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sites can be used directly with third party
products like app servers and other solutions.
The entire zeroCode-generated server environment,
with other third party components such as
WebLogic, BroadVision etc., would constitute
the middle tier of the completed application. |
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customizing data delivery, third party products
like PortalBuilder from TIBCO can be integrated
with a zeroCode-generated site. For e.g. the
user login Id from an application can be sent
to PortalBuilder, to create sessions in both
environments. Such products would typically
use their own databases, where the application's
login ID can be the unique identifier. The
login Id from both the databases can be checked
for uniqueness and the customization of pages
carried out for that user. |
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In some business applications, it may be necessary
to build transaction management and resource-pooling
using app servers like IBM's WebSphere or
BEA's WebLogic. PK4's suggested architecture
includes mechanisms to interface with such
app servers. In order that the architecture
support extensibility on the server side,
the access manager of a zeroCode-generated
site is designed to work with function-specific
server components that are integrated into
the system. These components can be modified
to carry a wrapper that provides object-level
management and pooling capabilities that are
applied by WebLogic or WebSphere, thereby
making them available in those environments. |
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To fully decouple the user interface from
the business logic and database access mechanism
in the application, zeroCode uses macro-expansion
engines like FreeMarker. FreeMarker is a reputed,
extensible, Open Source environment that specifically
addresses the need for marrying HTML with
object-driven architectures. The HTML pages
that are displayed in a zeroCode-built site
are recorded in templates that include HTML
statements marked up with simple FreeMarker
tags. FreeMarker could be easily replaced
with other macro-expansion utilities like
WebMacro, JSP or a future version of XSLT. |
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When the user interface
of a generated application needs modification
in terms of font, look-and-feel, graphics,
navigation and other front-end-related changes,
it is a matter of simply modifying the HTML
templates or the style-sheets that zeroCode
delivers for the site.
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When user interaction changes or new functionality
is added, data elements currently available
in the system are either presented differently
or are included/removed from existing or new
HTML pages. A designer would use the zeroCode
Design Environment to extend functionality
by editing various components like the responseMap.xml.
This needs minimal training to work with and
provides tremendous capabilities. |
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When external systems need access, as when
a customer finds a need to provide unplanned
access to/from an external system after a
site has been delivered, custom objects can
be used for extensions. In such cases, the
Java objects that zeroCode delivers may need
to be modified or new objects may have to
be added to the system. |
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When new data elements (columns or whole tables)
are introduced into the system, the Java layer
can be regenerated and the related UDMs modified
to address the new data structure. The HTML
templates that need to display/access the
newly-introduced data elements can be changed
for user-interface updates. |
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