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Chili!Soft ASP Development Tools

Abstract

This white paper provides a high-level overview of the different tools available for developing ASP applications. The variety of ASP tools available for different skill levels of developers demonstrates the flexibility of ASP as a Web application development environment.

This paper is intended for IT management, development managers, web developers or anyone else evaluating ASP for their Web application development environment.

In this white paper:

·   Introduction

·   Page Development Tools

Microsoft Visual InterDev

Microsoft FrontPage 2000

Macromedia Drumbeat 

Macromedia Dreamweaver

NetObjects Fusion

NetObjects ScriptBuilder

Sybase PowerSite

Allaire Homesite

·   Component Development Tools 

C and C++ Component Tools

Java Components

·   Company and Product Overview

About ASP

About Chili!Soft

Introduction

Recently there has been an explosion in the number of tools and products available for creating dynamic, data-driven Web pages. The ubiquity of Web browsers has made them the "client of choice" for new, networked applications with widely varying levels of sophistication. However, most of the tools for building web-based applications are aimed exclusively at the high-end of the market, towards demanding, mission-critical Web applications. These tools come with their own development environments and paradigms, requiring highly skilled developers with programming backgrounds and knowledge of database details. At the other end of the spectrum are tools that are targeted towards beginners. These tools enable quick publishing of databases to the Web, but do not offer the features necessary to develop sophisticated applications.

Active Server Pages (ASP) is one of the few products that can effectively address both sophisticated and entry-level Web applications. Originally developed by Microsoft, ASP is not a development tool, but is instead a very flexible framework for building Web applications. The ASP framework is built on the concept of using scripting languages embedded in Web pages to link together more sophisticated functions included in standard pre-built or custom objects. Because of the flexibility of ASP, there are a wide variety of development tools that have been created to target Web page developers with greatly differing skill levels. The following table lists some of the more popular development tools and their characteristics:

Vendor/Tool

DB-driven Site Level

Style

Comments

MicrosoftÒ

Visual InterDevÔ

Advanced

Code/

WYSIWYG

Microsoft’s flagship product for developing ASP applications.

Microsoft

FrontPageÒ 2000

Entry- to mid-level

WYSIWYG

Microsoft’s entry-level product for Web page creation, includes solid ASP features.

MacromediaÒ

DrumbeatÔ

Entry- to mid-level

WYSIWYG

Includes advanced page creation capabilities, mid-level ASP capabilities.

NetObjectsÒ

FusionÔ

Entry- to mid-level

WYSIWYG

Advanced page creation capabilities, simple ASP features.

NetObjects

ScriptBuilderÔ

Mid-level to advanced

Code

Editor for creating server- and client-side script. Good code validation capabilities.

SybaseÒ

PowerSiteÔ

Advanced

Code

Powersite is a sophisticated IDE for developing data-driven Web applications.

MacromediaÒ

DreamweaverÔ

Mid-level

WYSIWYG

Offers advanced page creation and team-based capabilities, previews ASP results well.

AllaireÔ

HomeSiteÔ

Advanced

Code

Code-based editor requires advanced HTML and ASP skills.

 

The depth and breadth of ASP development tools separates ASP from the rest of the pack as a Web application platform that meets the needs of a variety of users. Chili!Soft ASP, combined with one or more of these development tools, gives you a common Web application platform for applications large and small, simple or complex, for a host of popular Web servers and operating systems, and for developers and page creators with widely varying skill levels.

Page Development Tools

Microsoft Visual InterDev

Visual InterDev (VI) is Microsoft’s primary product for developing Web applications for Active Server Pages. VI is a complete Integrated Development Environment with advanced features for page layout and authoring, database connectivity, and site maintenance, and management. This tool is intended for advanced developers of ASP applications.

VI’s page design capabilities include three different page views. The code view offers color-coding of HTML and script (either VBScript or JScript), and offers an automatic code completion feature that anticipates the statements needed to complete your script. All of the different methods and properties of built-in ASP components (as well as third-party components) are readily available. The WYSIWYG view allows developers to view a rendering of their page as they design it, and allows developers to drag and drop new elements onto the page. A feature called Design-Time Controls (DTCs) allows developers to drag and drop sophisticated functions onto a page and view the results, with VI automatically generating the appropriate ASP code and HTML. Finally, the preview page view allows the developer to get a quick idea of how a page will look inside the browser.

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VI’s most valuable features for ASP developers are its extensive database capabilities. Through ODBC, VI can connect to virtually any datasource including many popular UNIX-based databases. Developers can attach to and browse the data in tables and views, and visually create SQL queries using the Query Builder. Query Builder can be used to visually construct complex SQL statements against supported databases and to test any query in the live test pane before using it within a Web page. Finally, when developing on Windows NT, developers can drag and drop from the Data Environment to quickly create sophisticated, database-driven HTML forms. (For UNIX deployments, ASP code can be developed on Windows NT using the VI Data Environment, then the code can be moved to Chili!Soft ASP on UNIX.)

