WWDC2000 Session 405

Transcript

Kind: captions
Language: en
because it's on everyone here we good
morning everyone my name is Miguel
Sanchez I'm a member of the web objects
engineering group and with me as my
cough Hines will be helping me out
during the demos let me get a quick read
of the audience out there how many of
your web objects developers who have
used web objects good how many of you
have used direct web ok for those of you
that haven't the first type of the talk
will be an introduction to direct web so
don't don't freak out
but we'll also be talking about some
advanced features of direct web for
those users has anybody used directly
web in 4 or 5 yet ok one person I'm
going to be talking about some of the
new features we have so what is director
web director web is the Java based
technology for rapid development of web
of database driven web applications
if you ever install whenever you install
web objects on your system don't go out
looking for an application called direct
web because you won't find it there is
no such thing
director web is really a set of things
it's it's a Java framework called
director web
it's a project builder wizard and a web
assistant applet that will help you
configure applications at runtime so the
first thing we're going to do is we'll
jump right into a demo we're going to
make your head spin with demos today we
have four demos so I hope we don't lose
you could we get the demo machine up on
screen so we're going to give you a very
quick demo of what directed web can do
for you
we're we what we're going to do here is
create a very simple database
administrative application that uses a
restaurants database we're going to use
the restaurant database throughout all
of our demo the database models
restaurants and their locations and the
type of food they serve and we're going
to be customizing our site along the way
so what we would start out doing is
bringing a project builder and typing in
the name of our application in this case
it's going to call it's going to be
called tengo hambre which in Spanish
means I'm hungry
we choose it to be
yeah we pick the application to be of
type of objects application this is the
first place where you see direct web as
a project builder wizard so within
project builder you choose your
application to be of type direct to web
so we go on and here we specify the
model before the wait before the demo we
we created our database we created an
ear model and that's pretty much the
only thing that directory to every
requires to jumpstart the application so
might just pick the model the tengo
hambre model will we'll be talking about
the model a little later on and we put
next we choose a look I'll talk about
the looks later need to look and then we
launch and that's it okay based solely
on the information you gave us in the
model director web has built this very
generic application for you with the
logins with a login page we login to the
application and it automatically knows
about all of the tables or the entities
in your model about their attributes and
it gives you a whole set of pages to do
stuff with them you can query on them
you can insert the lead you can list
them so for example we're going to look
we're going to search on restaurants
we're going to go to the restaurant
search page and we would look for
restaurants that begin with the letter M
and this is live we're hitting the
database we get a list page with all the
restaurants if we wanted to delete we
could hit the icon on the left hands the
right-hand side of the of the screen or
we could drill down into a more specific
record like we're going to look into my
restaurant right now we goes Mexican
food so we get edit pages we could let's
say that my my food chain is doing so
well and my chicken fajitas are hit so
we add a new location actually we don't
have any location so it's my first
location so we have we have pages to
edit to add objects with relationship to
other objects okay we'll be talking more
about all this right right now what I
wanted to let you know is that you get
all of this for free just by giving us
your ear model and this is
live-in hitting the database and another
thing I'd like to point out could we
bring up the project okay so he
introduced a new location he saved the
project okay
the main thing I'd like to point out
here is there is no code okay there is
no here's your project and there's no
reference to any such thing as query
restaurant page headed restaurant page
all of these pages are being generated
generated dynamically at runtime for you
okay so it's not just a wizard that
dumps code on in turn your project this
is all dynamic and with that what that
means actually you can you can change it
at runtime you can do a lot of
customization without having to write
any code so we'll get back to the slides
now so that was a very very quick
introduction to director Webb what kind
of applications would you want to use
director Webb for well first of all I
think you should all consider director
Webb as your generic database
administration application for any
application you do without doing
anything you have this application that
that gives you edit pages and query
pages and delete pages and all this is
probably the first step to validating
your model does it work you don't have
to write anything you just want to make
sure that relationships point the way to
what you want them to point that things
make sense on the web but you can also
use it to to create very real very
functional intranet and work group
applications this isn't just a
prototyping tool and the reason for that
is that we offer you an iterative
application development cycle director
web plugs into all the different layers
that web objects producer
provides you so you're not just playing
around with prototypes here what are the
advantages of using director well first
of all you get a rich set of default
pages and behaviors things you don't
have to write okay hopefully this will
allow you to concentrate on your
business model and the specific logic of
your application you also get something
boy
what we call wiziwig application
customization ban what we mean by this
is that we offer you a tool so that at
runtime you can customize your
application without recompiling it's a
good starting point for learning with
