Financial applications need space
One window is not enough anymore for modern, complex financial applications. They span screens and break out of browsers, to provide a multi-window, multi-monitor experience. Finsemble, by ChartIQ, allows developers to build such richly functional desktop applications, while using familiar web technologies. In addition to rendering HTML and running javascript, it offers out-of-the-box features such as desktop notifications, application interoperability and window management.
Integrating Reactive Trader® with Finsemble
Here at Adaptive we love getting hands-on with the latest technology, so we were keen to get our open-source trading application, Reactive Trader®, running on the Finsemble platform. The process was straightforward - within a few hours, we had a working prototype.
What needed to be done
First, we requested access to Finsemble’s private repositories, which are hosted on NPM. We then downloaded the Finsemble seed project.
Finsemble is a configuration driven platform, with customization coming from several JSON files. These are divided into a root configuration for the main application, and others for individual features such as components, workspaces and services. As an example, below you can see how straightforward it is to integrate our blotter with the Finsemble platform:
Finsemble comes with two ‘integration layers’ - visual integration, and logical integration. Using these configuration files we quickly achieved visual integration in Reactive Trader®, in the form of the four categories below:
Snapping and Docking
Tabbing
Workspace management
Tiling
Bringing components together
Finsemble’s logical integration supports a range of data sharing capabilities, allowing applications to communicate with each other through either context linking, or drag and drop.
Message publishers and receivers can be injected into the respective components, requiring little or no configuration or code. Here are some examples for Reactive Trader®:
Publish JS injected into a Spot Tile component.
Receiver JS injected into Currency Chart component
Receiver in Currency Chart, adding a handler once the Finsemble object has been initialised.
Summary
The process of integrating Reactive Trader® with Finsemble was straightforward, and we were quickly leveraging the platform’s most powerful features.
You can find out more about Finsemble here, also to learn more about the latest activity on Reactive Trader®, take a look at our post here.
Written by an Adaptive Consultant.
