Chapter 5 Creating and Managing Projects

This section describes the process of creating and managing projects.

• The Development Process
• Creating a Project
• Adding or Removing Files
• Editing Files
• Viewing and Editing Project File Properties
• Building a Project
• Deploying the Project
• Testing and Debugging

1. Start Netscape Application Builder.

This step assumes you have completed the preliminary planning and design tasks, as described in Designing Applications.

2. Create a project.

When you create a project, Netscape Application Builder generates a minimum set of files, and they serve as the project's foundation.

3. Add files to the project.

By reviewing the previously established application design, you know what functionality your application needs, and you know how many web pages the application consists of. These considerations determine what kind of files to add, as well as how many. You can add files one at a time, but you can also use wizards to quickly add a set of files associated with a specific application feature, such as a login page.

4. Edit files.

As you add files to a project, you can edit them by creating content, by inserting or modifying functionality, or by inserting or modifying the links between them. Different types of files appear in different editor windows. During the editing phase, you use the palette with HTML files. You also use the properties window to review or modify parameter-based information. As you edit, you can use the project map to verify the application's page flow.

5. Compile individual files or build the entire project.

After adding and editing a few files, you may decide to compile the Java files in the project so far. You can compile an individual file, or you can build the project, which compiles all Java files. As indicated in the previous diagram, you may need to return to the editing phase if compilation errors occur.

6. Test and debug individual files or the entire project.

After you successfully build the project, you can test it on a server to preview runtime behavior. Testing and debugging go hand in hand, because you can run the server in debug mode. As a result of testing and debugging, you may need to continue editing, then build again.

7. Deploy the project.

After successfully testing the project, you deploy it to one or more servers. You have now created a web-based application.

• Create files one at a time, from scratch.
• Create multiple files, using wizards.
• Add existing files.

1. Using your operating system, copy the files to the appropriate directory:

• Copy HTML pages (static files), JavaScript files, and images to your web server's document directory.
• Copy other files (queries, data models, Java source, Java Server Pages) to your project root.

Be sure also to copy any files referenced by the file you are copying.

2. In Netscape Application Builder, display the Add Files dialog box by pulling down the Project menu and choosing Add Files. You can also choose New then Files from the File menu and select the Existing tab.
3. Locate and select one or more files to add to the project, as shown in the following figure.

4. Double click to add a file or click Add.

The file and any files it references are added to the project.

1. Select the file in the Project window.
2. From the Project menu, choose Remove File. For example, to remove index.html, choose "Remove index.html". You may also right-click on the file.

The following confirmation dialog box appears:



3. Select the checkbox if you want to remove the file from the file system.
4. Click Yes to remove the file from the project.

• HTML files
• Java and JavaScript files
• JavaServer Pages
• data models
• query files
• EJB properties files
• Name-type-value (NTV) files

• Double-click the file in the Project window or project map.
• Right-click the file in the Project window or project map, then choose Open.
• From the File menu, choose Open File.

• Viewing Properties
• Editing Properties
• Using Custom Property Editors

Click the alphabetical view button to view properties in alphabetical order. Click the category view button to view properties in order by category.

For properties that must contain one of a restricted set of values, the set of possible values is represented as a drop-down box . To choose an option, click the down-arrow and select one of the listed options.

Some properties can be edited with a custom property editor, a dialog box created for a specific property. These properties show a button in the property definition box when you edit the definition. This button launches a custom property editor for that property, which helps you specify various attributes for this property value. For example, click the custom property editor button for the DataSet property on a Tile component would help you set the and format for that property. For more information on custom property editors, see

Some properties, notably categories, are expandable by clicking .

• Editing Data-Bound Properties
• Editing URLs
• Editing List Items
• Editing Colors

A display format allows you to format dates or numerical data at run time. This feature is also called a format mask, as it masks the raw data with a different format for viewing.

To use a custom property editor to edit the Display Format property, click the custom property editor button in the property definition. The custom property editor, shown below, appears:

A RowSet/RowField combination, described in Specifying or Creating a RowSet, yields one column of data from a query. You can provide more than one column of data in a given data-binding, however, by using a custom-built data expression that states which RowSets and RowFields appear in the single display.

To use a custom property editor to create a complex data expression, click the custom property editor button in the data expression property definition. The custom property editor, shown below, appears:

1. Choose a RowSet and a RowField.
2. Choose a format mask, if needed.
3. Click Add.

The expression for that field, delineated by %GX% and %/GX% to separate it from other HTML code in the template, is added to the "Data-binding expression" box. At runtime, this expression is replaced with dynamic data. The data-binding is identified by the notation RowSet.RowField; for example, valIn.LastName identifies the RowSet valIn and the RowField LastName.

4. Add any text or HTML markup, such as punctuation or spacing, between fields.

For example, if you add two RowFields called LastName and FirstName, you might want to add a comma and space between them by first adding LastName, then adding a comma and a space after the expression, then finally adding FirstName. The final product might look something like the following expression (note the comma after the valIn.LastName tag):

%GX TYPE="cell" id="valIn.LastName"% %/GX%, %GX TYPE="cell" id="valIn.FirstName"% %/GX%

5. When you have added all the GX tags you require, click OK to insert the data expression into your JavaServer Page.

• A link URL specifies the target for a hypertext link.
• An image URL specifies the location of an image.

A link URL is a target for a hypertext link. The target can be an HTML page, a servlet, or any other web object accessible from the user's browser.

1. To specify a link URL, click the custom property editor icon. The following illustration shows the resulting dialog box, with some sample data:

1. You can specify an object in your project by selecting an HTML page or a servlet from the drop-down boxes, or you can enter a URL by hand in the URL text box.
2. To add arguments (name/value pairs linked with = and separated by &), click Add and specify a name and value.
3. If this link is in an HTML template, you can bind any part of the URL to dynamic data from a servlet by clicking the associated Data-Bind button. Create a data-binding expression using the resulting dialog box as described in Editing Complex Data Expressions.

The source code for an image on an HTML page or template is located by a URL. The URL can be relative to the page, or a fixed, absolute address. If the URL is in a JSP, it cannot be relative to the page; it must be either absolute or relative to the application root. If the image resides on a JSP, the source can be determined dynamically by a data binding.

1. To edit an image URL, click the custom property editor for the Image Source or Low Res. Source property. The following dialog box appears:

1. To insert a relative URL to an image in your project, choose an image from the drop-down box.
2. To insert an absolute URL, click the Absolute URL radio button and enter the URL.
3. If this image is in an HTML template, you can determine the URL with dynamic data from a servlet by clicking the Data-Bound URL radio button and then clicking the associated Data-Bind button. Create a data-binding expression using the resulting dialog box as described in Editing Complex Data Expressions.