WebObjects

WebObjects Product Information
	With WebObjects, you build applications that respond to customers with custom web pages addressing their individual needs. You don't have to prebuild reams of pages that anticipate every possible user request. Instead, WebObjects builds them for you as needed. WebObjects provides reusable components that generate HTML dynamically, collect data from online forms, and perform other chores that make building dynamic websites difficult. WebObjects also keeps track of user preferences and actions through state management. WebObjects comes with a virtual showroom and other prebuilt components you can modify and use right away. See the power of WebObjects in action at the Virtual Showroom.

Browser independence	Because WebObjects is based on the server, you get the flexibility to use any web browser on the client side. By not requiring additional plug-ins or proprietary client-side technologies to run web applications, WebObjects preserves your existing investments while giving you the ease of cross-platform deployment to virtually any client OS. Your WebObjects applications can even be made adaptive, delivering HTML suited to each browser's capabilties, so that you don't have to worry about the capabilities of different web browsers.
Reusable components	With WebObjects, you can build web applications in a fraction of the time it takes with other development environments. The reason is components you build once and then reuse in other applications. Say you build a calendar for a room scheduler application on your Intranet. You can later plug that same calendar into a vacation scheduler or reservation application without having to rebuild it. Since WebObjects comes with its own library of components, much of your website is probably finished before you even begin building it.
Dynamic HTML elements	At the heart of WebObjects is a library of dynamic elements that speed the process of designing and building web applications. Dynamic elements give you easy access to complex HTML entities such as frames, allowing your applications to use the sophisticated display capabilties of the most powerful browsers without making you deal with generating HTML. Using the WORepetition Dynamic Element to create an HTML list:

Instead, you deal with familiar application ideas such as images, form elements, and views. And because dynamic elements are part of a fully object-oriented framework, you can easily subclass and extend their functionality, giving you almost infinite possibilities.

State
management

Building applications for the web is an attractive idea, but the HTTP protocol presents some interesting problems for web developers. Since HTTP is only request-based, it doesn't allow developers to easily hold open connections to resources on the network such as databases. Nor does it easily allow developers to maintain information on important information such as a user's preferences, or which choice a user made on a form three pages back.

Below, a virtual shopping cart is easily implemented thanks to WebObjects' built-in state managment:

Virtual Shopping Cart

	WebObjects solves this problem with a simple and flexible state management system. This gives the developer a "context" for each user's session, allowing your application to always tailor responses to the needs of your users. The state of the application can either be stored in the client browser via hidden form fields, or in the server using browser "cookies." This flexibility makes it a breeze to build applications that interact with proxy servers and other mechanisms, which often cause other web development tools to produce inappropriate results.
Scripting languages	For developing small, straightforward applications, nothing beats scripting, and we've got scripting covered. You can build powerful web applications using our convenient WebScript language today, and you'll soon be able to build your objects using JavaScript and VisualBasic Script. With WebObjects, you can easily leverage the scripting knowledge in your enterprise, and get your applications to the web faster!
Java and ActiveX support	With WebObjects, your application servers can dynamically vend Java applets and ActiveX controls to your users' web browsers, letting you build dynamic applications that keep business logic, data access, and other security-sensitive capabilties where they belong--on your reliable servers.Your WebObjects application can send Java applets to the client browser, customize their behavior, and tailor their actions to the specific needs of your users. But it isn't just a one-way street. Your Java applets can easily communicate back to objects in your WebObjects application, giving you the ability to build self-validating "smart" forms, and other powerful client objects into your server-based applications.
Solid foundation classes	With over 10 years of experience in objects, we understand that all development must be built on a solid technical foundation. WebObjects is no exception. Based on foundation libraries proven in industrial-strength applications deployed throughout the Fortune 500, WebObjects gives you the power of objects with the confidence of solid experience. Strings, dates, arrays, dictionaries, and other basic objects are there at your fingertips. And WebObjects' FoundationKit objects are even smart enough to manage their own memory, leaving your developers free to rapidly build the parts of the application with the most value: your business logic.
	WebObjects Pro Compile code, scale across your business, access OLE services, maximize performance... WebObjects Enterprise Access legacy data, integrate business logic and data...