An Introduction to Developing Java

Web Applications

Contents:

1. Machine specification used in this task

2. Pre requirement

3. Setting Up a Web Application Project

4. Creating and Editing Web Application Source Files

5. Creating a Java Package and a Java Source File

6. Generating Getter and Setter Methods

7. Editing the Default JavaServer Pages File

8. Creating a JavaServer Pages (JSP) File

9. Building and Running a Web Application Project

The original tutorial can be found atnetbeans.org. All credits must go

to the original authors. In this tutorial we try to refine all the steps to
more details using screen shots.

Machine specification used in this task are:

Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo, 2.2 GHz,

Windows XP Pro SP2 + periodical patches + periodical updates…

2 GB DDR2 RAM

160 GB SATA HDD

17” SyncMaster 713N monitor.

Pre requirement

1.     NetBeans 6.x.x
 2.     To work through this tutorial, you must have a server registered
in the IDE. The Web and Java EE installation enables you to
optionally install and register the Apache Tomcat servlet container
6.0.14, and the GlassFish V2 application server.

3.     If you are installing NetBeans IDE for the first time, you need to
have theJava SE Development Kit (JDK) installed. The JDK includes
the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), as well as various tools and
API's necessary for development in Java.

Setting Up a Web Application Project

1.     Choose File > New Project (Ctrl-Shift-N) from the main menu. Under
Categories, select Web. Under Projects, select Web Application then click
Next.

2.     In Step 2, enter HelloWebin the Project Name text box. Notice that
the Context Path (i.e., on the server) becomes /HelloWeb.

3.     Specify the Project Location to any directory on your computer. For

purposes of this tutorial, this directory is referred to as $PROJECTHOME.

4.     Select the server to which you want to deploy your application. Only
servers that are registered with the IDE are listed. In this case we select
GlassFish V2. Click Next.

 
 

5.     Leave the Set as Main Project option selected and click Finish. The
IDE creates the $PROJECTHOME/HelloWebproject folder. The project
folder contains all of your sources and project metadata, such as the
project's Ant build script. The HelloWeb project opens in the IDE. The
welcome page, index.jsp, opens in the Source Editor in the main window.
You can view the project's file structure in the Files window (Ctrl-2), and its
logical structure in the Projects window (Ctrl-1):

Creating and Editing Web Application Source Files

Creating and editing source files is the most important function that the
IDE serves. After all, that is probably what you spend most of your day
doing. The IDE provides a wide range of tools that can compliment any
developer's personal style, whether you prefer to code everything by hand
or want the IDE to generate large chunks of code for you.

Creating a Java Package and a Java Source File

1.     In the Projects window, expand the Source Packages node. Note the
Source Packages node only contains an empty default package node.

 
 

2.     Right-click the Source Packages node and choose New > Java Class.
Enter NameHandler in the Class Name text box and type
org.mypackage.hello in the Package combo box. Click Finish. Notice that
the new NameHandler.java file opens in the Source Editor.

 
 

3.     In the Source Editor, declare a String variable by typing the following
line directly below the class declaration:

String name;

4.     Add the following constructor to the class:

public NameHandler()

{ }

5.     Add the following line in the NameHandler() constructor:

name = null;

Generating Getter and Setter Methods

1.     Right-click the name field in the Source Editor and choose Refactor >
Encapsulate Fields. The Encapsulate Fields dialog opens, listing the name
field. Notice that Fields' Visibility is by default set to private, and
Accessors' Visibility to public, indicating that the access modifier for class
variable declaration will be specified as private, whereas getter and setter
methods will be generated with public and private modifiers, respectively.

2.     Click Refactor. Getter and setter methods are generated for the name
field. The modifier for the class variable is set to private while getter and
setter methods are generated with public modifiers. The Java class should
now look similar to the following:

 
 

Editing the Default JavaServer Pages File

1.     Refocus the index.jsp file by clicking its tab displayed at the top of the
Source Editor.

2.     In the Palette (Ctrl-Shift-8) located to the right of the Source Editor,
expand HTML Forms and drag a Form item to a point after the <h1> tags
into the Source Editor. The Insert Form dialog box displays:

3.     Specify the following values:

Action: response.jsp

Method: GET

Name: Name Input Form

 
 