objects if you feel intimidated by the
learning curve this is probably a good
thing to fire up and and have a quick
running application right away and don't
forget it offers you a layered approach
to application development if you're an
experienced web object developer you can
plug into the more advanced layers of
director web okay director web is not
just a prototyping tool what is the
typical development cycle for the
regular web application as we saw we
begin with their director web I'm sorry
with a neo model the basis of a director
web application is a good good database
definition with this we give you a
default director web application what
you saw well you get all these pages to
edit and lead and administer your
database then you bring up a Java applet
which we call the web assistant and this
applet runs alongside your browser and
you can tell us to configure certain
things certain things in your page the
way you want them to be after having
done this you have a more customized
director web application notice that at
this point you still haven't written any
code but you can get to that there's
going to be a point where you probably
want to touch your HTML and you want to
write your own java code or tweak some
of the java we have you can do that and
the end result will hopefully be a
custom with objects application so
remember director web offers you
different layers in in which you can
program you can be at the very top like
a very very top layer using a java
applet know code and get using all the
default behavior we give you you can
also work at a middle layer when you're
want to change the way your pages looks
with the layout and you can get down to
the guts and write Java and do your own
HTML so we're going to focus on layer
one right now
this is a zero length of code layer what
we ask from you right now is to give us
a model and we'll give you a lot of
default behavior first of all you get
three different looks that you can pick
with director webs
you also get nine different task pages
and a web assistant to configure these
with so we're going to take a look at
the looks now these are the types of
looks you can have in your with objects
application by default this is what we
call the basic look the menu bar runs
across the top and the main content of
your applications in the middle this is
the list page for the basic look we also
have the neutral look which is the one
we're going to be using in our demo here
where
the same functionality is the basic look
except that the menu bar runs across the
side and there's no references to any
Apple icons so this is a good starting
point for customizing your own
application for your corporate look and
feel and the web objects look very
similar to the neutral look but except
that we have Apple icons here and there
for those of you that have used director
web in the previous versions the neutral
look is new for version 4 5 once you
pick the look you want for your
application
we give you tasks pages with those pages
you'll be able to query on you'll be
able to insert new entities you'll be
able to associate really entities and
relationships and you get all this for
free but there going to be a point where
the default behavior would give you is
not good enough for you you want to you
want to tell us a little more about how
you want your attributes displayed which
entities you want read-only which ones
you want to rewrite for that we offer
you a web assistant which is a little
Java applet which you're going to show
you right in a moment where you can tell
us how you want certain things displayed
you can make certain decisions and you
can do all this without writing any any
code so the web insistant allows you to
configure things like your access
permissions and the entities the way you
want to display your attributes and
general page layout issues this is the
final application where we're
working towards the tengo hambre
application we're going to have three
pages in the first page we're going to
have a query page for restaurants where
users can log in and and and query on a
particular restaurant based based on a
certain type of food or where the
restaurant is after they do their query
that would see the results of all the
possible restaurants they can go to and
then they would pick a particular
restaurant and get the information such
as where it is and how to get there and
and the phone number so that's that's
what we want to get to it can take a
three demos to do that but I want you to
have that in your mind this is the model
we're using the main entities in our
database are going to be restaurants and
locations where they are each location
might have a different price range
depending on the city and each
restaurant might have might prepare more
than one type of cuisine so now we go
off to demo two in the first demo we
created a very generic and application
that allowed us to access the restaurant
database that we had created prior to
the demo in this demo wrong screen no no
I'm looking at the and yeah I was
looking down here it's okay so in this
application we're going to start a
customized give our application a little
more the look and feel that we want and
the first thing we do is bring up the
web assistant which is a Java applet
runs alongside our browser just coming
up
we were you we're running this on
michaelis server one - without any wind
so here's the web assistant and the web
assistant has different tabs depending
on the the function you want to perform
at that moment so let's look at the
entities tab if you bring up this tab
you'll be able to tell us which entities
you want to have in your application be
read/write which ones you want to read
only and which ones you want to hide all
together for our purposes of the demo we
want everything to be read/write only we
don't want the user set on internet
changing our app or information on the
database the next step you see is the
pages the page tab here you can
customize certain attributes about your
whole page for example let's go to list
page on restaurants let's do a query and
here the notice that the live assistant
is following you depending on the page
you go to that's what that's the display
of the live assistant so here you can
tell us things like well do you want to
show the banner or not what kind of
