I&C School of Computer and Communication Sciences
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne    
   

WebLang DSL 2

Web-Applications Development IDE for Eclipse and JBoss

Abstract

This page presents a domain-specific language (DSL) and a Web-Applications Development IDE that offer an alternative to the wizards for the creation of Web-Applications. This environment has provision for describing HTML and JSP pages, EJB2 (CMP, Session and MD Beans), JPA-EJB3 Hibernate, JMS (queues/topics), servlets, JSF, Struts, Web services, clients, RMI objects, simple classes, as well as the links between all these components. It is supported by a compiler that includes xDoclets in the corresponding classes and generates the required xml description and ant script files (CGxdoclet.xml and CGpackaging.xml) -- The templates used by the compiler to create all these files may be modified by the developer, which avoids the problems of modifying files generated automatically and allows the developer to create, for example, uniform pages accross her or his whole application editor that marks the syntax errors and many of the semantic errors.

The WebLang IDE is available as Eclipse plugins (implementation details). The minimum requirements are Eclipse 3.2 (with EMF 2.2), Java 1.5, XDoclet 1.2.3. The generated Web-Applications are currently designed since version 2.3 for the JEE solutions JBoss 5.x and Apache Tomcat 6.x.

C. Petitpierre, O. Buchwalder, P-L Meylan  

Special thanks to the following students for their contribution: T.Monney, E. Kaspi, J.Bourgeois, Y.Wang, F.Blanc, C.Brunisholz, S.Ferlisi, P.Amstuz, V.Ratiu  


·  Overview of the J2EE Components

These pages propose an overview of most J2EE components. The use of these components is illustrated by four designs of a Web application (a lottery) realized with four different sets of components and specified by four collaboration diagrams.

·  Getting started

Install and Download Eclipse, JBoss and our plugin. Initialize the access to the server from Eclipse and then go through this "Hello world" Tutorial 1 See also this detailed view to get examples and explanation of each component.

·  WebLang and WTP Project Parameters

In order to develop Web applications with WebLang, one could use WTP Web Tools Platform as explained in the Tutorial 2. For more information about the WebLang and WTP cohabitation, see page How to deal with WTP.

·  Redefinition of Templates

The usual drawback with program generators is the difficulty to modify the files produced by the compiler. WebLang avoids this problem by allowing a developer to tailor the templates used by the compiler to his/her own needs.

·  Features and Options

Description of the parameters of the WebLang IDE and some remarks and tips on how to use the environment.

·  Bibliographical references

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