WebObjects 5
Reviewer’s Guide
June 2001
WebObjects 5
3 Introduction
4 The WebObjects 5 Architecture
5 Key Features
5 Automated data access with Enterprise Objects
5 Streamlined page generation with Web Components
6 Rich Java clients using EOAssociations
7 Integrated tools
9 WebObjects 5 Advantages
9 Rapid time to market
9 Built-in quality
10 Scalable Java deployment
10 Market-proven solutions
11 Positioning and Target Customers
11 Education
11 Publishing
12 Business
13 WebObjects 5 Background
13 Born at NeXT
13 Joining Apple
14 Moving to Java
15 Pricing and Availability
16 System Requirements
16 For more information
Contents
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WebObjects 5 is the powerful new release of Apple’s award-winning application server—now
written in the language of the Internet: Java. This allows WebObjects to run on virtually any
server; makes it easily accessible to millions of Java programmers; and enables it to easily
integrate and interoperate with other Java-based solutions such as EJB containers, servlets,
ORBS, and web services.
The combination of a Java runtime with advanced native tools for Mac OS X and Windows 2000
makes WebObjects the obvious environment for customers needing rapid development of
flexible, scalable web applications.
Built using the same NeXT-derived tools that spawned the World Wide Web, the mature, fifthgeneration WebObjects frameworks also have the Xerces parser from the Apache Software
Foundation integrated directly into them. This allows developers to import and export XML
datastreams as well as supporting SMIL for multimedia applications.
Although WebObjects is cross-platform—enabling development on both Mac OS X and
Windows 2000 and deployment on any Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition v1.3 system—
WebObjects 5 is especially designed to take full advantage of the power of Mac OS X. In fact,
the WebObjects deployment is now bundled as part of the newest release of Mac OS X Server.
This document highlights key information about WebObjects 5. For those who wish to learn
more about the product, WebObjects itself provides a wealth of documentation. Every copy of
WebObjects includes WebObjects Overview, a 98-page book covering the rich architecture of
the WebObjects frameworks. Also available from the Apple Developer Library is Discovering
WebObjects for HTML, a 196-page step-by-step tutorial covering the key aspects of building
three-tier web applications using WebObjects.
Introduction
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All web application servers are designed to solve the same basic problem: how to create and
maintain dynamic information. Static websites store all their content, presentation, and navigation information in HTML files. Not only does this make it very difficult for webmasters to do
rapid or complex updates, it also means that every visitor sees exactly the same information in
exactly the same way.
To solve this problem, application servers typically store their content in a database and use
some form of scripting to create web pages dynamically, in real time. While this approach
allows webmasters to create sites that have continuously updated content, such flexibility
usually comes at the price of greatly increased complexity. This complexity lengthens development cycles, makes the website harder to maintain, and increases qualification efforts.
The WebObjects architecture.
WebObjects improves on the traditional application server architecture with an architecture
that cleanly separates the database access layer, the application-specific Java code, and the
web page or Java client presentation layer. Supported by rich object-oriented frameworks,
this thoughtfully designed architecture is the foundation of the powerful technologies in
WebObjects. Our patented object-relational mapping engine provides automated database
access via Enterprise Objects. Web Components enable the efficient generation of HTML, XML,
or SMIL from reusable templates. When HTML interfaces aren’t enough, rich three-tier Java
client applications are supported with EOAssociations.
An integrated suite of graphical tools streamlines application development. Unlike other
graphical tools that generate hard-to-read code, the WebObjects tools dynamically bind application components with XML-like data structures, greatly simplifying application maintenance.
Application components can be reused, and incremental development is easy. Both of those
capabilities reduce your total cost of ownership over the life cycle of an application.
The WebObjects Architecture
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5
WebObjects 5 offers a number of powerful features designed to speed application development, reduce errors, and permit easy updating and modification of your applications. These
features include
• Automated data access
• Streamlined page generation
• Rich Java clients
• Integrated development and deployment tools
For additional information, please see the WebObjects 5 data sheet in the “Tech Specs” section
of www.apple.com/webobjects.
