CairngormEvent
{
public var username:String;
public var password:String;
public function LoginEvent(username:String,
password:String) {
super(ApplicationController.EVENT_LOGIN);
this.username = username;
this.password = password;
}
}
}
 Command

 “Service to Worker” command pattern

 Must implement the Cairngorm Command interface
 If receiving data from server (e.g. RemoteObject), should
also implement Responder Interface
 Command class must implement execute() method
 execute() usually takes an event argument as a parameter
 Command - example
package com.echoeleven.controller.command
{
import com.echoeleven.model.ApplicationModel;
import com.echoeleven.controller.event.LoginDataChangeEvent;
public class LoginDataChangeCommand implements Command
{
public function execute(eventParam:CairngormEvent):void
{
var event:LoginDataChangeEvent = eventParam as
LoginDataChangeEvent;
var appData:ApplicationModel =
ApplicationModel.getInstance();
appData.username = event.username;
appData.password = event.password;
}
}
}
 Controller

Tie Event and Command classes together in

Controller class constructor
addCommand( ApplicationController.EVENT_LOGIN, LoginCommand );

Controller listens for event

When event is dispatched, command’s execute()
method called (by controller)
Conduit between user events and model changes
 Controller – Big Picture

1. View event triggered (e.g. click event)

2. Caught by private method in view (mxml file)
3. View method creates instance of event
(extending CairngormEvent)
4. View method dispatches that event via
CairngormEventDispatcher
5. Controller catches CairngormEvent and executes
associated Cairngorm Command
private function btnClick( event:Event ):void {
var evt:LoginEvent = new LoginEvent(userName.text, password.text);

CairngormEventDispatcher.getInstance().dispatchEvent( evt );
}
 Example Flow

 Create LoginDataChangeEvent class

 Create LoginDataChangeCommand class
 Connect Event to Command in controller
 Catch the TextField.change event, and call local function
dataChange()
 Create instance of LoginDataChangeEvent and dispatch it
 LoginDataChangeCommand.execute() automatically called
 execute() method modifies Model
 Change to model reflected in View through binding
 Service Locator

Singleton
Abstracts data communication layer
Defines which protocol (http, SOAP, AMF, etc.) and
which endpoint params (which service, which
channel, etc.)
 Business Delegate

Who should handle the results of a server operation?

Avoids attaching result/error routines to data
services (e.g. RemoteObject)
Allows Command to call remote object method, and
handle the result and fault methods
Multiple instances may exist
 Business Delegate

The Business Delegate typically fulfills its role in

collaboration with the Service Locator; it uses the
Service Locator to locate and look up remote
services, such as web services, remote Java objects,
or HTTP services. Once located, the Business
Delegate invokes these services on behalf of the class
that has delegated responsibility to it for business
logic invocation.
 References

Cairngorm Docs
Borrowed contents from Scott Talsma’s slide