4.     Click OK. An HTML form is added to the index.jsp file.

5.     Drag a Text Input item to a point just before the </form> tag, then
specify the following values:

Name: name

Type: text

6.     Click OK. An HTML <input> tag is added between the <form> tags.

 
 

7.     Delete the empty value= " " attribute. The code should be like this:

<input type="text" name="name" />

8.     Drag a Button item to a point just before the </form> tag. Specify the
following values:

Label: OK

Type: submit

9.     Click OK. An HTML button is added between the <form> tags.

 
 

10.Delete the empty value= " " attribute. Type Enter your name: just before
the <input> tag, then change the default JSP Page text between the
<h1> tags to Entry Form.

11.Right-click within the Source Editor and choose Format (Alt-Shift-F) to

tidy the format of your code. Your index.jsp file should now appear similar
to the following:

<%@page contentType="text/html"%>
<%@page pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/
<html>
   <head>
       <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
       <title>JSP Page</title>
   </head>
   <body>
       <h1>Entry Form</h1>
 
        <form name="Name Input Form" action="response.jsp">
           Enter your name:
           <input type="text" name="name" />
           <input type="submit" value="OK" />
       </form>
 
    </body>
</html>

 
 

Creating a JavaServer Pages (JSP) File

1.     In the Projects window, right-click the HelloWeb project node and
choose New > JSP. The New JSP File wizard opens. Name the file
response, and click Finish. Notice that a response.jsp file node displays in
the Projects window beneath index.jsp and the new file opens in the
Source Editor.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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2.     In the Palette to the right of the Source Editor, expand JSP and drag a
Use Bean item to a point just below the <body> tag in the Source Editor.

3.     The Insert Use Bean dialog opens. Specify the following values:

ID: mybean

Class: org.mypackage.hello.NameHandler

Scope: session

 
 

4.     Click OK. Notice that<jsp:useBean> tags is added beneath the <body>

tag.

5.     Drag a Set Bean Property item from the Palette to a point just before
the <h1> tag and click OK.

6.     In the<jsp:setProperty> tag that appears, delete the empty value

(value="") attribute and edit as follows:

<jsp:setProperty name="mybean" property="name" />

As indicated in the<jsp:setProperty> documentation, you can set a

property value in various ways. In this case, the user input coming from
index.jsp becomes a name/value pair that is passed to the request object.
When you set a property using the <jsp:setProperty> tag, you can specify
the value according to the name of a property contained in the request
object. Therefore, by setting property to name, you can retrieve the value
specified by user input.

7.     Change the text between the <h2> tags so that it looks like this:

<h1>Hello, !</h1>

     and delete the value="" attribute.

 
8.     Drag a Get Bean Property item from the Palette and drop it after the
comma between the <h1> tags.

9.     Specify the following values in the Insert Get Bean Property dialog:

Bean Name: mybean

Property Name: name

10.Click OK. Notice that<jsp:getProperty> tag is now added between the

<h1> tags.

11.Right-click within the Source Editor and choose Format (Alt-Shift-F) to

tidy the format of your code. The <body> tags of your response.jsp file
should now appear similar to the following:

<%@page contentType="text/html"%>
<%@page pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
   <head>
       <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
       <title>JSP Page</title>
   </head>
   <body>
       <jsp:useBean id="mybean" scope="session" class="org.mypackage.hello.NameHa
       <jsp:setProperty name="mybean" property="name" />
       <h1>Hello,<jsp:getProperty name="mybean" property="name" /> !</h1>
   </body>
</html>

Building and Running a Web Application Project

The IDE uses an Ant build script to build and run your web applications.
The IDE generates the build script based on the options you specify in the
New Project wizard, as well as those from the project's Project Properties
dialog box (In the Projects window, choose Properties from the project
node's right click menu).

 
1.     In the Projects window, right-click the HelloWeb project node and
choose Run (F6). The IDE builds the web application and deploys it to the
server you specified when creating the project. The index.jsp page opens
in your default browser:

This concludes the Introduction to Developing Web Applications tutorial.

This document demonstrated how to create a simple web application
using NetBeans IDE, deploy it to a server, and view its presentation in a
browser. It also showed how to use JavaServer Pages and JavaBeans in
your application to collect, persist, and output user data.