This book will show you how to develop a set of Java projects using a variety of technologies and scenarios. Everything is described through the "eyes" of JBoss Tools.
After we settle on the project (or scenario) that will be developed, we will configure the proper environment for the current tool (those projects selected will cover between them the main components of a web application in terms of the backstage technology). We continue by exploring the tool for accomplishing our tasks and developing the project's components. A cocktail of images, theoretical aspects, source codes, and step-by-step examples will offer you a thoroughgoing for every tool. At the end, the project will be deployed and tested. In addition, every chapter is "lard" with pure notions about the underlying technology, which will initiate you into, or remind you of, the basic aspects of it.
This book will show you complete and functional applications, and will familiarize you with the main aspects of every tool. By the end you will have been provided with sufficient information to successfully handle your own projects through JBoss Tools.
Chapter 1 is a compressive chapter that will help you discover the features brought by the new JBoss Tools 3.0. The main goal of this chapter is to make an introduction to what will follow in the next chapters and to "wake up" your curiosity. In addition, the reader can see different possibilities of installing JBoss Tools on different platforms and for different goals.
Chapter 2 teaches you how to use Eclipse and JBoss AS in a symbiotic manner. In this chapter you will see how to use the JBoss AS Tools to configure, start, stop and monitor the JBoss AS directly from Eclipse IDE. Also, you can see how to create and deploy new projects.
Chapter 3 is a collection of tag-components from different technologies as Ajax, JSF, RichFaces, Seam, and so on. Because the components are built on the drag-and-drop technique, this tool is very easy to use, especially when you need a fast method for generating tags into JSP pages. This chapter will cover—with description and examples—the most important tags that can be generated through JBoss Palette. Also, the chapter will contain a section about the Palette Options.
Chapter 4 will talk about punctual framework's tools and I will start with JBoss Tools for Java Server Faces. After I present the Faces Config Editor, which is the main visual component for JSF support, I will follow the framework mains characteristics and I will discuss—from the JSF Tools perspective—about managed beans, validators, converters, navigation rules, and so on.
Chapter 5 will give you a complete cover of the graphical Struts editors that are used for generating/managing XML documents (configuration, tiles, validators). Also, you will see how to work with code generation and debug support for Struts projects. Everything will be sustained by images (captures) and examples.
Chapter 6 will show you how to accomplish the most important modules of a Seam project, like Action, Form, Entity, and so on through the Seam Tools filter in the first part. Later, in the second part of the chapter, you will work with the visual editors dedicated to increasing the speed of developing/controlling Seam components.
Chapter 7 will show some advanced skills, like Hibernate and Ant, generation of POJOs, debugging goals and reverse engineering control after a detailed presentation of how to use Hibernate Tools to speed up the configuration and mapping tasks.
Chapter 8 will discuss about the jBPM Tools. You will see how to develop and test a complete jBPM project.
Chapter 9 will detail the main concepts of JBossESB Services, and you will see how to use ESB Tools to develop such a Service.
Chapter 10 will help you create from scratch a WSDL document using WSDL Editor. You will generate a complete web service from a WSDL document and from a Java bean using WS Tools wizards, and you will publish a web service using jUDDI and Web Services Explorer. In addition, you will see how to generate a web service's client, how to test a web service through Web Services Explorer, how to convert WSDL documents to WSIL documents and how to inspect WSDL web services through WSIL and WSE.
Chapter 11 will work with the Portal Tools. You will see how to use the wizards for creating projects with Portlet Facets, creating the Java Portlet wizard and creating the JSF/Seam Portlet wizard.
As different software products are involved in this book, it is pretty hard to recommend a list of system requirements and operating systems. Nevertheless, we have developed this book using the following specifications (use this configuration as a mark):
Mobile AMD Sempron (tm)
Processor 3400+
789MHz, 896 MB of RAM
Physical Address Extension.
Following are the software requirements for this book:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 2 (or any other supported operating system)
Java 5 and Java 6 for Windows (or your operating system)
Rest of software, such as Eclipse, JBoss Application Server and so on, will be installed through the book.
This book is recommended to Java developers that use at least one of the covered technologies (JSF, Struts, Hibernate, Seam and so on). This book is for all Java developers who are looking for a unitary and powerful tool, especially designed for increasing the speed of developing, and for improving the quality of, Java web applications.
No matter how much, or how little, experience you have, developers of all levels will benefit as your use of JBoss Tools is directly proportional to the complexity of your application. Since JBoss Tools covers all level of experience, you may use it at your own level for your own applications, without involving unnecessary features. All you have to be familiar with is Eclipse environment, Java core, and you must have some expertise in the technology for which you want to use the JBoss Tools. Basic expertise for each technology is provided in the book, but for more complete and detailed aspects you should read dedicated specifications, tutorials, and articles.
In this book you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."
A block of code will be set as follows:
<div style="overflow: auto; width: 270px; height:375px; padding:0px; margin: 0px"> <table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=2> <col width=270> <tr> <td width=270 valign="top" nowrap> </td> </tr> </table> </div>
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items will be shown in bold:
// Global Forwards public static final String GLOBAL_FORWARD_start = "start"; // Local Forwards public static final String FORWARD_success = "success";
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
eclipse –clean
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: "clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen".
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