- Examples Installation
- Creator Views
- Sample Application
- Key Point Summary
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
2.4 Key Point Summary
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Creator has multiple windows to give you different views of the project that you're working on. The windows can be sized, docked and undocked, or hidden.
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From the main menu, select View and the desired window name to enable viewing.
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Use the Welcome Window to select a Project to open, or to create a new project.
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The design canvas allows you to manipulate components on a page and control their size and placement.
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Use the components palette to place a component on the design canvas.
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Use the converters/validators palette to select data converters and input validators for your project.
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The Properties window allows you to inspect and edit a component's properties. Each element type displays a different list of properties.
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A component's value attribute usually contains text that is displayed (such as labels on buttons or input and output fields). The title attribute gives you a tooltip for the component and the style attribute lets you change the font characteristics.
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You can apply Property Binding and "connect" the value of one component to another.
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The Application Outline window shows all of the elements on a page, including nonvisual components.
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The Project Navigator displays an entire project, including Java source files. Choose between the Logical view and the FileSystem view by right-clicking the project name.
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The JSP Source editor displays a page's source. Most of the page includes JSF tags for components and their properties. As you make changes in the design canvas, Creator keeps the JSP source (as well as the Java source) synchronized with your changes.
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The Java Source editor displays the Java source for each "page bean," the JavaBeans component that manipulates each page's elements. You typically place event handler code or custom initialization code in the Java page bean.
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The Java Source editor includes a code completion mechanism that provides pop-up windows with possible method names (use <Ctrl-Space> to invoke) and Javadoc documentation for classes and objects in your program (use <Ctrl-Shift-Space> to invoke). It also includes a dynamic syntax analyzer to warn you about compilation errors before you compile.
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The Clips palette provides sample Java code to accomplish common programming tasks. The Clips are organized into categories based on function.
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The Page Navigation editor lets you specify page flow. It builds a navigation configuration file, navigation.xml.
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When you build your project, the Build Output window provides diagnostic feedback and completion status.
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The Server Navigator window displays the Data Sources, Web Services, Deployment Server, and Database Server nodes.
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You can start and stop the application server and undeploy running web applications from the Deployment Server node.
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You can view Table data by expanding the Data Sources node and selecting individual tables. Creator displays the data in the editor pane when you right-click the table name and select View Data.
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The Debugger Window displays several views that are helpful when you are debugging your project. You can monitor the call stack, local variables, and watches, for example.
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The Creator Help system provides a table of contents, an index, and a search mechanism to help you use Creator.