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Using Existing Projects with NAB 4.0

This appendix describes how you can use projects that run under Netscape Application Server Netscape 2.1 and 3.0 with Netscape Application Builder 4.0; for example, to deploy an existing application without change or to gradually or partially migrate your application into the NAS 4.0 programming model.

The following topics are discussed in this appendix:


Opening the Project
NAS 2.1 and 3.0 applications can be maintained in a NAB 4.0 project without modification. If the application is already in a prior-version NAB project, you can use the File menu's Open Project item in NAB 4.0 to open the project. If you want to create a NAB 4.0 project from files used in a prior-version of NAB or NAS, you can use the File menu's Create Project item to create the project and use the Project's menu Add File(s) item to add the files.

AppLogics appear as Java files, which can be invoked outside the project using the same URL as you used in NAS/NAB 2.1 or 3.0. You can compile these Java files and deploy them from within NAB, just as you would do for a NAB 4.0 project.

Note. Your existing application can link to a page in a NAS 4.0 application and vice versa; however, you cannot share session information between these applications using session objects.


Migrating to NAB 4.0
If you want to migrate your application to use the NAS 4.0 programming model, see Migration Guide: Netscape Application Server. Within NAB, you can make the following changes:

Note. Hierarchal queries are not supported.
Deploying to NAS 4.0
To deploy your application to NAS 4.0 you can use the deployment facility provided in NAB 4.0. There is no longer an option to filter out comments from HTML files, because NAB 4.0 generates tighter HTML code that does not need this filtering. If your application contains HTML files with long comments, or comments that you do not want your end-users to see, you should edit these comments out as part of the pre-deployment migration process.

Note. It is not advisable to reload the edited files into NAB 3.0 or earlier, since some of the HTML comments may contain information that was used by earlier versions of NAB.

To deploy and run your NAB 3.0 application under NAS 4.0, you will need certain classes that were supplied with NAB 3.0 in the package com.netscape.server.nas. The classes are as follows:

BaseLogic$DataSetContainer.class
BaseLogic$TemplateDataRoot.class
BaseLogic$TemplateMap.class
BaseLogic$TemplateMapList.class
BaseLogic.class
BaseResource.class
BaseUtils.class
DBDataSet.class
DataSet.class
FastStringBuffer.class
IDataSet.class
IExecContext.class
IListDataSet.class
IntHash.class
MethodHash.class
NASString.class
StringHash.class

Note. The NAB 3.0 deployment facility automatically deployed these classes if it detected that they were missing from the NAS 2.1 server you were deploying to. The NAB 4.0 deployment facility does not do this, because applications built under NAB 4.0 do not use these classes.

You should place these classes in the com/netscape/server/nas subdirectory of your Apps directory and arrange for them to be present on the NAS 4.0 server where you plan to run the application. You can deploy these classes to the server by

If you still have an installed copy of NAB 3.0 or NAB 2.x, deployment of applications by these tools to NAS 4.0 is supported and will automatically deploy all necessary class files.

Note. NAB 4.0 does not support deployment to versions of NAS earlier than 4.0, nor can it download any applications deployed by NAB 3.0 or earlier.

 

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