Automated data access with Enterprise Objects
For a typical web application, the most time-consuming and error-prone step is managing database access. Generating correct SQL, understanding foreign keys and dependencies, ensuring
that transactions are committed in the proper order—all these are difficult processes for a
programmer to master and implement properly. And the price of failure is high. One erroneous
entry could rapidly propagate throughout your application, corrupting the entire database.
To prevent such errors, WebObjects takes the programmer out of the data access loop. Instead,
all database access is handled automatically via Enterprise Objects (EOs). The developer simply
uses the graphical EOModeler tool to create a plist (an XML-like structured text file used for
configuration information) called an EOModel. This model specifies how to map tables into
objects, and encodes all the dependencies and the “to-one” and “to-many” relationships
between them. The WebObjects frameworks use this model file to create Enterprise Objects,
and transparently handle all the fetching, caching, and updating to and from the database.
After the EOModel is created, all the programmer has do to is to write straightforward Java code
that accesses, modifies, and commits the Enterprise Objects. EOs can be thought of as entity
beans with complete container-managed persistence. Perhaps just as important, this process is
managed via configuration files rather than generated code. The database administrator can
change databases, reorganize schema, switch to an ERP system, or even use multiple data
sources at once. As long as the model file is properly updated, the programmer (and the code)
never knows the difference.
Streamlined page generation with Web Components
The next challenge is turning objects into web pages. The traditional way to do this has been
via some sort of server-side scripting, whether Perl, ASP, or JSP. However, this method can lead
to a complicated mix of code and markup in the same file, and often requires one person to be
both an HTML designer and a Java developer.
Key Features
Apple’s patented object-relational mapping engine lets you write
all your business logic using objects. WebObjects automatically
fetches, caches, and updates data for you from any JDBC 2.0
database or XML stream. You may never write another line of
SQL.
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Today, most experts recommend using a template engine to generate web pages, an approach
that isolates the layout and formatting issues from the logic of the application. This separation
allows designers to create aesthetically pleasing HTML, and programmers to focus on efficiently
generated code.
WebObjects pioneered this idea (way back in 1996) with Web Components (sometimes called
WOComponents, after the class name). Web Components represent dynamic elements, which
can be either a complete page or a single item such as a table. WebObjects includes a vast
library of existing Web Components; you can easily subclass them to create your own library
of reusable components.
Originally developed to generate HTML files, Web Components can also be used to generate
XML or SMIL output, as well as to embed arbitrary client-side controls such as JavaScript. (SMIL
is an XML-compliant language used to describe interactive synchronized multimedia on the
web.) Because these templates use standard HTML, it’s easy to create output in any language,
including two-byte languages such as Japanese.
Each Web Component consists of an HTML file, a Java class, and a mapping file (which is just
another plist). The HTML file is standard HTML with the addition of special webobjects tag.
Each such tag refers to an entry in the mapping file, which defines a “WOAssociation.” A
WOAssociation uses various methods or instance variables in the associated Java class to
generate HTML. When the HTML file is parsed by the WebObjects template engine, the tags
are replaced by dynamic content from the associated class, using the WOAssociations.
These Java classes are automatically instantiated for each new session, and use Enterprise
Objects as their persistence mechanism. Thus, the developer generally only needs to write a
few lines of code covering each piece of application-specific business logic; all the session
management and persistence is handled automatically by WebObjects. The loose coupling
provided by the mapping file also makes it easy to update the Java code without having to
touch the HTML file (or vice versa).
Rich Java clients using EOAssociations
Sometimes an HTML interface isn’t rich enough or fast enough for interacting with large,
complex data sets. To address these situations, WebObjects supports the creation of threetier Java client applications using a technique called EOAssociations. An EOAssociation is a
bidirectional relationship between a user interface widget and an underlying data object.
EOAssociations are related to the WOAssociations used to manage the mapping in a Web
Component, except that EOAssociations can talk directly to the user interface, avoiding the
need for an intermediary.
