modular/pluggable java web application

Question

I have been trying to build a modular web application.

My requirements are to generate UI dynamically, but have the components of the ui be pluggable. For instance I may have a core set of UI widgets that come out of the box, but if a client wanted to create there own there would be a defined interface for them to implement their own component.

I am using vaadin for my ui framework. And would just like to have the end users provide a jar or war file that contains there ui. I don't want to have to bundle the jar inside my war file however, whatever the end user provides should be deployable as is.

I have looked at using osgi, and have been able to get a framework that allows for dynamic ui from bundles using vaadin, however I am going through dependency hell with other req. Are there other alternatives I haven't considered?

Answer 1

I got this working the way I wanted using osgi and vaadin. I used this tutorial as a reference. That got me half way to what I needed.