AppComposer Release Notes

Introduction

DigiSlice Corporation is pleased to announce the availability of of AppComposer 3 to our partners.

About this Version

Version 3.0 of DigiSlice's AppComposer builds upon WebGain's version 2.0 of Application Composer. The following is a brief list of differences between these versions. See the Product Change Details section for more information.

• This release does not include a Java engine, and downloading the JDK 1.3 from Sun is recommended before installing AppComposer (see below for details).
• References to Java package names have changed from com.webgain.composer to com.digislice.spin
• Added support for web services including the ability to connect to a web service specified by a WSDL. See below for details.
• Using HSQLDB (instead of PointBase) for the development database service. This is a relational database engine written in Java, but this does not preclude the use of any other database supported by a JDBC driver.
• We've upgraded to using the latest version of JBoss (for EJB support), and now also support the Servlet 2.3 specification.
• Added support for licensed components. AppComposer will now tell users when they deploy a project whether any of the included components need to be licensed (see below for details).

Changes from the Last Beta

Changes from the second beta to this release are minor and included minor bug fixes and changes to the documentation. The primary enhancement was support for web services (this feature was not very well supported in the last beta release ... For more details on this, see the Features and Enhancements section below.

See the Beta 2 Release Notes for background.

About our Partner Release Program

This release is not a public release. It is only available to some of our partners who have signed up to be a DigiSlice distributor or are investigating the company and have signed an NDA in order to evaluate the AppComposer product.

It is assumed that if you have this document, then you also have a contact at DigiSlice who has given you the required information for downloading the program. Contact sales@digislice.com if not.

Quick Installation Instructions

While most of the dialogs displayed during installation should be fairly self-explanatory, detailed instructions can be found in the Getting Started Guide.

Download Instructions

You can download installable executables of AppComposer for Windows2000, WindowsXP, or WindowsNT from our website: support.digislice.com. We will be releasing versions of the product for other platforms after a sufficient QA cycle, but for this release, we are primarily addressing the Windows version.

Simply fill out the beta registration form (with a valid email address), and along with a link to the current beta applications, a 60 day evaluation license key will be generated and emailed to the address given.

Note: This is a "closed" product evaluation, and you must obtain a "validation code" in order to have access to the programs. You can get this code by contacting your DigiSlice sales rep.

System Requirements

High-end workstations running Microsoft Windows (either Windows2000 or XP).

Note: You must have installed a Java Software Development Kit (SDK or JDK) before AppComposer can be installed. You can download a version of J2SE SDK from Sun Microsystems from their website (make sure you download and installed the SDK as the JRE is not sufficient). See below for an explanation of why we recommend using the JDK 1.3 for this release.

Windows Installation

Simply execute the program, AppComposerInstallWindows.exe and following the instructions displayed in the InstallAnywhere dialog process as explained in the Getting Started Guide.

Product Support

Support for this product can be obtained in any of the following methods:

1. Online Forums. We have set up a support web site at support.digislice.com with online documentation and user discussion forums (a bulletin board message system). Our engineers monitor the discussion and answer questions posted there. This should be sufficient for non-critical problems. Note: Bugs can be posted and submitted at this site as well.
2. Email Support. More urgent questions can be sent to support@digislice.com.
3. Phone Support. We currently do not have phone support set up for this beta release. You can contact your sales rep for urgent requests.

Product Change Details

The following describe in more detail some of the major changes and features added to the product for this release.

Web Services

This release has the same of features for web services as Webgain Application Composer 2.0. However, for this release, we have added an additional example application for demonstrating these capabilities (see MFwithServices in the "Examples" directory). This example extends the MutualFund demo located in the "Examples" directory.

In order for this example to work, it needs to communicate with a server. Since setting up the server-side of a "web services communication" can be difficult, we have set one up at DigiSlice's site. You can access it via the following URL:

http://ws-demo.digislice.com:8080/soap/servlet/rpcrouter

If you wish to set up the server-side on your own server or workstation, follow these instructions.

Using AppComposer for Client Side Service

To build a client that access web services via AppComposer, follow these steps.