The use of EOAssociations eliminates the need for the user interface to know about the web
server (or even the database server, for that matter). All the UI designer has to do is associate a
user interface widget with an appropriate data object, and the EOAssociation works with the
underlying frameworks to manage all the appropriate transport, caching, and persistence. In
particular, Java client applications maintain their own client-side object caches for optimum
performance. You can easily move logic between the client and the server for optimum security.
Web Components efficiently generate HTML, XML, or SMIL
output from reusable templates. This clearly separates the
presentation layer from your business logic and your data
model, allowing each piece to evolve independently.
When HTML isn’t enough, WebObjects makes it easy to create
highly interactive desktop clients using rich Swing widgets,
while still preserving the security and flexibility of three-tier
applications.
Integrated tools
To help you manage all these abstractions and their associated property lists, WebObjects
provides a comprehensive suite of tightly integrated tools. These tools are available for both
Windows 2000 and Mac OS X (v10.0), although the versions for Mac OS X are newer and take
full advantage of the Aqua user interface.
Project Builder
At the heart of the WebObjects development process is Project Builder, a multilanguage
integrated development environment (IDE) used extensively by Mac OS X developers. In
addition to helping you edit, compile, and debug WebObjects applications, Project Builder
organizes all your components (including localized resources for multiple languages); provides
templates and assistants covering the common application types; and, on Mac OS X, integrates
with source code repositories such as CVS.
EOModeler
Perhaps the most powerful tool in the WebObjects arsenal is EOModeler. EOModeler manages
the object-relational mappings used by the data access layer, and can even help you organize
your business logic. It can also be used to manage your database schema, either by reverse
engineering a model from the schema or by using a new model to create the schema. In
EOModeler, graphical entity-relationship diagrams aren’t just pretty pictures; they represent
the actual object relationships created and maintained by the data access frameworks.
WebObjects Builder
Although Web Components use standard HTML that can be edited with any text editing tool,
WebObjects also includes a comprehensive layout tool called WebObjects Builder (WOB) that
can manage the associated mapping files. WOB can be used for general HTML layout and
provides the usual preview mode and drag-and-drop palettes common in such tools.
However, the real power of WebObjects Builder is its support for mappings. You can drag a
dynamic element into your web page, specify the mappings, and set the properties. WOB
automatically generates the appropriate HTML and mapping information, letting you focus
on the aesthetics of your design. (And letting someone else focus on writing the associated
Java code to implement the mapped methods.)
Interface Builder
For the creation of rich Java client applications, WebObjects includes the award-winning Interface Builder application, considered the crown jewel of the NEXTSTEP application environment
that gave it birth. In WebObjects, Interface Builder defines the layout and database connections
of three-tier Java client applications using a simple drag-and-drop paradigm. On Mac OS X, this
same technology can also be used to create native Cocoa clients that talk directly to a database.
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Deployment tools
In addition to all of the developer applications listed above, WebObjects provides a rich suite
of deployment tools. The centerpiece of these tools is Monitor, itself a WebObjects application
that manages all the different WebObjects applications and the servers on which they are
running. You can use Monitor to start and stop instances, generate statistics, and configure
how applications are run. Other tools enable you to record and play back sessions for both
functional and stress testing.
The WebObjects runtime is written entirely in Java, allowing your applications to run on virtually any Java 2 platform.With the
low-cost licensing and smart load balancing of WebObjects, it’s easy to scale an application for as many users as necessary.
The comprehensive tools and frameworks of WebObjects make it an incredibly powerful
way to create Java server applications. In particular, WebObjects provides four key advantages
over competing solutions: rapid time to market, built-in quality, scalable Java deployment, and
market-proven solutions.
Rapid time to market
WebObjects has long been the tool that demanding customers turn to when time is money.
Its modular architecture enables database configuration, Java programming, and page design
to proceed in parallel. Its rich object-oriented frameworks do most of the hard work for you,
and its integrated tools streamline the process of application design and development.
