Take Advantage of the Eclipse IDE with webmethods ApplinX By Andreas Goermer, Senior Product Manager, Software AG

Transcription

1 December 2008 Take Advantage of the Eclipse IDE with webmethods ApplinX By Andreas Goermer, Senior Product Manager, Software AG The Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) continues to gain popularity, especially among Java and HTML/Web developers. webmethods ApplinX is the Software AG technology for modernizing green screen applications. ApplinX for Web-enablement transforms green screen applications into modern Web interfaces. ApplinX for Serviceenablement transforms green screen applications into ready-to-use.net, J2EE or Web services with no programming required. Version 8 of both of these products, released at the beginning of October, now supports an Eclipse-based development environment. Besides the Open Source community, which offers many useful development tools, there are more and more fully supported commercial applications available including several products from Software AG such as Natural for Eclipse, CentraSite, webmethods EntireX and webmethods Business Process Management Suite. Experience Improved Usability The ApplinX Eclipse plug-in for the Software AG Designer replaces most of the functionality of the former ApplinX Administrator available in previous versions. The plug-in provides many Eclipse capabilities that greatly improve usability for ApplinX developers. Standard Eclipse wizards are provided, such as the Web Application Manager. Figures 1 and 2 show how the look and feel of a complete mainframe application can be modified by applying a template using the Web Application Manager wizard. The ApplinX J2EE Deployment Manager is also a new Eclipse wizard. It simplifies the deployment process of Web application archives (WAR) for ApplinX Server and ApplinX Web Application. Both can now be easily migrated from development environment to test and then production. Figure 3 shows two different ways to deploy WAR files. One way is that both the ApplinX Server WAR and the ApplinX Web Application WAR can be deployed. In cases where memory consumption becomes an issue, both WAR files can be deployed as one single WAR file. In this case, both processes share memory. This reduces the average memory consumption by approximately thirty percent (30%). The WAR files can be deployed on any J2EE application server, like Tomcat, WebSphere, WebLogic and JBoss. Version 8 also comes with standard property dialog boxes for ApplinX Server, ApplinX Host, ApplinX Applications and many more. There are also Eclipse editors available to define and edit all ApplinX assets such as screen mappings, procedures and connection pools.

2 Developers will like the new debugging capabilities of ApplinX, which uses the standard Eclipse debugger. The debugging process itself is displayed in the ApplinX perspective of the Software AG Designer. The variables are displayed in a dedicated view while providing the developer with the ability to watch the progress of the debugged procedures in the session viewer. Figure 1. Standard Eclipse Wizard Web Application Manager Take Advantage of the Eclipse IDE with webmethods ApplinX Page 2 of 5

3 Figure 2. Standard Eclipse Wizard Web Application Manager Figure 3. webmethods ApplinX J2EE deployment of Web Application Archives (WAR) Take Advantage of the Eclipse IDE with webmethods ApplinX Page 3 of 5

4 Increase Developer Productivity To better understand the power of having ApplinX support an Eclipse-based development environment, consider the following. In the face of economic uncertainty, an organization wants to initiate a cost-saving program by automating several of its existing business processes. The best way to do this is the implementation of a Business Process Management System (BPMS) - see Figure 4. In the past, a developer would have to use two separate development environments each with a very different look and feel. One development environment would be used to develop the process model with its business activities. The other would be used to develop the necessary back-end integration. With an Eclipse-based environment, designers of business processes and integration developers can now use the same environment to complete all tasks. Figure 4. Process Developer (webmethods Business Process Management Suite) Take Advantage of the Eclipse IDE with webmethods ApplinX Page 4 of 5

5 For instance, ApplinX provides an exciting new feature called Application Map, see Figure 5. Application Map allows a developer to select the necessary green screens for modernization in a nice graphical manner. Once these green screens are put into the right order, they can be deployed as Web services. These services can be called from the BPMS at runtime to add business logic by using existing back-end applications. Working within a single development environment improves developer productivity and speeds time to delivery. Figure 5. ApplinX Application Map Moving to the Eclipse development environment is another important milestone in integrating webmethods ApplinX with webmethods EntireX and other Software AG products. Not only will developers enjoy working within this environment, but it will save development time and minimize project budgets during all development phases, including production. This assures organizations a faster return on investment (ROI) when using webmethods ApplinX for application modernization projects. Take Advantage of the Eclipse IDE with webmethods ApplinX Page 5 of 5