color do you want for the background
tables some pages even have more than
one way of displaying themselves for
example you can display the results of a
query in a plain list format or in a
master-detail format or your list page
that shows the results in columns rather
than rows in this case what we're going
to do is get rid of the banner we do
save and then we refresh notice that we
changed some configuration in the live
assistant we refresh the page and the
banner is gone by the way the banner was
the thing that said list not this thing
which is called a batch navigation bar
and you need that because you might have
more than one page worth of results so
the next tab on the web assistant is
called the properties and this is
probably where you're going to be
spending most of your time we're going
now to the query page for restaurant and
the properties tab and you'll be able to
see in the middle column right here
you'll be able to see all of the
properties that are currently displayed
for that page in this case querying on
an icon
restaurant does not make sense that we
want to get rid of that so we can hide
properties right we also want the name
property to be the first thing on the
page so we can move it up to the top
okay and then we can do
click update on the web assistant or
save and do a refresh and we see that
change in our application at runtime
okay we also have in addition to
renaming them and reorder them we can we
can choose to display them using
different different air fields for
example in the locations we don't want
people to query based on street address
we want them to query based on the zip
zip code so we tell her you know display
the zip code for this field and then for
cuisines which is a too many
relationship that's a very non-intuitive
way of seeing all the types of food you
can query on we offer you a type of
component called dtw query too many
relationships where you can tell it to
use the text description of them are you
you're still in in locations like you're
still in locations yeah okay so we're
picking to display cuisines using a
relationship component in a browser with
one column and we read this play okay
okay put the zip also so too many
relationship okay but what I'd like you
to see here is that you're doing all
these configurations with your
application at runtime and your
application is still life there's way
too many components that we offer you
here to talk about all of them during
this presentation that would take all of
our time so just go away with the idea
that if you have numbers or strings or
relationships whether they're too many
or to one we offer you different types
of browsers and tables and colors
strings and all of these types of
configurable components for you to use
so this is our page now we query on
American food
say the app is still live where we're
going to configure this page to show the
locations of the restaurants so we go to
the live assistant and we by default we
had relationships in list pages so we
tell it you know we want to see the
locations of the restaurant and we want
to use a display too many table to see
them see overall the types of components
you can use and show the city of the
restaurant okay so we're doing all of
this configuration at one time we pick a
particular restaurant can you click on
Palo Alto for example and we're going to
a restaurant in spec page in this case
we're going to hide all of the address
attributes
and we're also going to see see where it
says price right here we know that in
our database price holds two things it
not only holds the description such as
inexpensive in this case it also holds
an icon showing a dollar sign or two
dollar signs based on how expensive the
restaurant is we can traverse to one
relationships into in our pages and we
can choose to display the price icon you
got to get rid of the of the price first
yeah you can you can say I want to
choose the price relationship display
its icon attribute as an image and you
get to see the image okay so you get a
very rich set of components that you can
use that you can use here and you might
be wondering well this is fine but in
the first time we showed us that there
was no code so where is all this
information going well if we bring up
the project you still you see that we
still have no no references to any
specific pages all of that configuration
you were you were giving us goes into a
model we call it the d2w model and it's
nothing more than have been a text list
a text file with all the rules that
you're telling us for example in this
role you're telling us if you're in the
tasks inspect and you're in the entity
is location and what you want to display
is a price that icon then you have to
use the display image as your component
okay so all of this information your
you're giving us using the web assistant
is being stored in a text file so that's
the end of demo to
can we back to the slides so we've been
working in the first layer of director
web wear without writing any code and
using a Java applet that wants it
alongside your browser you get to
customize a lot of things about your
page and how you want to display parts
of your attributes now we're jumping to
layer two you might say well let me go
that's great but you know what I don't I
don't like the menu bar
I want my icon my company's icon to show
up on all the pages I want this banner
to be here I want this this other
component to be down here we understand
we can't guess everything that you want
right off the bat but we give you the
hooks to do that so this is where layer
two comes out in layer two you can begin
to customize the layout of your
application whether it's application
wide or task specific for application
wide layout for things that you want
displayed on all of your pages you're
going to edit something called the page
wrapper the page wrapper is is a piece
of HTML which is going to be inserted in
your project when you create it which
tells us how you want your page is laid
out where does the menu go where does
the content of the page go so you can
you can plug in your own stuff into this
page and say well I want to add icon to
show up on all the pages I want this
banner to show up in all the pages and
that that's how you get your specific
corporate look and feel and then we also
