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A Quick Tour of Netscape Application Builder

This section summarizes the features and user interface of Netscape Application Builder.

This section presents the following topics:


About Netscape Application Builder
Netscape Application Builder is an integrated development environment (IDE) for application developers, whose skills include languages such as Java, SQL, JavaScript, and HTML. Netscape Application Builder lets you develop applications for deployment on Netscape Application Server and on a web server.

For example, to build an application that accesses a relational database, you can use Netscape Application Builder to create forms and reports based on a database. You can design the application's presentation logic, such as performing validation and error-checking. You tie this functionality together by placing it on a set of HTML pages and JavaServer Pages that users access through a web browser. The result is a web-based application.

An overview of the design process is described in Designing Applications.

Feature Overview
Netscape Application Builder makes application development easy by offering the following features:


The Welcome Dialog Box
When you start Netscape Application Builder, a Welcome dialog box appears by default, as shown in the following figure:

From the Welcome dialog box, you can create a new project, open a recently used project, or browse for other projects. In addition, pressing the Tutorial button opens instructions for the online tutorial.


The Workspace
The workspace is the main window of Netscape Application Builder, and it provides a framework for the Netscape Application Builder user interface.

When no windows or dialog boxes are open, the workspace appears as shown in the following figure. Your particular workspace may look different, depending on how the toolbars and windows were arranged when you last used Netscape Application Builder.

Most of the workspace is used for displaying various windows. This section lists the different types of windows. It also describes how they typically appear in the workspace and how you can rearrange them.

Window Types
This section summarizes the windows you will interact with most often. Each type of window is introduced in a separate section later in this chapter.

Window
Description
Project window
Lists the files that are part of a project.
Project map
Used for verifying the page flow in an application. Displays a visual representation of file dependencies.
Editor windows
Used for editing files. Each one displays the contents of a particular file. The display modes that are available and the operations that are allowed depend on the kind of file being edited.
Palette
Used when editing HTML pages. Provides a set of prebuilt components, or building blocks, that make up an HTML page.
Properties window
Used together with an editor window for viewing or editing objects in a file. Lists the properties and events associated with objects in a file. Can also list properties of the file itself.
Message window
Displays diagnostics generated from building, testing, or deploying an application.

Moving and Resizing
As is typical in any integrated development environment, you can maximize, minimize, move, or resize the workspace by dragging the edges or by clicking the buttons in the right corner of the title bar. These operations are also available under the Netscape Application Builder menu, denoted by an icon in the left corner of the title bar.

A notable feature of Netscape Application Builder is that many of its windows are dockable. If a window is dockable, you can automatically resize it by dragging its title bar. All windows except editor windows are dockable.

A dockable window possesses "gravity"—an attribute that gives the window a tendency to "dock with," or snap to, other dockable windows, as well as to the workspace borders. As a result, dockable windows can never be obscured by other windows. For example, when two windows are docked to each other, dragging their common border enlarges one window but shrinks the other.

Docking promotes a well-organized workspace by allowing windows to attach snugly to each other, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.


The Main Menu
The Main menu consists of the following top-level options:

Menu
What to Use It For
File
Opening, closing, and saving files or projects; adding or printing files; downloading projects; quitting Netscape Application Builder.
Edit
Cutting, copying, pasting, deleting, undoing, redoing, finding, and replacing the contents of a file; opening files; navigation to specific lines.
View
Displaying Netscape Application Builder windows and toolbars.
Project
Adding files to a project, removing files from a project, deploying a project, importing Servlets and EJBs, packaging JARs, and setting project options.
Insert
Inserting objects into files. This menu is context-sensitive and appears only when you are editing a file.
Format
Applying formats to text and paragraphs. This context-sensitive menu duplicates features of the Format toolbar, and it appears only when you are editing an HTML or JSP file.
Build
Compiling an individual file, building or rebuilding an entire project, cleaning a project; registering files.
Test
Running your application on a runtime server to preview the application's behavior; using debug commands.
Tools
Using source code control and customizing the behavior of Netscape Application Builder.
Window
Managing which windows appear in the workspace, and how they are arranged.
Help
Viewing help on Netscape Application Builder and viewing online manuals.

In addition to the Main menu, context-sensitive menus appear whenever you right-click on a file or folder in the project. If you right click on a folder, NAB brings up the New File(s) dialog box. If the folder does not contain a file of the requested type and a wizard is available to create it, NAB opens the New tab of the dialog box and highlights the kind of file you have requested. Wizards exist for creating HTML, JSP, Java, Query, Data Model, and EJB files. If a file of the requested type already exists or if no wizard exists to create the file, NAB opens the Existing tab and highlights the file type below the icon.


Toolbars
Toolbars provide easy access to common tasks. When you place the cursor over any toolbar button, you see a tooltip—a word or phrase that summarizes the button's purpose. The toolbars are shown and described in the following table:

Toolbar
Description

The build toolbar provides shortcuts to items on the Build menu.

The debugger toolbar provides shortcuts to items on the Test menu.


The format toolbar has shortcuts to items on the Format menu, the context-sensitive menu that appears whenever an HTML file is open.

The project map toolbar lets you display the project map, change its view, or center elements in the map.

The query toolbar lets you quickly add select, insert, update, or delete statements to a query file.

The standard toolbar has commonly used commands from the File and Edit menus.

