User manual ALASKA WIS REVIEW GUIDE

[. . . ] WIS Review Guide Abstract The Alaska Software Web Integration Server (WIS) is a server platform designed to integrate and aggregate Web content. In general, the WIS server is capable of exposing legacy Web pages to a client application just like a database server exposes data. WIS includes a highly interactive design environment allowing a programmer to describe the contents of a Web page to be exposed as well as the format and/or database model for data retrieval. Alaska Software Web Integration Server Review Guide 1 The Alaska Software Web Integration Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Positioning of WIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 WIS overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 History and Design goals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Data-Access Components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Solutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Feeding data into an existing Web site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Entering Customer Data automatically into an existing Web frontend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Reusing existing content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Grabbing flight information details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Searching Yahoo from within your application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Alaska Software Web Integration Server Review Guide 2 The Alaska Software Web Integration Server Copyright remarks Copyright Alaska Software GmbH, (c) 2001. Alaska Xbase++, Web Application Adaptor, WAA, Web Integration Server and WIS are trademarks or registered trademarks of Alaska Software. [. . . ] Manages Datastore, Dataset definitions A datastore and dataset project view is included in the WIS designer. This project viewer visualizes the WDM in several treeviews to allow the most efficient manipulation of the elements. An integrated property monitor allows to change the properties of fields, datasets and datastores on the fly. Contains easy to use wizards for easy creation of datasets To ease the construction of datasets and datastores, the WIS designer contains several wizards which guide the user through the individual steps required. Alaska Software Web Integration Server Review Guide 12 Data Access Components The WIS server transforms Web content into a database access model, and uses data access components to retrieve or submit data to/from Web pages available on remote WWW servers. Client applications are provided with a standardized model to access and manipulate data components: the Data Access Chain technology (DAC) which is built into Xbase++. In the following the core components of the DAC class framework relating to the WIS usage scenario are outlined. dacSession(), a client application establishes a connection to the WIS server using objects of the dacSession() class, just as if the application connects to a database server. After a successful connection a Datasource object can be retrieved. dacDatasource(), a Datasource object is used to encapsulate a data-model, the WDM (WIS data model). A datasource is comparable to a database, i. e. it is a collection of tables, views, integrity rules and constraints. dacSDataset(), a Static Dataset represents a set of data. Speaking in terms of databases, a data set consists of rows, each of which is a collection of fields (dacField). Datasets, their fields, data types and the content description are designed using a visual-design approach with the WIS designer. dacTransactDatastore(), a transaction datastore provides transaction semantics to retrieve or update data in single or multiple datasets. The datastore therefore can be understood as some sort of container providing interfaces to manipulate or read data. Alaska Software Web Integration Server Review Guide 13 Solutions With the success of the Internet, the number of applications, the huge amount of data, processes and technologies available in this universe turned the Internet into a world wide database for almost any information available on this planet. That means, almost any kind of information is available in one place. In addition, a lot of companies made their services available online to ease access for their customers. For example, online shops offer services to search latest low-price offers for particular goods along with the possibility to order them online. Airlines offer online research or booking. News agencies offer online access to their news databases. The list of possibilities to take advantage of available services is endless. The WIS server provides an unique and easy way to embed these Internet services into your own applications. [. . . ] For example, we could present the labels of the hyper links in a listbox and open a Web browser displaying the corresponding Web page when a user selects an item from the listbox. This could be done with very little Xbase++ code: // Create the listbox oList := XbpListbox():New(): oList:Create(, , , { SetAppWindow():xSize, SetAppWindow():ySize - 40 } ) // add the resulting URL labels to the listbox AEval( oDatastore:ResultLabel, { |c| oList:AddItem( c ) } ) // double clicking an item in the listbox loads the corresponding URL // into a Web browser (this is done by calling the function "ShellOpenFile()") oList:ItemSelected := { || ShellOpenFile( oDatastore:ResultHREF[oList:GetData()[1]] )} This example is a complete request/reply communication between an Xbase++ client application and a remote WWW server. It demonstrates how processes can be automated with the WIS server that normally require the interaction of a user and a Web browser. Accessing a search engine is a simple task to automate. [. . . ]