Technical Page

In it's design, Appliweb is very straightforward.
It uses two products, the Serializer and the browser, and some navigation helper components.

Appliweb software is made using the following sequence : Design your Java dialog boxes and user interface with your preferred IDE. Add AppliWeb navigation beans. Link them with all the actions a user can make (button click, list selection, ...) The Serializer will write them to disk. Put these file on your web server. Start the browser and type in the url of your site. Your screens will be downloaded and presented to you. When you make an action linked to a navigation bean, the browser will send your typed datas to the server. Thanks to custom made servlets, the server will dynamically respond to your request, with a new page filled-in with the answer. And so on...		The User Interface
		We do not wish to create a Java screen editor.There are already many real good ones on the market. Instead, we chose to make a complementary tool. You edit your screen using your IDE, creating a new Java class. The Serializer tool will display it, eliminating every user code that would cause a new download. You should not write any Java code for your screen ! It won't be saved. Even more, if your IDE links components by writing Java code (inner classes), you shouldn't make links ! In fact, you only need to put the graphical widgets, the dynamic part is all made by switching pages. Next, the Serializer tool will write it to disk, using the Java standard serialization mechanism. You need to use Swing 1.1 or the jdk 1.2 to make your user interface. There will be a complete library of components to insert in your pages : One that sends the field's values of all your page to the server. Other that sends only selected fields Moreover, there will be more graphical components, to allow a more web ergonomy : Images downloaded after the text. You could read it while waiting for the images. Panels used like HTML frames. Lists that load new pages when you choose one of it's values Every new idea are welcome...appliweb@appliweb.net
Servlets
Servlets are web server extensions. You can find engines that allows you to make servlets for every web server on any platform. Servlets are simple components that can connect to a database and send a data-populated HTML page. For AppliWeb, instead of using a HTML page template, a servlet reads a file saved by the Serializer, writes it's data into the fields, before sending them to the client. A servlet example with source code is shown in the documentation