PATH WebObjects 4.5 Documentation > Tools and Techniques

Web Components

A component represents a page, or part of a page, in your application. An application can have one or more components.

Every application starts with a component called Main, which is shown in the Web Components suitcase in the second column of the browser as Main.wo . All components have the .wo extension.

If you double-click a component, WebObjects Builder opens the component for editing. Editing With WebObjects Builder shows how to edit your component using WebObjects Builder.

On disk, a component is represented as a folder with the .wo extension. Every component has several files that specify the component's look and behavior. The name of each one is the component's name followed by a specific file extension. These are the files in the Main component:

Main.html is the HTML template for the component. This file contains HTML tags, just like any web page; in addition, it typically contains tags for dynamic WebObjects elements.
Main.wod is the declarations file that specifies bindings between the dynamic elements and variables or methods in your code.
Main.woo is used to store information about display groups (if your project accesses a database) and encodings for HTML templates. You should never edit this file (it does not appear in Project Builder's browser).

To create a new component:

With Web Components selected in the first column of the browser, choose File New in Project.
In the New File panel, type the name of your project and click OK.
The WebObjects Component Wizard appears.
If you want the Wizard to assist you in creating a component with database access, choose Component Wizard from Available Assistance; otherwise choose None. See "Creating a WebObjects Database Application" in Getting Started With WebObjects for more information on using the Wizard with databases.
Specify the language for your component and click Finish.

Note: You can also create components in WebObjects Builder and save them into your project.