have something called direct to web
templates so all the web objects
developers wake up this is where it gets
interesting for you new and for five
something called d2w templates as you
might imagine director web uses very
dynamic and highly configurable
components in the backend to to
redisplay all of this all of those pages
you have this components must by
definition have no reference to any
particular database model because if
they did they wouldn't be reusable so
the very generic and some serve multiple
tasks for example when you're going to
we share the same component to both edit
a page and put inspect the page we just
have conditionals embedded in there to
figure out whether they show they show a
text field or just a plain string in
four or five you now have access to
these components so now you can edit the
HTML without loosing the ability you cut
to customize your page at runtime now
how does a page know what to do with
itself at runtime
how do those how does the rule
information get translated into
something meaningful as we saw rules are
stored in a file in text format for
example here we looked we're seeing it
we're looking at this rule this is very
similar to what we saw in the demo if
we're listing a restaurants locations
then we want to use the display too many
table right so that's a text file to
evaluate rules at runtime we use
something called a d2w context so all of
the bindings in your in your HTML
template that we give you are going to
have reference to keys of the type d2w
context at something so that you when
you see d2w context that's something in
your in your wot file and your bindings
file for the HTML will give you that's
when the rule system kicks in and we're
going to show you some of this in demo 3
so in our second demo we customized the
query page for restaurants to list page
for restaurants and the inspect page for
locations in this demo we're going to
begin to give a more corporate look and
feel to our application and because we
start to use our own company's resources
or images and our source code we need to
add the framework to our project which
is what my just did the first thing we
do is bring up the page wrapper
component which is in our project and as
you can see this tells us well the
layout of this application is this blue
bar with a menu and then the content we
don't want the menu so Michaels in there
wipes out the menu component and
replaces it with an image and we say
that the image we want is the logo for
our application which is a gift called
tengo hambre 3 there it is and our
marketing department decided that we
also want to advertise or sponsors in
our site so across the top below the
content look for their content yeah we
want to insert a reusable component
which we wrote before it's called the
add component the ad banner okay so now
we've we've we've modified the HTML
surrounding our layout of our
application we recompile notice we
haven't added any code well we have add
a little bit of code where we do the the
advertisement as you'll see once the
application runs
okay so we log in and there it is our
application is starting to take more the
look we want this is what this was a
very simple change oh we it did was at
an icon but what I want you to realize
is that you have the HTML there so you
can do whatever you want and we can
click let's go to the restaurant list
page research on restaurants and you can
see that the icon here changes because
our add component is kicking into place
okay so that's how you use the page
wrapper to customize the whole layout of
your application but now let's look at
this list page could you okay in our
application we don't want this icon to
show up okay
this icon allows you to go to the
inspect page of over a particular
restaurant we don't want that tissue off
in your case it could have been
something more complex in this case we
just we don't want this column to show
up and we don't give you access in the
weather system to get rid of that column
and you're probably going to come across
moments in your development cycle where
you say well I really wish these guys
would have given me this checkbox in the
weather system to do this or to do that
well that was a problem in previous
releases of direct web I think it's much
less of a problem now because you can
bring up the web assistant is what
assistant up
okay
I think you had to restart the web
assistant
yeah we do is also an error and startup
so just restart here okay so what we're
going to do once the web assistant comes
up is we're going to go to the
restaurant list page
and we're going to generate a template
for that page and once we generate the
template we're going to have the HTML
for the template and we're going to be
able to edit it but it's still going to
be the dynamic version of the HTML we'll
be able to do stuff to it but not lose
the customer whoops
oh the port the port to the web
assistant right yeah the problem we're
having here is each time the application
comes up it comes up on a different port
and the web assistant connects to that
port so we were restarting the app and
the application had changed its port so
I didn't know how to talk back we
thought we had set a default for that
poor bird obviously we added so we were
back here we're in the list page and we
say we want we hope we wish we could get
to the HTML of this piece of director
web so we can get rid of this of this
column here so we go to the generation
tab of the web assistant and we choose
list and we tell it to give us the
template for this component so that was
a very simple operation let's see what
that did if we go to the project we see
that we have something called util list
template and we open that in web objects
builder okay can you show a little bit
of the HTML going to scroll down okay
actually first show the the other view
to display view yeah but scroll down
alright so here you have the HTML that
displays the list page go down a little
more a little more but notice that
there's no reference whatsoever to your
model there's no reference to a
restaurant because this is the dynamic
version of the HTML we're using indirect
to web and can you go back to the
bindings view now in the bindings view
you will see a lot of references to
things like d2
context dot component name d2w context
