User's Manual

Chapter 5. WAF Component: Presentation 25
5.3. JavaServer Pages (JSP)
JSP technology is a J2EE standard for presentation. JSP pages have full access to WAF APIs. For
documentation and tutorials on how to write JSPs, see http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/docs.html.
The strength of JSP is the ease with which a developer can rapidly develop and modify a single page.
JSPs can be recompiled on the fly, and changing layout is straightforward, since a JSP is patterned
after a standard HTML file. JSPs are recommended for projects where user interface specifications
rapidly change and where the need for UI reuse is limited.
JSPs that wish to use the services of the WAF framework must extend the base JSP servlet provided
by the WAF framework. See Section 6.2 BaseServlet.
5.4. Bebop - Reusable Web UI Components
Bebop is a web-based UI component framework. It is named after Swing™, the Java UI toolkit from
Sun.
Calling Bebop a web UI component framework has a very specific meaning:
• Bebop as a framework is intended to establish a standard mechanism and pattern for defining UIs.
It is not a library of ready-to-wear UI elements, though it happens to include some.
• Bebop as a component framework is used to define UIs, with the resulting components useful as UI
building blocks.
• Bebop as a Web UI component framework — Bebop is specifically designed for the conventions
and constraints of the Web.
A component-based system is designed for reuse in varying contexts, bundles useful behaviors with
useful state, and operates in and responds to a service-rich environment. Bebop is intended to turn a
developer into a deployer by providing components which need only be told what to do, rather than
how to do it.
In Figure 5-1, Bebop components provide the tabbed pane. This tabbed pane component remembers
which are the currently visible components, and it knows internally how to generate the correct URLs
to other tabs. This functionality is gained just in using the component.