DBAppBuilder

DBAppBuilder is a collection of Java Beans and utilities to assist in the construction of JDBC-based applications. As of version 0.0.1, it provides a useful collection of database-enabled widgets and support classes.

Subsequent versions will add a graphical front end to permit application development without (much) programming. Eventually, we hope it will evolve into a solid competitor to popular commercial offerings such as Borland Delphi, Microsoft Foxpro, Microsoft Visual Basic, and Microsoft Access.

DBAppBuilder is not based on Sun's J2EE, though support for J2EE will eventually be provided. DBAppBuilder is primarily a tool for building database client applications that run on the desktop. As such, the design is geared towards rapid implementation of business and user-oriented facilities on an existing database infrastructure, with a bare minimum of complexity and technical overhead.

DBAppBuilder was originally a subproject of Tomato (tomatoide.sourceforge.net), a visual programming language for Java. It has no connection to Tomato (i.e., you don't need one to run the other), other than some shared classes. Tomato development was initiated by the need for a tool that would allow rapid testing of DBAppBuilder classes, and DBAppBuilder served as a practical test for Tomato.

In the near future, Tomato will be provided with custom Visualisers to facilitate development of JDBC-based applications using DBAppBuilder components, and DBAppBuilder will contain the visual scripting capabilities from Tomato.

Supported Platforms

Currently, the only extensively tested database is PostgreSQL. A Microsoft Jet .MDB database has been tried in limited fashion using the JDBC-ODBC bridge driver, and HSQL http://hsqldb.sourceforge.net has been tried but does not work. In the near future, support will be provided for other commercial and open source databases with priority given to those that (a) share a similar SQL dialect to an already-supported database, and (b) support foreign key constraints, inner joins, subselects, and stored procedures.

As of this writing, DBAppBuilder has been tested with:

• Database server:
  • PostgreSQL (www.postgresql.org)
    • PostgreSQL 7.1.3
    • PostgreSQL 7.2
    • PostgreSQL 7.3
    • PostgreSQL 7.3.1
• IDE:
  • Netbeans (www.netbeans.org)
    • Netbeans 3.3
    • Netbeans 3.3.1
    • Netbeans 3.4
    • Netbeans 3.4.1
• OS:
  • RedHat Linux 7.1 (www.redhat.com)
    • Linux kernel 2.4.9-12
    • Linux kernel 2.4.9-31
• Java: (java.sun.com)
  • Sun JDK 1.3.1_02
  • Sun JDK 1.4
  • Sun JDK 1.4.1

Goals

1. Provide a rich collection of JDBC-enabled Beans that collectively meet or surpass the functionality of widgets provided with, or available for, commercial database application development tools such as Foxpro or Visual Basic.

2. Provide a full suite of visual tools (stand-alone or perhaps as a Netbeans module) for manipulating and administrating JDBC-accessible databases, authoring forms, creating ad-hoc database queries, and generating reports.

3. All Beans and classes used to implement the aforementioned tools should be available to developers to use in their own applications.

Current Status

Goal #1 is approximately 50% complete. Among other features, the following is available:

• A collection of database-enabled derivations of all the standard Swing widgets, such as JTable (DBTable), JTextArea (DBTextArea), JList (DBList), JComboBox (DBComboBox) and so on.
• A simple utility for configuring connections to back end databases. The connection definitions are stored in an XML file for portability, ease of access, and simplicity of editing.
• A collection of classes for implementing data entry forms, with support for master-detail relationships including multiple masters and automatic population of detail link fields.
• Facilities for manipulating database tables and queries as Java classes.
• A powerful property editor, which may be used with any Java class.
• Java classes to declaratively represent SQL queries using Java syntax.

Goal #3 is inherent in the design and development approach.

Implementation of Goal #2 has begun, as Goal #1 has now reached a point where it can serve as a solid foundation for Goal #2.

SourceForge

DBAppBuilder is hosted on SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/dbappbuilder

Installation

1. Obtain the sources:

   • Files:
     • See http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=70867

   • Using CVS:
     • The CVSROOT is :pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/dbappbuilder
     • The password is blank.
     • The module name is DBAppBuilder

     Example:

     cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/dbappbuilder checkout DBAppBuilder

     DBAppBuilder uses some utility classes in common with Tomato. If you're obtaining DBAppBuilder via CVS, you will need to obtain these from:

     cvs -d :pserver:anonymouse@cvs.sourceforge.net/cvsroot/tomatoide checkout JUtilities

     You will need to add the contents of JUtilities to your classpath before running DBAppBuilder. For example, CLASSPATH=./:/myacct/cvsstuff/JUtilities

     Anonymous access is read-only. To apply for write access, please email dave@armchair.mb.ca.

2. Mount the JAR file in your favorite Java IDE.

3. You may wish to install the classes found in ca/mb/armchair/DBAppBuilder/Beans and ca/mb/armchair/DBAppBuilder/Widgets into the Component Palette of your IDE.

4. You may wish to build Javadocs from the source. Under UNIX or Linux, the mkJavadocs script file may be used to automate this.

5. To run the demonstration programs, either execute the JAR file directly, eg.:

   $ java -jar DBAppBuilder.jar

   ...or unjar the JAR file and run the Demo application.

   Please see the README.txt file in the project root directory for information on setting up the sample database and running the demos.

To Do

See the package.html document in the ca/mb/armchair/DBAppBuilder subdirectory.

Hosted by SourceForge

Copyright © 2002, 2003 Armchair Airlines Computer Services Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

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