display property keys so at runtime all
of these things will be evaluated for
you so okay so what's what's good about
this we're going to get rid of the
column we're going to get rid of this
whole column to select I think that's it
okay and then we recompile
so we're editing the HTML in this case
we're doing a very simple area we're
just getting rid of a column but it
could have been something much more
complex in the way you want to layout
your display your list display weary
compile your application and we're going
to go once again to the to the
restaurant list page just click on
restaurant right okay so we no longer
see that column okay so so what right
well we can still use the web assistant
go back to the web assistant and we
might have lost the port again right in
previous versions of web of director web
when you generated the HTML you had a
very you didn't have the dynamic version
of the HTML you had a very static it had
reference to the to the type to the
specific entity you wanted to display so
you lost all the ability to customize it
but with templates you're able to access
the HTML do whatever you want to it but
still be able to customize it using the
web assistant which should come up in a
minute
so we're in the list page the redisplay
of go to properties for the list page
and let's say that we want to display
this column just read this play let's
say that we want to display the name of
restaurants using a string that allows
us to configure call up to it something
called a style string bold italic and
then justifying it to the left you read
this play and there you go okay so you
get you don't lose the ability to
customize your pages using the web
assistant and for those of you that have
used the right to live in the past I
hope you see the power here in in I'm
not losing the customers ability so I
think this is the end of our demo to
rank demo 3 which number are we and I
forgot so we've just finished doing the
second layer of director web where we're
changing the layout of our application
but your old developers so you're
probably eating to get to the Java code
and plug in your own functionality you
can do that okay you can in layer 3 or
director web you can modify the behavior
of your application and we offer four
ways of doing that something new in
version four or five is called d2w
custom component we also offer the
director web components as reusable
components to use to use in your
application as embedded components we
offer direct Web API that way you can
program to and you can always generate
the code the to W custom component
second time for developers to wake up
here new and four five you can plug in
your own reusable component to display a
particular attribute in a page all you
have to take care of is that that
component implements two keys one called
object
and one called key that's how we're
going to instantiate your component and
tell you this is the object you're
displaying and this is the key you want
to display right now in case it's a
reusable component so they say you're
displaying dates and you have three
instances of dates in your page you need
to know which particular key we have at
that moment and then you use the web
assistant to configure to tell us we're
going and for this property please use
my component you also have all of the
director web pages available to you as
reusable to component in fact there's a
pallet in web objects builder where you
can just drag things into your HTML and
do and set up all the bindings and in
case you want to embed one of our list
page in one of your more complex pages
you have API that you can program to you
can jump into the dynamic world of
director web from your applications even
if they didn't start out being director
web applications all you have to do is
add the framework to your project and
you can call methods let's say that you
have five pages in your application
which you wrote but you like our list
page you would like to do 80% of what
you do but at some point have a
hyperlink that jumps into the director
web list page because you don't want to
reproduce rewrite all that functionality
you can do that and the key to doing
that is messaging a class called dtw and
we got a static method called Factory
which gives you the main instance of the
director web class and in that class
you're going to find a lot of methods
like this page for entity name you'll
find another method called entity and
query page for entity name inspect page
for entity name and you give us the
entity and the session and we'll give
you back the page okay so from your code
you can message us and we'll give you
back the page for you to jump into the
dynamic world of direct web and
obviously each one of these pages you
get back it's going to have its own
Associated API in this in the case of
the list page we have methods set data
source and set next page so for example
here you can tell us if it's a list page
where are you going to get your data
from after I click return on my list
page what do you want me to go back to
you can do that so if we weren't in
inspect page you would have slightly
different API but you have API to all of
the pages in director web so that you
can jump into them from your code and
finally you can generate code you can
say this is all great but I really
really need I I really need to see the
Java code to see how you're doing this
particular component well there's a
button indirect in the web assistant
where you can say I'm done with all the
customization you give me I click on it
and we dump all the HTML and all the
Java for you to see and to touch and do
whatever you want with it in fact we try
to remove all of the references of
director web and the Java code we have
so it's it's all unrolled so you can
edit it without being dependent on
direct to web so much the downside of
this is that we don't read part we're
not smart enough to reparse the code for
you to be able to customize your pages
using the web assistant ok so you got to
give up something we give you the full
access to the HTML and the Java but you
can't use the web assistant to change
your your pages on the fly anymore
we now go to our final demo what we're
going to do here is if you've been
paying attention to the first page that
comes up when we bring up the
application the first thing that comes
