Building Applications with IBM Rational Application Developer and JavaBeans

This book showcases the visual programming features of Rational Application Developer, demonstrating how easy it is to quickly create applications with JavaBeans. Intended for novice to intermediate programmers with limited familiarity with the Java programming language, the book uses Rational Application Developer as an educational tool for teaching visual programming to create Java applications, applets, and servlets. Whether you are new to Java or an old pro, you will see how Rational Application Developer makes development of Java applications easier and faster.

Consisting of two parts, the book first covers how to build JavaServer Faces Web applications (servlets) using the Page Designer tool. Part 2 covers building Java applications and applets using the Visual Editor for Java, which lets programmers visually design their graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Both parts focus on building applications with reusable components (JavaBeans) to get them up and running quickly. Throughout, the authors compare and contrast the two visual programming environments to explain the differences between Java applications, applets, and servlets.

The authors explain Java programming concepts hand-in-hand with Rational Application Developer. You will find detailed, step-by-step instructions with lots of screen captures to make it easy to follow along. Each chapter develops at least one complete, standalone application, applet, or servlet, with sample code and solution files provided on the included CD-ROM. And, while most books teach how to use either a development tool or a particular programming language, this book combines learning the language with using the tool. Exercises at the end of each chapter reinforce the concepts.

With this book, you will:

• Discover how easy it is to visually build applications that run as JavaServer Faces Web applications-Java applets-or Java applications
• Quickly become comfortable using Rational Application Developer features such as visual editors-the debugger-and test facilities
• Learn to build advanced application features-such as adding Ajax behavior to JavaServer Faces Web applications to make Web pages more interactive and usable-working with relational databases-and using XML data in Java applications