The test toolbar provides shortcuts to items on the Test menu.

Repositioning Toolbars
Toolbars normally appear immediately under the Main menu. You can reposition a toolbar by dragging its handle, which is shown as two parallel lines on the left side of each toolbar. Dragging a toolbar sideways switches its order in the row. Dragging slightly up or down creates a new row, if necessary, and places the toolbar there.

When you drag a toolbar into the workspace, one of two things can happen. If you drag the toolbar to an edge, the toolbar automatically attaches to—or docks with—the workspace. By contrast, if you drag the toolbar elsewhere in the workspace, you create a freestanding object called a floating toolbar.

A floating toolbar includes a title bar to better identify it. To restore a floating toolbar to a docked position, drag the toolbar to an edge of the workspace.

Showing and Hiding Toolbars
From the View menu, you can choose the Toolbars submenu to list the available toolbars. Each checked item indicates a toolbar that is currently displayed. You can choose an item to switch its state from displayed to hidden, or vice versa.


The Project Window
The Project window displays the files in a project, as shown in the following figure:

The file type view organizes files according to their content. The folder name indicates what type of files are contained within. This organization is preset. You cannot remove or rename folders. The file name view organizes files alphabetically, without using folders.

Every project includes exactly one project file (.gxm) and one registry file (.gxr). The project file is a master index that tracks which files are associated with that particular project. The registry file stores information that allows .java files and other files in the project to be registered with a Netscape Application Server.

You can double-click or right-click a file in the Project window. Double-clicking launches an editor window associated with that file type. Right-clicking displays a context-sensitive menu.

Project Folder and File Types
The following table lists the various Netscape Application Builder 4.0 project folders and describes their associated project files.

Folder Type
What It Contains
HTML Pages
HTML files whose contents are static.
JavaServer Pages
HTML files whose contents are dynamically generated.
Images
Graphic files in formats such as GIF and JPEG.
JavaScript Files
JavaScript files.
Java Files
Servlets and other Java code files.
Connections
Database connection parameter (.props) files.
Data Models
Data model (.kdm) files. Each query depends on a data model.
Queries
Query (.gxq) files. Query files contain SQL statements.
Compiled Files
Compiled source code such as Java classes.
Enterprise Java Beans
Enterprise Java Bean files.
NTV Files
Name-type-value parameter files.
Miscellaneous Files
Any files that don't belong in the above folders. For example, the registry file.


The Project Map
As you add, remove, or edit files, you can use the project map to verify application design. To display the project map, use the View menu or the project map toolbar. Two views are available, HTML Flow view and File Dependencies view.

In HTML Flow view, the project map displays web page relationships the way the end user will experience them. For example, the following figure shows an HTML file with a link to a JavaServer page.

In File Dependencies view, the project map displays the relationships of all files, not just those seen by the end user. For example, compare the previous figure to the following figure. The File Dependencies view reveals that the page flow is not a simple HTML hyperlink. Instead, index.html calls Results1.java, a servlet whose results appear on Results1.jsp.

File Dependencies view appears by default when you display the project map.


Editor Windows
To edit a file, you can open it by double-clicking it from the Project window or from the project map. You can also select the file in the Project window or in project map, then choose Open from the File menu or from the right-mouse menu.

Netscape Application Builder provides built-in support for editing the following types of files:

Depending on the type of file you open, a different editor window appears, with different features available. For example, when you edit HTML files, you can display the contents as markup text, as a structural outline, or as a layout design.

For more information about editing files in a project, see the individual chapters on HTML files, Java files, data models, and query files.

In addition, you can customize Netscape Application Builder to use an external HTML editor, Java editor, or image editor (for files with a .gif or .jpg suffix). To designate external editors, pull down the Tools menu and choose Development Options.

For more information, see Setting Development Options.

Arranging Editor Windows
You will often have more than one editor window open at the same time. Typically, you want each editor window to be large, but you don't need to see them all at once. It is easier to edit files when the windows are allowed to obscure one another, so editor windows are not dockable.

You can arrange editor windows using the same operations available for arranging the workspace—minimizing, maximizing, closing, moving, and resizing. In addition, Netscape Application Builder provides options under the Window menu to tile or cascade a set of windows. These options affect only editor windows, not dockable windows.


The Palette
While painting, an artist uses a palette for easy access to colors that are needed frequently. Similarly, while working with HTML pages and templates in Netscape Application Builder, you use the palette for easy access to the building blocks of your application. From the palette, you can drag and drop components onto pages, so you typically want the palette visible whenever you edit HTML pages and templates.

The palette appears when you pull down the View menu and choose Palette. The following figure shows two different views of the palette:

For more information on using the palette, see Creating Presentation Layout.


The Properties Window
The Properties window is useful for editing files, especially Java code. This window displays properties and events associated with the currently selected object in the workspace. These objects can be either the files in the project or the highlighted contents of a file.

You can open the Properties window in any of the following ways:

The Properties window is shown in the following figure. The information that appears in the window depends on the object that is currently selected.

For more information about the Properties window, see Viewing and Editing Project File Properties.


The Messages Window
Netscape Application Builder generates diagnostic output in response to actions such as building, testing, and deploying. The Messages window appears automatically whenever Netscape Application Builder generates messages to display. To manually show or hide the Messages window, pull down the View menu and choose Messages.

 

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