Apple WebObjects 5 - Manual (Page 19)

C H A P T E R 2
What Is WebObjects?
Rapid Development 19
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Apple Computer, Inc. January 2002
Rapid Development
WebObjects is both powerful and flexible. With that power and flexibility, however,
comes a certain degree of complexity. For many applications, whether HTML-based
or Java Client–based, it’s more important to develop the application quickly than
strive for maximum flexibility or polish. As an example, a simple data-browsing
and editing application, intended only for internal use by a system administrator,
probably wouldn’t warrant the same degree of effort you would put into an
Internet-enabled application accessible by the general public. To simplify the
development of applications like the former, WebObjects includes a set of
rapid-development technologies: Direct to Web and Direct to Java Client.
Direct to Web and Direct to Java Client are similar in approach. Their primary
difference is in how the application interacts with the end user. Direct to Web
creates HTML-based WebObjects applications, whereas Direct to Java Client creates
WebObjects applications that employ Java Client to partition the application
between server and client. Both are useful not only for creating simple database
browser applications, but in many situations can also serve as rapid prototyping
tools. Because Direct to Web and Direct to Java Client both allow customization on
various levels, they are well-suited for bootstrapping and creating your
mission-critical applications.
Direct to Web
Direct to Web is a system for creating HTML-based WebObjects applications that
access a database. All Direct to Web needs to create the application is a model of the
database, which you can build using EOModeler (a data-modeling tool).
Direct to Web applications are not a set of static Web pages. Instead, Direct to Web
uses information from the data model available at runtime to dynamically generate
the pages. Consequently, you can modify your application’s configuration at
runtime—using the Direct to Web Assistant—to hide objects of a particular class,
hide their properties, reorder properties, and change the way they are displayed
without recompiling or relaunching the application.