An added bonus is the ability to create fully functional prototypes in seconds using the Direct
to Web and Direct to Java Client assistants. Leveraging the power of the WebObjects frameworks, these tools apply heuristics to the data model to define a complete three-tier HTML or
Java application instantly. The appearance of the application is driven by a sophisticated rule
engine, which can be configured inside the application by using Java applets or with the
comprehensive RuleEditor included in the WebObjects developer tools. These prototypes
allow you to browse and edit the database, and can provide a useful starting point for creating
more sophisticated interfaces.
Built-in quality
Developers are all too familiar with Murphy’s law—namely, that anything that can go wrong
will go wrong. WebObjects provides “Murphy protection” by reducing the number of things
that can possibly go wrong. The WebObjects frameworks were created by what many people
consider the best object-oriented design team in the history of our industry. Now, in their fifth
generation, these frameworks have been fine-tuned to handle all the basic tasks of application
server development for you.
Because the vast majority of a WebObjects application is well-tested framework code—not
generated code—there’s very little application-specific code to debug. Also, the isolation of
data, logic, and presentation elements greatly improves both the flexibility and security of
your product. Key information such as database referential integrity constraints (identifying
dependencies between objects) is embedded directly in the model, rather than being wholly
dependent on programmer discipline.
WebObjects Advantages
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WebObjects 5
Scalable Java deployment
Most exciting of all, with this release, the power of WebObjects is now fully accessible to Java
programmers. The WebObjects runtime is written to the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition v1.3,
allowing it to run virtually anywhere.
Now that WebObjects is available on Java, it is instantly familiar and accessible to the millions
of programmers who prefer that language. The use of standard Java also makes it easy for
WebObjects to interoperate with other Java solutions, such as EJB containers, servlets, ORBS,
and web services.
Another benefit is that the Xerces-J XML parser from the Apache Software Foundation is
integrated directly into WebObjects. WebObjects uses this parser to import and export XML
data streams directly into your application, where you can manipulate the data using the power
of Enterprise Objects.
Compared to other solutions in this price range, WebObjects has the scalability to grow along
with your business. WebObjects makes it easy to dynamically add, manage, and remove servers
in order to handle all your deployment needs.
Market-proven solutions
These benefits are not just empty theory. In its five years of life, WebObjects has proven itself
time and time again as having the most mature object-oriented application server frameworks.
This leadership has been recognized by customers ranging from Apple’s core markets of
education and creative professionals to Fortune 500 corporations.
The preeminence of WebObjects is reflected in the wide range of awards it has received, from
best server to best tools to product of the year. In 2000, we won the Java Developer’s Journal
Readers Choice Award for the second year in a row, with almost twice the votes of the secondplace application server.
Apple believes so strongly in WebObjects that we use it ourselves as the basis for our entire
Internet strategy. WebObjects is our primary tool for delivering dynamic information to our
customers, providing the engine behind Apple’s iCards, iReview, and iTools portals. It also
powers the Apple Store, one of the best e-commerce sites. WebObjects even plays a crucial
role behind the scenes in managing www.apple.com, arguably the most popular computer
company site on the Internet.
WebObjects is also a crucial aspect of Apple’s server product strategy. We bundle an unlimited
WebObjects deployment as part of Mac OS X Server, and many customers use WebObjects to
help deliver QuickTime Streaming Server solutions.
WebObjects is Apple’s incredibly powerful “Internet engine” for addressing the custom
development, enterprise integration, and web publishing needs of educators, creative
professionals, and other major Apple customers. It leverages the power of Java, XML, and
open source code to enable the rapid creation of database-driven, cross-platform solutions
for e-learning, multimedia workflows, and e-commerce. It’s even more powerful when it’s
run on the UNIX-derived Mac OS X platform. Together, WebObjects, Mac OS X Server, and
QuickTime Streaming Server provide a complete Apple solution for the delivery of rich,
interactive content over the Internet.
Education
WebObjects is a key part of Apple’s strategy for education. In K–12 schools, WebObjects will
be used as part of Apple’s next generation of the PowerSchool school management system.
