Preparing to Use an External IDE

This chapter helps you get ready to use an external IDE for developing SilverStream applications. You'll learn about:

• Basics of using external IDEs

• SilverStream integrations for external IDEs

• Code examples for external IDEs

Basics of using external IDEs   

To develop a SilverStream application, you build objects such as JavaServer Pages (JSPs), Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), and other Java classes, then deploy those objects to the SilverStream Server. You may also build client-side objects, such as classes for a Java UI that accesses the SilverStream Server.

SilverStream provides an IDE for building these objects (the SilverStream Designer), but you may choose to work in some other (external) IDE instead. To support external development, SilverStream provides integrations for several popular IDEs. Installing one of these integrations extends your favorite IDE to support SilverStream development tasks.

You can also work in external IDEs or additional tools without SilverStream integrations. As with the integrations, this type of environment (once set up) lets you build various kinds of SilverStream objects. The main difference is that you'll need to run a separate SilverStream utility to deploy objects to the server.

The following table will guide you to more detailed information on these topics:

To learn about	See
Choosing an appropriate IDE for your SilverStream application development work	Setting up your development environment (in the Programmer's Guide chapter on starting your development project)
Using external IDEs with SilverStream integrations	SilverStream integrations for external IDEs (below)
Using external IDEs without SilverStream integrations	Coding in external development environments (in the Programmer's Guide chapter on coding Java for SilverStream applications)
SilverStream API support in external IDEs	Coding in external development environments (in the Programmer's Guide chapter on coding Java for SilverStream applications)
Examples of coding common SilverStream application features in external IDEs	Code examples for external IDEs (below)

SilverStream integrations for external IDEs   

SilverStream provides integrations for the following external IDEs. Each integration is described in a corresponding chapter of this book.

To learn about the integration for	See this chapter
JBuilder	Using JBuilder for SilverStream Development
Visual Cafe	Using VisualCafe for SilverStream Development
InLine	Using InLine for SilverStream Development
Dreamweaver	Using Dreamweaver for SilverStream Development

Code examples for external IDEs   

To help you start developing SilverStream applications in your external IDE, SilverStream provides a specialized set of code examples you can examine, compile, and run. These external 3GL examples include:

• Java client techniques for accessing the SilverStream Server

• JSP techniques for developing basic JavaServer Pages and deploying them to the SilverStream Server

• Complete sample applications that demonstrate a combination of SilverStream techniques (including EJBs, servlets, Java clients, and JSPs)

• Online help that describes each example as well as how to set up and use it

To launch these code examples:

1. Use your operating system to open the SilverStream install directory (typically C:\SilverStream35).

2. Open the following file in your HTML browser:

     samples\Help\index.html 
   

   This displays the main page of online help for the examples. Use it to find and launch the examples you want.