Category: webobjects

Apple’s incredibly powerful and robust web application framework

Standard no more!

Posted on by david

Karl said: You should change your blog search field to use the new <input type=”search” /> attribute in Safari

So I did. If you are using Safari 1.3 or later the search field should look like this:

search.jpg

It will store your 10 most recent searches (accessible by clicking on the little disclosure triangle beside the magnifying glass). Nothing to fear for other browser users though, it’ll degrade nicely to a plain textfield on any browser that doesn’t recognize the type="search" attribute.

Karl also says:

You can add it to a WOTextField in WebObjects too, just add these bindings:

  • autosave = “autosave-name”; // the name under which to save the previous searches in defaults
  • results = 10; // the number of previous searches to save
  • type = “search”; // the input type (required)
  • placeholder = “my placeholder”; // the grey text in the box when it’s empty and doesn’t have focus.

WebObjects 5.3 Licensing

Posted on by david

With the release of WebObjects 5.3, Apple has significantly changed the licensing of the product. I’m not at WWDC, which is frustrating, but I’ve been following the posts on the WebObjects dev list pretty closely and this is a summary of my current understanding.

  • WebObjects if free for development on Mac OS X. It is now a part of the mainstream Xcode (as of version 2.1) developer tools and, according to Cliff Tuel, should receive the attention from Apple it deserves.
  • Development is no longer supported on any other platform.
  • Deployment licenses are included with Mac OS X Server. It is unclear whether you will be able to buy WebObjects 5.2.3 licenses separately going forward, but according to Bill Bumgarner, the WebObjects 5.3 license is not tied to hardware.
  • Deployment on any platform other than Mac OS X is no longer supported. It is not clear whether anyone will be able to hack a native deployment with WebObjects 5.3 on Windows or Linux, but Tomcat or JBoss deployment should be possible. Either way you are completely on your own. According to one report Apple isn’t going to come after you, they just won’t support you.

So, what does this all mean?

  • The Good: WebObjects just got a major upgrade, the tools are getting updated, development is free, deployment just got cheeper (free if you’re purchasing an Xserve anyway, US$499 for a 10 client version of OS X Server otherwise), and (maybe most importantly) WebObjects is now a fully supported member of the mainstream developer tools.
  • The Bad: No official support for development or deployment on any platform other than OS X, and the future of development using tools other than Xcode looks dicey as well.

My take? Well, this is my blog (so it’s all about me :-)) but I’m pretty pleased actually. Obviously getting a new version is cool, but getting Apple to actually articulate some kind of roadmap is amazing.

I know these changes will negatively affect a good number of existing developers, and I appreciate how that must feel. Luckily I’m going to benefit from all of the “plusses” whithout much impact from the “minuses” (other than maybe losing the ability to develop with Eclipse/WOLips – we’ll have to see on that one).

Reverting for now

Posted on by david

I’ve reverted to WebObjects 5.2.3 for now.

Xcode 2.1 has a new project file format (Project.xcodeproj) which is not compatible with the WOlips XcodeIndex task and I have several projects in development that will not be moving to Tiger right away. So, upgrading will have to wait.

Free!

Posted on by david

I don’t know whether this officially documented anywhere but it looks like WebObjects is now free for development on Mac OS X.

I just installed WebObjects 5.3 with Xcode 2.1. At no point did the familiar " Enter your license string" dialog appear and when the install was completed, the file "/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaWebObjects.framework/Resources/License.key" contained a license that didn’t match my previous one.

The WebObjectsLicenseUpgrader.app shows this as being a full WebObjects Developer license.

WebObjects 5.3

Posted on by david

The release notes for Xcode 2.1 state:

WebObjects 5.3 The WebObjects developer tools are now included with the Xcode Tools. For more information see here.

  • EOModels can now be edited within Xcode with a new EOModeler plugin that integrates CoreData modeling tools.
  • WebObjects Builder has UI enhancements and generates HTML 4.0.1 code.
  • WebObjects Runtime now supports HTML 4.0.1.
  • NSArray, NSDictionary and NSSet now implement the java.util.Collection interfaces.
  • Axis 1.1 has been integrated with the Direct To WebServices feature.
  • WebObjects is qualified against Oracle 10g using the 10.1.0.2 jdbc drivers.

In addition to:

  • NOTE: You do not need a previous version of WebObjects on your system before installing WebObjects 5.3

Whoo hoo! Doing a happy dance now!