PowerSchool enables students, teachers, administrators, and parents to access comprehensive
student and school information online.
In higher education, WebObjects is used by universities (often with the help of Apple iServices)
to create portals, labs, and administrative solutions, such as the new student information site at
the University of Michigan. Many universities are looking to use WebObjects as the basis of their
web development courses, allowing students (or continuing education professionals) to create
complete web applications in a single semester.
Publishing
WebObjects is the lifeblood of some of the most important publishing solutions for creative
markets. Most notable is Adobe’s InScope software for publishing workflows, which is built
entirely around WebObjects. Other products for this market that are based on WebObjects
include
• ReportMill, for the dynamic generation of PDF, QuickTime, and Flash output in web or
video applications
• MAMBO from WebWare, for web-based asset and brand management
• SiteGenesis from Cassini Division, for comprehensive site management (used, for example,
by the BBC)
• CreativeStandard, which enables web designers to create complete e-commerce solutions
without becoming programmers
In addition, hundreds of other components and services have grown up around WebObjects
during the years it’s been on the market. Many of these can be integrated into your project
easily due to the robust object-oriented structure of WebObjects.
Positioning and Target Customers
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WebObjects 5
Business
A combination of outstanding technology and innovative partners has attracted some of the
best-known brands in the world to WebObjects. Fortune 500 companies have trusted it for years
for Intranet application development, personalized Internet content delivery, and e-commerce.
WebObjects-based solutions in this market include cutting-edge Internet sites such as the BBC,
Skymall, AAA, and MCI. WebObjects is also being used in powerful online applications for asset
management or customer services, including tracking United Parcel Service packages and
providing online services to U.S. Postal Service customers.
WebObjects 5 continues a proud, longstanding heritage of industry-leading web technology.
From predecessors that helped give birth to the World Wide Web to the current Java-based
release, WebObjects has become ever more powerful, comprehensive, and sophisticated.
Born at NeXT
WebObjects has its roots in NEXTSTEP, the award-winning object-oriented development tools
used by Tim Berners-Lee to create the original web browser at CERN. NEXTSTEP employed
a number of powerful design patterns that greatly simplified the creation of rich, graphical
applications. This ease of use led to its adoption by a number of large enterprises that wanted
to rapidly create sophisticated database applications.
To better serve this market, NeXT created a technology known as Enterprise Objects, the first
commercially successful object-relational modeling framework. Because Enterprise Objects
abstracted away all the work of database access, it quickly became the technology of choice for
financial institutions creating sophisticated client/server applications.
In 1995, NeXT realized that the World Wide Web would soon become the dominant format
for client/server applications. Therefore, NeXT programmers applied that same object-oriented
knowhow to create a sophisticated set of frameworks for managing HTTP requests and HTML
generation. In January 1996, NeXT announced WebObjects 1.0, the world’s first object-oriented
web application server. The power of WebObjects, leveraging the strengths of Enterprise
Objects, quickly made it the dominant product in NeXT’s portfolio.
Joining Apple
In 1997, NeXT was acquired by Apple, primarily for its engineering talent and the UNIX-based
operating system technology that eventually became the core of Mac OS X. WebObjects played
a key role at Apple during this time, driving Apple’s public Internet efforts such as the Apple
Store and iTools. However, WebObjects as a product was sold only through the Apple Enterprise
Software (AES) group, which also provided training, consulting, and support services for it.
This combination of direct sales and a high price (up to $50,000 for a multi-CPU deployment
license) kept WebObjects out of the reach of the vast majority of Apple developers.
Last year, after Mac OS X was solidly under way, Apple decided it was time to make both
WebObjects and AES more relevant to the broader Apple marketplace. At the WorldWide
Developers Conference in May 2000, Apple announced that it was cutting the price of
WebObjects to only $699 for a single box containing both developer tools and a full deployment license, which would be sold via both the Apple Store and traditional retail channels.
