Running Nexaweb

Owned by Rob Gagne (Unlicensed)
Oct 19, 2012
2 min read

The Nexaweb Platform includes Nexaweb server and Nexaweb client.

The Nexaweb Platform follows Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) standards. This adherence to open standards simplifies both server-side deployment and client-side configuration requirements, as summarized below.

Nexaweb Server Requirements

Nexaweb Server is 100% pure Java and runs in server environments that provide:

  • Java runtime environment 1.3 or greater. 
  • A Java Servlet container supporting at least Java Servlet Specification 2.3.

You can deploy and run any Nexawebified* J2EE application on any J2EE application server on whatever operating system that application server is installed. 

*Nexawebify is a process to unpack and merge Nexaweb platform configuration files with user's configuration files, for example, web.xml.

Nexaweb Client Requirements

Nexaweb requires a minimum Java Virtual Machine (JVM) version 1.1.5 enabled browser. 

Today, a majority of desktops, 4.0+ Internet Explorer/Netscape browsers, PDAs and smart phones provide Java 1.1.5 capability.   You can donwload the most current Java Runtime Environmnent (JRE)/JVM from Sun's website: http://java.sun.com.

Building and Deploying Nexaweb Installed Samples

In order to build Nexaweb samples, you need:

  • Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.3 or higher installed
  • JAVA_HOME environment variables set

Nexaweb provides two methods for you to build Nexaweb applications, using:

  • Apache Ant in command line
  • Nexaweb Studio

For more detailed information, check build environment.

The following sections provide an overview of the steps to build Nexaweb insalled samples using each of the build methods.

Using Ant

To use Ant to build Nexaweb installed samples, you need:

  • Apache Ant 1.6.1+ installed
  • ANT_HOME environment variable set.  

To use Ant to build Nexaweb installed samples, follow these general steps:

  1. Open a command prompt.
  2. Go to the samples directory under your Nexaweb platform installation directory. For example, go to: C:\Program Files\Nexaweb\Nexaweb Platform 4.1\samples.
  3. Type: build.bat and press Enter to execute the build.bat file.
  4. If build completes successfully, a dist directory appears, containing deployable sample applications as WAR files. Each WAR file contains a complete application.
  5. Deploy sample Nexaweb applications WAR files to whatever application server on which you want to run these applications.

Eclipse/Nexaweb Studio

To use Eclipse/Nexaweb Studio to build Nexaweb installed samples, see the Nexaweb Insallation Guide.

Running Nexaweb Sample Applications

Before you run any Nexaweb sample application:

  • Deploy the sample application to your application server
  • Ensure that your application server is running

Launch Nexaweb samples by pointing your web broswer to:  http://servername:port/samplename.  For example, launch the helloworld sample deployed on a local tomcat server by entering the following in a browser's address field:
"http://localhost:3434/helloworld"

If 404 or other server side errors appear, try: 
"http://localhost:3434/helloworld/index.jsp"
since some application servers do not set the default page to index.jsp.

Mechanics Behind the Scene

Typically, the index.xal file, in XAL format, defines the UI for a Nexaweb application.  Check XML UI to find details about XAL. 

The following example shows the index.nxml for the helloworld sample. 

index.xal <helloworld sample>

<xal>
    <label text="Hello Nexaweb!"/>
</xal> 

When you launch the application, the Nexaweb client parses the index.nxml into a Document Object Model (DOM) and renders the client side UI based on that DOM.  The UI running on the client side is a form of a Java Applet which requires a JVM ready on the client side.  A Nexaweb application can handle client side user interaction on the client side or on the server side.