Finally, VI offers support for team-based development of Web sites, and can be used in conjunction with Visual SourceSafe for version and revision control. VI can also be used with the FrontPage server extensions in order to deploy pages immediately and directly to most common Web servers and operating systems.

Most Appropriate For:

Experienced developers, sophisticated Web applications

Microsoft FrontPage 2000

FrontPage 2000 is Microsoft’s newest version of FrontPage, and is their entry-level tool for creating Web pages. Beginning with FrontPage 98, FrontPage included basic ASP capabilities in the package. FrontPage 2000 has added more sophisticated ASP features and is now also "Chili!Soft ASP-aware" for ASP on non-Microsoft platforms and with non-Microsoft Web servers.

FrontPage is first and foremost a page design tool. It offers a WYSIWYG approach to page creation, following a word processing-like approach. With support for cascading style sheets (CSS) and dynamic HTML (DHTML), FrontPage now offers total control over the positioning of elements on Web pages. Another important new feature of FP2000 is its ability to accept hand-coded HTML and script, and to leave that code intact according to user-defined rules.

The new database features of FrontPage 2000 rely exclusively on ASP. The product includes extensive wizards for walking the user through connecting to a database, defining SQL queries, and specifying the database output. FP2000 then handles generating all of the ASP code automatically.

FrontPage 2000 also offers new team authoring and collaboration tools that make Web projects run more smoothly. And because FrontPage 2000 works with the FrontPage Server extensions available for many different Web servers and operating systems, FrontPage 2000 and Chili!Soft ASP are a great combination for enabling simple, rapid Web-database publishing capabilities on a wide variety of platforms.

Most Appropriate For:

Beginner to Intermediate developers, simple Web-database publishing 

Macromedia Drumbeat

Drumbeat specifically targets the entry-level to mid-level Web page developer by offering "the fastest way to build visually engaging, database-driven Web sites without programming or writing code."

At a high level, Drumbeat offers the following features:

·   Site management

·   Layout control

·   Database connectivity

Drumbeat’s site management features let developers maintain their site through one interface. Site elements such as graphics, pages, templates, media, objects, etc. can all be stored in one place, and site styles and attributes can be centrally controlled.

The layout control features of Drumbeat are also quite powerful. Developers have full control over the positioning of elements on a page, and new elements can be easily dragged-and-dropped onto a page. The layout controls also allow developers to add interactive effects to page elements such as point-and-click interactions and mouse-over effects via DHTML and client-side JScript, with no coding required.

The database connectivity features of Drumbeat are of significant interest to users of ASP. Drumbeat implements all of its database connectivity features by automatically generating ASP-compatible JScript code. Drumbeat includes a DataForm wizard that can generate pages to browse, search, update, insert and delete records through an easy web interface. It also includes a SQL Wizard to assist developers in creating SQL database queries for use in the DataForm wizard.

Together, these features make Macromedia Drumbeat an excellent tool for users to create their first data-driven Web pages, as well as for experienced HTML developers to begin adding dynamic database features to their Web pages.

Most Appropriate For:

Beginner to Intermediate developers, simple Web-database publishing

Macromedia DreamWeaver

DreamWeaver is a Web page creation and production tool from Macromedia. The focus of the product is primarily on professional-quality page design and production, with powerful features for visual page design including page layout, positioning control, table editing, image editing, dynamic HTML, and drag-able interactivity. DreamWeaver also includes features for site management and team-based web page authoring.

Of particular interest to ASP users is DreamWeaver’s new support for data-driven Web sites. DreamWeaver offers a "what you see is what you serve" option, whereby page designers can get a visual rendering of server-generated content. DreamWeaver does not currently offer the ability to automatically generate ASP code, but does offer the ability to gracefully deal with script elements within Web pages and to accurately render the final look of the page.

NetObjects Fusion

The Fusion product was one of the first WYSIWYG Web page creation tools on the market. From its inception, Fusion offered near-total control over the placing of elements on Web pages. Now in version 4.0, Fusion offers new capabilities such as complete site management, DHTML support, asset management, and new dynamic database access via built-in support for ASP. Fusion’s Database Access wizards walk the user through the process of connecting to a database, and automatically generate ASP code.

NetObjects ScriptBuilder

This product is a code-based editor for creating and validating script pages. The product offers the ability to build and test both server- and client-side scripts in a variety of languages including VBScript and JScript. Because this product does not offer full-page creation capabilities, it is a good companion to page creation tools such as Fusion, Macromedia DreamWeaver or Microsoft FrontPage. ScriptBuilder does offer features such as code validation, and aids with script management and reuse, but does not automatically generate ASP code.