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WebObjects Background
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WebObjects 5
At the same time, the professional services portion of AES was reformulated as Apple iServices,
with a charter to focus on all of Apple’s Internet technologies, including WebObjects, Mac OS X
Server, and QuickTime Streaming Server.
Moving to Java
In its first several releases, WebObjects was written in Objective-C, a simple object-oriented
language that provided much of the inspiration for Java. As Java became more and more
important for server-side development, WebObjects 4.x added Java APIs. However, these
APIs accessed the Objective-C frameworks via a “bridge” that reduced performance and
complicated debugging. Therefore, in May 2000, Apple announced its intention to make
WebObjects a true Java application.
With WebObjects 5, Apple has delivered on that promise, and the original web application
server is now available in the language of the Internet: Java. This Java compatibility allows
WebObjects to run on virtually any server, and to easily integrate and interoperate with other
Java-based solutions. We expect the combination of a Java runtime with advanced native tools
for Mac OS X and Windows 2000 to enhance the already solid popularity of WebObjects with
customers needing rapid development of flexible, scalable web applications.
To help customers and the marketplace better appreciate the power of WebObjects, and to
make it more affordable to smaller organizations, Apple has set the price of WebObjects 5 at
$699 (only $99 for educational institutions). A single package contains both the developer tools
and a full deployment license. The license has no transaction limits, and allows you to install
the runtime on a separate machine—even a high-end server with multiple CPUs—at no
additional charge.
Now that WebObjects 5 is available in Java and runs on Apple’s new UNIX-based Mac OS X
operating system, we will be working hard to make the Java developer community aware of
the incredible power of WebObjects. WebObjects had a dedicated track at Apple’s WorldWide
Developers Conference in May 2001 that included 17 separate sessions, and it was a prominent
part of Apple’s booth at JavaONE. Time-limited WebObjects evaluation CDs and downloads are
being distributed by the Apple Developer Connection, even to free online members. The new
Mac OS X Server (v10.0) includes a full deployment license for WebObjects, making it the first
server software platform to include an enterprise-scale web application server.
WebObjects is available for sale via the Apple Store worldwide, as well as from various catalogs
and selected retailers. Up-and-running support is provide by our award-winning AppleCare
organization (www.info.apple.com/webobjects). API-based developer technical support is
available through the Apple Developer Connection (connect.apple.com). For more in-depth
assistance, our Apple iServices professional services organization (www.apple.com/iservices)
provides a wide range of WebObjects solutions, including consulting, training, and personalized
technical support.
Pricing and Availability
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Development platforms
• Mac OS X (v10.0)
• Windows 2000 Pro
Deployment platforms
WebObjects applications are designed to work with any Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition v1.3
runtime environment, using JDBC 2.0 for universal database connectivity. Following is the
current list of deployment platforms that Apple has qualified for use with WebObjects 5 and for
which we offer technical support. For updates, please visit www.apple.com/webobjects.
• Mac OS X Server (v10.0)
• Windows 2000 Pro
• Solaris 8
Supported data sources
WebObjects applications are designed to use JDBC 2.0 for universal database connectivity.
The following database has been qualified to work with WebObjects 5. For updates, please visit
www.apple.com/webobjects.
• Oracle 8i
For more information
For technical or sales information about WebObjects 5, please visit www.apple.com/
webobjects. For developer information, please see www.developer.apple.com/webobjects.
System Requirements
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Apple
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
408-996-1010
www.apple.com
© 2001 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.Apple, the Apple logo,Apple Store, Mac, PowerSchool, QuickTime, and WebObjects are trademarks of
Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Enterprise Objects, Enterprise Objects Framework, NeXT, NEXTSTEP, and Objective-C are
trademarks of NeXT Software, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Mac OS X Server includes software developed by the Apache Group for
use in the Apache HTTP server project (http://www.apache.org/). Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective
companies. Mention of non-Apple products is for informational purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation. Apple
assumes no responsibility with regard to the selection, performance, or use of these products.All understandings, agreements, or warranties, if any, take
place directly between the vendors and the prospective users. Product specifications are subject to change without notice.
June 2001 L14866A
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