up after our user logs in is a query all
page where they can query on all the
entities this does not make sense in our
demo we want the first page to be the
page where they can query on a
restaurant so for this we go into the
login and then to the page for the login
code into the code for the login page
sorry and we change this method to it
used to be DTW factory dot default page
we now rewrite it to be d2w factory give
it the direct 12 class and give me the
query page for the entity that's what i
want to be my default page
so when this method default page is
called I want you to return the query
page for restaurant and I want you to
that's the first thing I want to see in
my change
so we recompile the application again a
very very trivial example but this could
be any this could be your code in your
method in your classes will bring up the
page we login and we get an exception
yeah Draco does not come with spell
checking yet the yet part was a joke
okay
don't this is I'm not announcing new
features here so when you took it too
seriously there so now we now we log in
and the default page is our query
restaurant page we could have chosen any
other page this could be your page this
could be your code that could be your
button and you could click on that
button and choose to go to another
direct page director web page you have
the ability to do that you have the API
now we're going to search on American
food again we're going to pick cafe max
in Cupertino I notice the street address
here we removed all of the other fields
like the city and the city code and all
that we did that for a reason
for this part of the demo we wrote a
component that displays an address all
compacted into a little safe into a
little it's compacted enough to fit all
here so we don't have different rows we
can we can just type address and we'll
see all of the address but the important
thing about that that what mike is doing
here is getting back to the applet
viewer if you're wondering what all that
spew and the screen is he's trying to
get to the port of the applet viewer so
he can bring it up again
for this part of the demo so we're going
to plug in our own component so imagine
you're you're you're coding along and
then you say wow I wish I could write my
own component to display the address the
way I wanted to display you can we wrote
a component where you can display the
address as a hyperlink which takes you
to Yahoo and you can see a yahoo map of
your of your of the address this could
be any other component in your
application so we go to the web assist
and we say you know the street address I
don't like the components you give us
Miguel they're good but they're limited
I want to use my own so you tell us d2w
custom component and my own component is
called street mapper and this component
implements the object and key bindings
you display at runtime and then we have
our component here
don't don't click on it yet so now we're
we're showing the address the way we
want implementing the functionality we
want because what we wanted to do is for
people to be able to click on that and
take us to Yahoo
okay so I think that's the end of our
fourth actually that's the end of all of
our demos we have a little summer okay
so we've just finished customizing our
application at the third level which is
default we didn't show you by the way
but it would have been just a CCE you
bring up the web assistant and you could
generate code and we would have dumped
all of that Java and HTML for you to
edit but I mean you've seen that before
and you can here you can do whatever you
want with it
so in summary director web Java based
technology for rapid development
keywords here or rapid we want to do
things fast for you by providing a lot
of functionality now the keywords
database-driven
all of your direct web applications
start out from a model and it gives
another keywords web applications by
well I mean HTML this is the HTML part
of the web objects the next the next
talk Java client is where we bring up to
the nice Java applets which is Steve
showed in his demo how do you configure
things using direct web you can work if
you don't want to get your hands dirty
with code you can use the web assistant
and to tell us how you want things to be
laid out how you want things displayed
that's okay you don't need to do that
much you don't need to know to know much
of what objects to do that but in four
five we've introduced two powerful
features very simple but I hope that the
web objects developers out there realize
how powerful these two hooks are to your
applications you have access to the
dynamic version of the HTML using the
two W templates without loosing the
ability to customize your applications
using the web assistant and you have a
way of plugging in your own custom
components to display the attributes
till the way you want and implement your
own functionality you might have a
hyperlink or a button in one of you
custom components and do whatever else
you want with the page without losing
the ability to customize other parts of
the page dynamically and ultimately you
can do cogeneration where do you go from
here the best place to start is probably
go to one for center there's a new
there's two new books for director web
there we still have the tutorial in the
web objects tools and technique part of
the web objects manual we also have a
new book written by Cliff Lee one of our
dog people a wonderful book called
developing web objects application with
director web this book goes into a lot
of detail about the architecture of
director web and the rule system and how
it works in the context and how you can
override it and you can write your own
task and a lot of stuff I didn't cover
here because it's just too much for one
hour presentation and there's also some
updated reference of all the frameworks
and all the classes in director website
you now see that you have this API
well the methods are explaining in this
and what I would recommend beginning web
objects developed by actually anybody
that hasn't used direct the web is to
just bring out bring up the movies model
which ships with our product and created
a generic direct web applications and
start playing around with it configuring
up your pages and generate code and
seeing all of the functionality we give
you