Google introduces Google Web Toolkit 2.0 for developers

Whilst the search giant Google provides a rather hefty amount of free tools for regular consumers, it also offers a wealth of services for developers. One such service is the Google Web Toolkit, which has just had version 2.0 released today, complete with a new tool named 'Speed Tracer.'

The announcement, written about on Google's blog, was hinted at a couple weeks back by the company, though not many details were given. The toolkit released today is open source, which is nothing but a good thing for developers, and packs the following improvements:

• GWT 2.0 greatly improves the edit/refresh cycle by introducing a new method of debugging called development mode that allows you to debug your project with the browser of your choice — yes, your browser, not one dictated by GWT. Development mode relies on a new browser plugin, called the GWT Developer Plugin, that makes it possible for your Java project to create a debugging bridge to any browser into which it is installed. Technical details aside, this new way of debugging really just feels right.
• By moving your debugging experience directly into the browser, development mode makes it possible to use each browser's own unique development tools in combination with Java debugging. That's right, you can now debug your Java source code in Firefox while simultaneously using great tools like Firebug to view DOM structures and experiment with CSS. Ditto for Safari and Inspector, and so on for other browsers.
• The new Google Plugin for Eclipse includes streamlined support for launching and controlling development mode, including a new view that embeds development mode logging messages directly as an Eclipse view. It's also possible to launch development mode manually, which utilizes a Swing-based user interface and can work completely outside the context of Eclipse, including in IDEs other than Eclipse.
• Development mode also supports multi-browser debugging, meaning that you can connect to more than one type of browser from a single debugging session. This dovetails especially well with the ability to leave a development mode session running for an extended period of time, allowing you to simply refresh the browser to see the results of changes to your Java source. It's a great way to quickly ensure that your project works properly across all the major browsers without needing to restart the Java debugger.

This is, of course, a small selection of the improvements made. One new tool which Google has been showing off is called 'Speed Tracer', a plugin for its web browser, Chrome, aimed at improving web apps; not just web apps built with the GWT, but any of them, in addition to helping figure out why an app is sluggish with immense detail. The company has posted a YouTube video about Speed Tracer, and the toolkit itself, which we have included below. If you're a developer and you want to get playing with this straight away, do so at this link.