web| Planning | Strategy If you're like many information systems experts, you may be confused about how the Internet will affect your business and/or work. Many companies are benefiting from the large number of viewers attracted to www, while others are interested in intranet (the Internet version of the company); some companies are still not involved in web development.
What if your boss comes to you and wants you to "do something on the Internet"? Or if you're the boss, what kind of product do you want your programmer to develop?
Many companies have created a leading web site and are fundamentally effective. Cases
For example, the Www.fedex.com Express customer service outlets for the. The network serves as a diversion from the FedEx Customer Service Hotline and provides direct information to any FedEx customer who can access the www. With Internet technology, other companies have created some interesting marketing home pages, but they have not really overcome the limitations of technology. Many companies are still waiting for a variety of reasons. They may be waiting for second-generation, more advanced Web development tools, perhaps waiting for higher management instructions, and perhaps waiting for the technology to become more applicable.
Many of you are puzzled about how to plan web development. If you're starting out and even thinking about web development, this article is good for you. If you're already an advanced web Developer, read this article to find out where PowerSoft's tools fit into a successful web development strategy.
Step 1: Define the problem
Programmers once told me that their managers came up to them asking "do something on the Internet", "See what Java can do" or "plan what we should do on the Internet." The goal is very flexible and even irrelevant to allow programmers to spend a lot of time roaming the web and doing research. The downside to this vague goal is that they can't focus on a particular business problem.
This is the first thing to plan your web development strategy: What are your business goals? You want to create the
How will Web apps change your business? When you start, choose a field to work with. Who is your client? Whether the client is internal or external; Do you need Internet or intranet (internal Internet) applications? The more you know about the problems your application will solve, the easier it is to solve them.
In addition to the authors who decide application purposes and applications, you also need to think about your assumptions about the application user. Sometimes
The purpose of the application will determine the assumptions you make. For example, you need to know whether the user's browser, hardware, and operating system are planned. For intranet applications, you will likely affect these plans. Many companies have standard browsers and operating systems, while others do not. There are too few assumptions you can make about Internet applications, and if you assume that a user is using a browser and he uses another one, then he may not be able to access your Web site.
Step 2: Choose the right technology
Now that you know the goal of Web application development, you can determine the common technology that best suits this goal.
For example:
Static content: Many of the marketing home pages you see on the Web contain "static content." That is, they do not dynamically obtain data from a database or other data source, and they do not require the user to provide information. They only contain hypertext and connections to other pages. There are so many pages of this type that I can say with certainty that 98% of Web sites contain static content.
Dynamic content: This type of Web site contains all the functionality of a static content Web site, and it can read data dynamically from a database or other data source. An example of this type of Web site might be the ticker for the stock market, which continuously updates read-only data.
Forms: Some Web home pages provide users with the ability to enter information. For example, a user might ask for more information on an event or register online, allowing you to click on upcoming events to get an online registration form. The user enters the appropriate information and submits the form, and the data is sent to the server.
Executable content: Many web hosts choose to include executable content on the Web. Executable content may be a Java applet or CGI application that can contain multimedia features such as sound and animation. For example, you can write a spreadsheet Java applet that allows users to enter data and functions. Or you can add compelling graphics, such as bouncing balls, moving text or pictures, to a part of the Web site. Examples of Java applets are visible javasoft dot http://www.javasoft.com.
As you can see, there are many types of technologies available in Web applications. You decide which overall function is best for your goals, and then you can decide what tools to use to create the feature.
Step 3: Reality Check
Now that you know the goals and the skills you need, you should evaluate the tools you can control. As part of this process, depending on the tools you can use, you may need to reconsider and revise your goals if necessary. At this point, you may need to learn more about the latest magazines, books, or even Internet development courses, depending on your level of knowledge. PowerSoft's leadership as a professional application development tool on a distributed platform determines its ability to provide excellent development tools on the Internet. Our tools, some of which you can now use directly for web-based development, and tools that enable you to integrate Internet capabilities into your client/server applications to expand your client/server investment. In addition, we recently released a new product, Netimpact Studio, which is an integrated, specialized web development tool that provides everything you need to build, test, and distribute database-driven dynamic Web sites.
Here are the products and tools that PowerSoft currently has for web development, as well as what type of development is best for each tool:
Static content: One technique that can be used to create static Web content is the PowerBuilder 5 "Save DataWindow as HTML table" feature. This feature is available in preview mode in DataWindow: Select "Save Rows as ..." From the File menu, and then save the record as "HTML Table." This creates a static HTML file that can be read by any standard browser or merged into other HTML files to be displayed.
If the DataWindow style is grid, the format is preserved through an HTML table. If you choose a different style of expression, the data can be simply displayed as rows. In addition to being saved as a html,html table in DataWindow preview mode, it can be programmatically obtained as a DataObject property. This technology is easy to use and does not require any knowledge about HTML or Web development.
Dynamic content: PowerSoft There are two techniques that can be used to create dynamic content. One is insert technology, the other is WEB.PB.
Creating dynamic content with PowerSoft Insert technology is fairly easy. It includes DataWindow inserts and Windows or runs the insert piece. In this way, Powerbulder developers can create DataWindow or windows and use them as inserts in Netscape Navigator. DataWindow inserts are PowerSoft Stored or. PSR File--A read-only technique. Window inserts support any PowerBuilder child windows, so programmers can include the logic of updating the database (if necessary) or any PowerScript (tm) functionality. Insert technology allows you to use the PowerBuilder experts in your company to apply this technology to the new, ornate Web applications.
The inserts also support complex graphics and processes built with PowerBuilder, so you can overcome the limitations of HTML. Report inserts support graphics, different fonts, and a series of charts. Window inserts support all PowerBuilder standard controls, including DataWindow, TreeView, and ListView Controls, the tab folder, and ActiveX controls.
WEB.PB is the second way to create dynamic content with PowerBuilder. WEB.PB technology allows browser applications to access distributed PowerBuilder application servers on the Web. For example, your Web home page might contain a form that submits data to a distributed PowerBuilder server application that runs somewhere on the network. Typically, a distributed PowerBuilder server applies processing data and returns HTML (dynamically creating a Web home page), which is a blob (binary large object) that contains any valid content type or URL redirection. Like PowerSoft inserts, WEB.PB is a powerful technology to make the most of your existing investments in PowerBuilder.
The new technology contained in the Powerdynamo,sql Anywhere Professional provides tools for building and configuring Web sites through dynamic access to corporate databases. It includes a wizard-based template generation feature, which is an HTML home page that embeds SQL statements and scripts. The Dynamo server connects to the Web server and database, uploads the web home page request to the database, and returns dynamic data from the database to the Web home page, in addition to being used in SQL Anywhere Professional, the technology is also available in Powerstudio SQL Server for NT Professional and power++.
Form: Because PowerBuilder inserts and WEB.PB support and data source two-way communication, you can create a form using the techniques listed above in "Dynamic content."
Executable content: If you decide to create executable content, you can do this through CGI or Java or JavaScript. If you're interested in Java, look at PowerSoft's optima++, which is a visual development environment for C + + and Java. The product is based on the Operations Wizard and supports drag-and-drop development. So it's not just a great helper to learn Java-it's also a sophisticated Java and C + + development environment for advanced programmers.
Coming: Continue to learn more about Netimpact Studio, a powersoft integrated, specialized web development environment. Netimpact Studio includes the need to build and test database-driven Dynamic Web sites
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