Sybase PowerSite

PowerSite is Sybase’s IDE for the development of Web applications and is now included with all copies of PowerBuilder and PowerJ. PowerSite offers advanced features like drag and drop of HTML, script elements, and client-side components, and offers both layout and code views of individual pages. PowerSite supports both VBScript and JScript, but has limited capabilities for automatic generation of ASP code. PowerSite also offers many features for site management and team-based development of web sites, such as source control and versioning.

Allaire Homesite

HomeSite is an advanced product for the power ASP developer, because it provides quick access to the different server variables provided by ASP. HomeSite is for developers who desire complete and direct control over the HTML and ASP code that they are generating. While HomeSite does not provide any code-generation features, this is in fact a selling point for its fans. HomeSite is popular because of its excellent text editing capabilities, color coding of tags and script, and excellent search and replace features.

Component Development Tools

One of the key concepts of the ASP framework is that ASP uses scripting languages for simple programming tasks, as well as to tie together components that contain more complex business logic. The goal of "cross-platform" ASP is to be an open development environment supporting whatever tools the developer chooses. In support of that, ASP components can be written in many different languages on the Windows platform (Visual Basic, Pascal via Delphi, C, C++, Java, even Cobol) for use by Microsoft ASP or Chili!Soft ASP, but for portability to the different UNIX platforms supported by Chili!Soft ASP, C, C++, and Java are the languages of choice.

C and C++ Component Tools

ASP (from both Chili!Soft and Microsoft) uses COM (Component Object Model) as the object model for the development of ASP components on both Windows NT and UNIX (Chili!Soft also offers support for JavaBeans, discussed below). As mentioned earlier, C and C++ are languages that are portable to both platforms. For development of ASP components for deployment on Windows NT, Microsoft’s Visual C++ is the development tool of choice. It offers the ability to automatically generate components as COM components, which can be easily deployed to Windows NT systems. It also offers excellent debugging facilities.

For development of ASP components for UNIX, it is often easiest to begin development of the component on Windows NT using a tool such as Visual C++, and then port the component to UNIX. A COM component toolkit can be purchased from MainSoft (the developer of the COM implementation for UNIX used by Chili!Soft ASP) for creation of UNIX-based ASP components. With the component source code from Windows NT, the COM component toolkit, and your UNIX platform’s C++ compiler, you can quickly build your ASP component for any of the UNIX platforms supported by Chili!Soft ASP. The COM component toolkit then allows you to register the COM component for immediate use in your ASP pages.

Java Components

The cross-platform capabilities of the Java language make it an excellent choice for the development of ASP components. As mentioned earlier, COM is the object model used by ASP for its components. In order to make Java an easy to use language for the development of ASP components, Chili!Soft has developed a technology called Chili!Beans. The Chili!Beans provide the ability to "wrap" any Java class such that it can be treated as a COM component. An instance of any Java class can be constructed, allowing any public methods of the resulting object to be called and any of its public fields accessed, all via COM.

Because of Chili!Beans, ASP developers can use any Java development tool on any Chili!Soft supported platform to create ASP components. Microsoft’s Visual J++, Inprise JBuilder, Symantec Visual Café, IBM VisualAge for Java, or any other Java tool can be used to create components. The ASP component and the calling ASP script are totally portable, without recompilation, to any Chili!Soft ASP or Microsoft ASP installation.

Another benefit of the Chili!Beans is that it enables you to use off-the-shelf Java classes and non-GUI JavaBeans in your ASP applications. Chili!Soft ASP developers gain the benefit of reduced application development time from the growing universe of re-usable Java components that can be used in their ASP applications.

Company and Product Overview

About ASP

ASP is an open, compile-free Web application environment that combines scripting, HTML, custom server components and robust database publishing to create dynamic Web-based business applications. With ASP, developers can build browser-independent Web solutions and publish legacy databases to the Web using tools such as Microsoft’s Visual InterDev™ and FrontPage2000™, Macromedia™ Drumbeat™, NetObjects ScriptBuilder™, or Sybase™ PowerSite. ASP is widely known for accommodating developers of varying skill sets and expertise, and for allowing corporate IT managers to more effectively allocate scarce developer resources. There are more than 1,000,000 ASP developers, over 500 companies producing ASP components and applications, and approximately 25,000 public Web sites using ASP.

About Chili!Soft

Chili!Soft, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), is a provider of enabling technologies and applications for Active Server Pages. Chili!Soft's award-winning flagship product, Chili!Soft ASP, extends the ASP framework to major Web servers and operating systems including Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, Hewlett Packard HP-UX, and Linux. Chili!Soft was incorporated in 1997 with headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. For more information about the company, please visit the Chili!Soft Web site at http://www.chilisoft.com or call (425) 957-1122.

Copyright 2001 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Legal Notice.