1. Start AppComposer
2. First run through the MutualFund example using strictly EJBs -- follow the instructions in the examples:
   %appcomposer%/examples/index.html#MutualFund
3. Import the Web Service: From the File menu, choose "Import Web Service".
   A dialog will appear. Next to the WSDL file text box, click on the "Browse" button.
   Navigate to %appcomposer%\examples\MFundwServices\WSDL and choose MutualFundService.WSDL and click OK.
   The rest of the dialog will be filled in for you. Click OK.
   You should see a message saying that the service was successfully imported.
4. Open the Project.
   From the File menu, choose "Open". Navigate to %appcomposer%\examples\MFundwServices and choose MutualFund.zap.
5. Make sure JBoss is still running -- if you did step 2 in this section, this should be the case. If not, enable JBoss now.
6. Run the login capsule. At the login screen use "testuser" and "password" as the username/password combination. Everything should run smoothly if you've followed the steps correctly!

Command Line Verification of Client Side Service

If you are having trouble, or if you have set up your own server and want to verify that your client can see it, use the following command line steps:

1. Include the JDK on your path. In Windows, this should either be in your environment (under your "Control Panel" select the "System" icon and click the "Advanced" tab and then the "Environment" button) or set it directly (for that instance only) via the command:

   C:\>set path=c:\jdk1.3.1_06\bin;%PATH%

   On Unix systems, this would be set via the "sh" command line:

   export PATH="/usr/java/jdk1.3.1_04/:$PATH"

2. Set up your Java classpath to include mail.jar, activation.jar, and xerces.jar as well as %soap%/lib/soap.jar. In Windows, this command looks like the following (and keep in mind that this command must be on a single line, but is wrapped to be more readable:

   C:\>set classpath=%appcomposer%\jBoss\server\all\lib\mail.jar;
       %appcomposer%\jBoss\server\all\lib\activation.jar;
       %appcomposer%\libraries\thirdparty\xerces.jar;
       %appcomposer%\libraries\thirdparty\soap.jar

3. To test that your client is set up correctly and that your machine can access the service, use the TestClient included:

   java TestClient http://ws-demo.digislice.com:8080/soap/servlet/rpcrouter fund01

   The response should be: "fund_alpheus-customer.html" if everything is set up correctly.
   

Licensed Components

This new feature is intended to aid developers in conforming to license agreements voluntarily. DigiSlice provides a new interface for component developers to implement: com.digislice.spin.lib.LicensedComponent.

A new dialog is added which shows a list of all components used in the current project which implement the LicensedComponent interface. For each 'licensed' component, the dialog shows:

• The full class name of the component
• The name of the product or package that the class is distributed or sold as a part of
• The name of the company or person who owns and/or distributes the class
• A URL for info about the class

This dialog can be displayed at any time by selecting the Licensed Components... item from the Project menu. The capsules (including JSPCapsules) in the project are compiled to determine which components they 'import,' then a dialog is displayed with a table, each row showing the four pieces of information described above. If no licensed components are found in the project, the dialog displays a text message saying that.

In addition, whenever the Deploy to WAR command is executed on the project, the dialog is presented after a successful deployment. However, if no licensed components are found, the dialog is not presented.

Note that no details or terms of the license are presented, nor is the LicensedComponent interface (currently) capable of collecting such data, only the fact that the component is subject to some license.

JDK 1.4.x Support

API changes in the Java libraries between version 1.3 and 1.4 have introduced some subtle rendering issues with AppComposer. For this reason, DigiSlice recommends that you use JDK 1.3.

AppComposer is functional with the JDK 1.4.1 with this release (as both Bug#36 and Bug#82 have been fixed), but you will probably encounter issues associated with sporadic repainting issues. If you come across a submenu that won't go away, resizing the window will cause the window to be repainted.

Note: Along with the extra features associated with 1.4, the largest advantage for us is that DigiSlice would be able to redistribute this version of the JDK instead of requiring the user to download this separately.

Open Bugs

The following is a listing of known bugs and issues associated with this version of AppComposer. Details concerning these bugs can be found by logging into our Bugzilla bug tracking system at www.digislice.com/bugs.