Apple WebObjects 5 - Manual (Page 16)

16 Web-Enabled Client-Server Applications

Apple Computer, Inc. January 2002
C H A P T E R 2
What Is WebObjects?
This type of WebObjects application is referred to as “HTML-based,” since the
result is a series of dynamically generated HTML pages.
Instead of using an HTTP adaptor, you can deploy applications through servlet
containers. This approach allows you take advantage of your servlet server’s
application deployment facilities. For more information on this approach, see
“JSP
and Servlets” (page 89).
Web-Enabled Client-Server Applications
Although the majority of websites primarily publish static data, the number of sites
that publish dynamic content is growing rapidly. Many corporations use intranets,
the Internet, or both to provide easy access to internal applications and data. An
online store selling books, music, or even computers is one example of a
Web-enabled client-server application.
Web-enabled applications can have huge advantages over traditional applications.
Clients don’t have to install the application, which not only saves client disk space
but ensures that the user always has the most up-to-date version of the application.
As well, the client computers can be Macintosh computers, PCs, or workstations—
anything that can run a Web browser with the necessary capabilities.
WebObjects allows you to develop two different flavors of Web-enabled
application: HTML-based applications and Java Client applications. HTML-based
applications are analogous to Common Gateway Interface (CGI) applications and
consist of dynamically-generated HTML pages accessed through a Web browser.
Java Client moves part of your application to the client-side computer and enlists
Sun’s Java Foundation Classes (JFC) to give it the rich user interface found in a more
traditional desktop application.
HTML-Based WebObjects Applications
When you need to develop an HTML-based application like a shopping cart, you
can create it quickly and easily with the WebObjects development tools.
WebObjects supplies a large number of prebuilt components—Web pages, or
portions of Web pages, from which you can build your Web application’s interface.
These components range from simple user interface widgets (for example, submit