What's New in Workshop for WebLogic?

BEA Workshop for WebLogic Platform version 9.2.1

Workshop for WebLogic version 9.2.1 provides new tools for developing web services, web applications, and for testing applications.

Updates available through the Eclipse feature update mechanism. Version 9.2.1 is distributed using an Eclipse update site. For information on downloading the version 9.2.1 update see http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs92/index.html on the edocs website and Updating to the Latest Version of Workshop for WebLogic.

Web Service Design View. The web service Design View lets you design all of the major features of a web service using a graphical development environment. The following features are included:

Creation of web methods, callbacks, and event handlers
Direct configuration of conversational and buffering properties
Inline method signature editing, with syntax highlighting and code completion
Simultaneous editing of separate interface and implementation files
Improved error detection and messaging

For details see Using Design View to Create Web Services.

Page Flow Overview. The Page Flow Overview gives a graphical overview of an entire page flow, including its JSP pages, actions, and navigational relationships. This high-level view of a page flow gives the developer a total picture of how a page flow is structured. For details see Page Flow Overview.

Continuous automatic graph layout
Improved layout algorithm
Selection is synchronized with the Page Flow Editor
Graph Tracing mode makes reading complex graphs easier
Print graphs or export them as images

Improved Test Client functionality. The Test Client now supports directly testing services that have callbacks as well as services that have only JMS as a transport. The Test Client is downloaded along with the Workshop for WebLogic 9.2.1 update, but it must be installed manually. For details on installing and using the Test Client to test web services, see Testing Web Services with the Test Client.

Cheat Sheets. A variety of cheat sheets are now available to get you started with Workshop for WebLogic. The following cheat sheets are available:

NetUI Web Application: Hello World
Web Service Application: Hello World
Using XMLBeans

For details on opening a cheat sheet, see Workshop for WebLogic Cheat Sheets.

BEA Workshop for WebLogic Platform version 9.2

One of the key aspects of this release is its support of open sources technologies. As described below, Workshop for WebLogic integrates these technologies into a development experience whose focus is easing the creation of complex applications.

An IDE built on Eclipse 3.1. This version of the IDE is built on the Eclipse Platform, an open source framework that is now widely used for Java development. Workshop for WebLogic builds on the framework by adding support for the iterative development model introduced in version 8.1, as well as for easing the use of the open source technologies it incorporates. Instead of the proprietary IDE framework used in previous releases, Workshop for WebLogic extends Eclipse 3.1.2 and the Web Tools Platform 1.0.2.

Apache Beehive technologies. Version 9.2 incorporates Apache Beehive, the open source framework for web applications. Beehive includes:

Beehive NetUI: a web application framework based on Apache Struts. Introduced in 8.1 as Page Flow technology, Beehive NetUI has evolved into an open source web application framework. Version 9.2 includes advanced tooling features to help developers build Beehive NetUI applications, including tools for JSP and Page Flow controller authoring.
Beehive Controls: a lightweight component framework based upon annotated JavaBeans. Beehive controls provide an easy to use client model for accessing a variety of resource types. The built-in controls introduced in 8.1 (database, EJB, JMS and web service controls) are available as J2EE system controls in 9.2. You can also create your own custom controls using a new, transparent, POJO architecture.

Support for Java Server Faces. Version 9.2 supports integration of Java Server Faces technology with Beehive NetUI, including:

Support for JSF pages in NetUI Beehive applications
Tools support for JSF backing files and event handlers
Integration of JSF with the Beehive NetUI lifecycle

Support for standards-based Java web services. The same groundbreaking web service support in version 8.1 has been carried forward in version 9.2, now built on JSR-181. Web service support includes:

Asynchronous callbacks
State management with conversations
Easy iterative development with the test browser
Reliable messaging with JMS and WS-Reliability
Message level security with WS-Security/WS-Policy

Support for Java 5 annotations. As with version 8.1, version 9.2 supports the use of annotations to simplify the development of complex components. While most of the functionality of the version 8.1 annotations carries forward into this version, this version uses Java 5 annotations (based on the JSR-175 standard). Workshop for WebLogic continues to provide tool support to keep the use of annotations simple, including a property editor for intuitive annotation editing.

Tools for upgrading applications from version 8.1. Version 9.2 makes it easy to upgrade your 8.1 applications. Upgrade support includes:

Pre-upgrade reporting that doesn't affect the original source code
Automatic handling of application and project structure upgrade
Automatic file extension renaming
Wizard and command line versions of the upgrade tool