WebLogic Platform ISV Partners' Guide
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This chapter includes the following topics:
WebLogic Workshop provides Java controls: software modules that give developers the ability to easily connect with existing data, systems, applications, and business logic. Java controls are visual components with methods and properties that meet all of the J2EE requirements governing how connections are made to an external source or piece of business logic. Developers interact with controls by handling events and setting properties.
In addition to the Java controls embedded in WebLogic Workshop 8.1 itself, Workshop 8.1 offers an architecture based on extensible controls. Extensible controls enable developers to create reusable components of business logic as modules that can be integrated with any enterprise resource, ISV application, or piece of business logic. Custom Java controls can leverage native Workshop Java controls. They can also be nested and easily reused. Moreover, any Java control can be incorporated in any project that spans multiple Web services, Web applications, and other WebLogic Platform applications. The process of creating a custom control is primarily one of declaratively specifying control behavior, and then focusing on handling events and calling methods with standard procedural Java code. This process does not require you to learn a new API.
Custom Java controls play an important role in Workshop's extensibility model, which provides a means for you to enhance Workshop's integrated environment for building Web applications efficiently. Through the Workshop extensibility model, you can enhance this environment to provide support for application and productivity needs that are not yet addressed by WebLogic Workshop.
Workshop's extensibility model encompasses four main areas:
In addition, the extensibility model provides a means by which you can deliver online help that is both specific to your extension and fully integrated with the WebLogic Workshop help system.
For more information about Workshop's extensibility model, see Extending WebLogic Workshop in the WebLogic Workshop Help.
BEA's Extensibility Portal contains the latest updates to the Extensibility Development Kit, (described in Building Advanced Controls), along with updates to the documentation and samples, and other useful resources. Visit the Extensibility Portal at the following URL:
http://dev2dev.bea.com/products/wlworkshop81/workshop_ext.jsp
Note that one valuable resource at the Extensibility Portal of interest to ISVs is the Workshop Controls and Extensibility Program. This program provides a framework for assisting partners in building, testing, distributing, and marketing custom controls and IDE extensions. More more information about the Workshop Controls and Extensibility Program is available at the following URL:
http://dev2dev.bea.com/products/wlworkshop81/ext_overview.jsp
For ISVs, the use of Java controls is beneficial because these controls:
To make it easy for ISVs to deliver custom Java controls to end users, BEA provides the following services and features:
For a complete introduction to Workshop controls, see the following topics in the WebLogic Workshop Help:
For the latest samples and documentation updates for building extensions to WebLogic Workshop, visit the Extensibility Portal at the following URL.
http://dev2dev.bea.com/products/wlworkshop81/workshop_ext.jsp
The Extensibility Development Kit, provided by WebLogic Workshop, includes a package called the Control Development Kit. The latter kit provides tools for incorporating advanced features into Java controls. For example, you might use the tools in the Control Development Kit to make your Java controls highly customizable by end users, or to provide sophisticated property editors that are not required by all applications.
The Control Development Kit includes sample code and documentation that demonstrate, as well as describe, the advanced features of the Java control architecture. Using the samples as a guide, you can build controls with increasingly sophisticated capabilities. For example, your custom controls might:
After you install WebLogic Platform, the Control Development Kit is located in the following directory:
BEA_HOME
/weblogic81/samples/workshop/ExtensibilityDevKit/ControlDevKit
For complete details about using the Control Development Kit, see Developing Advanced Controls in the WebLogic Workshop Help.
Note: The Extensibility Development and Control Development Kits are delivered in WebLogic Platform 8.1 Service Pack 2 and later. However, we recommend you visit the Extensibility Portal to obtain the latest versions of those kits, along with the latest samples and updates to the documentation.
Depending on the nature or complexity of your control or IDE extension, you may choose to include online help. WebLogic Workshop includes a documentation system that enables you to add new content to support that control or extension. When you follow our guidelines for delivering help, you ensure that your documentation is integrated with the table of contents and search engine for the existing help. If you are delivering controls, you also guarantee that when a user selects your control in Source or Design View, and then presses F1, your documentation is available.
The topic Help Authoring Guide in the WebLogic Workshop Help explains how to do the following tasks for the documentation you provide for your controls and extensions.
The Help Authoring Guide includes links to a stylesheet you can use for creating your help files in HTML format, and your table of contents, in XML.
WebLogic Workshop makes it easy to package two types of custom controls:
The following sections describe these two control types in detail.
Control deliverables are archive files that contain the top-level directories described in the following table.
Control implementation archive and any dependency archive JARs |
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Note that while only a single control implementation JAR can exist in the controls
folder, multiple controls may be bundled into that JAR. The first time an end user tries to install your custom control into any application, the control implementation archive and all its dependency archives are copied to the application's Libraries
folder.
Once your control implementation files are complete, you right-click the name of the control project folder, then click Build Control Deliverable. WebLogic Workshop collects all the required files into a ZIP file and places that file in the application folder.
For more information about how to package control deliverables, see the following:
Control stubs allow you to make custom controls available to end users without requiring them to install the implementation files for those controls on their machines. Custom controls that can be accessed through stubs are listed on the menu displayed by the Workshop when you choose Insert
With control stubs, you can deliver controls just in time to your end users. As an ISV, you can take advantage of this capability to keep the controls offered at your Web site up to date. Customers who download your controls through stubs are guaranteed to receive the latest versions of your control implementations.
Note: If an end user who has downloaded a control through a control stub later wants a subsequent version, the user must reinstall the control, using the newer version.
For more information about creating control stubs, see "Using Control Stubs as Placeholders" in Packaging Controls for Installation in the WebLogic Workshop Help.
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