Exadel - February 2006

FEBRUARY 2006

Welcome to the next edition of "Extra from Exadel". Our monthly online newsletter provides the open source community with news about our products, industry trends, and upcoming events.

TECHNOLOGY PERSPECTIVES:

AJAX WITHOUT THE J: THOUGHTS ON AJAX FROM A JSF PERSPECTIVE
By Sergey Smirnov, Principal Architect of the Exadel Studio Product Line

For almost a year, we've been publishing technical articles in Exadel's blog. Through these articles, we can easily share our knowledge and experience, providing you with answers or simply giving you food for thought. This month, Sergey Smirnov has posted an article that applies his keen mind to assess the role of AJAX in Web applications. While he touches on many aspects of this role, he particularly emphasizes how developers can take advantage of JavaScript in AJAX without having to become JavaScript programmers themselves, or even deal directly with JavaScript at all, by simply extending an existing framework (in this case, JSF).

To read the article, see the examples, and participate in the discussion, go to http://blog.exadel.com/?p=21. Remember, we always appreciate your feedback.

OPEN SOURCE CORNER:

SURVEY CONFIRMS: OPEN SOURCE DEMAND GROWING, BUT LACK OF KNOWLEDGE AND COMMERCIAL SUPPORT HINDER RAPID ROI

CONCORD, CA, January 24, 2006 - A recent survey of IT decision-makers conducted by Exadel, Inc. at the 2005 Gartner Open Source Summit showed that organizations continue to actively investigate open source software alternatives for the production of business applications, although lack of commercial support remains a major obstacle.

This trend toward open source adoption may be a result of the financial strain that organizations continue to place on their IT departments...

More results of the survey can be found at our website.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES:

EXADEL ANNOUNCES AJAX SUPPORT FOR JSF IN STUDIO PRO 3.5
Based on Web Tools Project (WTP) 1.0

On January 31, 2006 Exadel announced AJAX support through its new version of Exadel Studio 3.5. Exadel Studio Pro is an advanced enterprise-level Web application development environment for leveraging open source, J2EE, and AJAX technologies within the Eclipse Environment. Key features of the new release are:

Extensive support for the AJAX JSF components in the Apache MyFaces Sandbox component library
Drag-and-drop configuration wizards for complex JSF components through the Visual Page Editor
Based on the final 1.0 release of the Eclipse Web Tools Project (WTP), it provides enhanced performance and reliability
Full specialized support (code assist, project templates, etc.) for Struts Shale and the upgraded Facelets 1.0 extension to JSF

Exadel Studio Pro is currently the only IDE to support these new versions of technologies, making the design of Web applications faster and more powerful. To see the complete list of new features, please visit our website.

ONLINE JSF TRAINING PROMOTION
Sign up for our online JSF training course that begins on March 6, 2006

Exadel backs up its commitment to Java EE and open source technologies, not just with great tools, but also with great training to help you make the most of these technologies. Created by real-world JSF experts, our JSF training gives you specific knowledge, connections to experts, and conversations with like-minded people. Don't be left behind by the latest technologies! Learn JSF performance tips and techniques that will get your applications up and running fast, with the least amount of trouble.

NEW EXADEL STUDIO GETTING STARTED GUIDE
For JSF and Hibernate

The Exadel Studio Getting Started Guide for using Hibernate (with JSF) has been recently updated. If you need a jumpstart in using Hibernate with JSF, turn to this tutorial and dive in.

Download the tutorial in PDF format, or see the complete list of Exadel's tutorials at our Web site.

IN THE NEWS:

EXADEL DELIVERS OPEN-SOURCE TOOLKIT WITH ECLIPSE, AJAX FLAVOR
By Darryl K. Taft, eWeek, January 30, 2006

Darryl K. Taft, eWeek, talks to Exadel’s Vice President of Product Development, Igor Shabalov, and Chief Marketing Officer, Amy Cole, about Exadel’s latest release of Studio Pro 3.5, and how our company positions it's tools in today’s market. "Some think supporting AJAX is providing JavaScript code, so they give you a JavaScript editor. We've had that for a long time. Our differentiation point is we believe that in order to use AJAX people don't need JavaScript at all. ... The key is to add AJAX support to JSF components. This is the first step," said Igor Shabalov.

EVENTS:

ECLIPSE SEMINAR: SIGN UP TODAY FOR RALEIGH AND ATLANTA!

Exadel, in a partnership with Eclipse and several other leading open source technology companies, is hosting a series of seminars (morning for executives, afternoon for developers) to help you better understand open source and Eclipse-related technology. You can't afford to miss this chance to learn from leaders in the open source movement! We will be visiting Raleigh/Durham and Atlanta during late February and early March.

To see the details, to see the seminar agenda, or to register, visit website of the event.

COMMUNITY:

EXADEL STUDIO: TIP OF THE MONTH

With this section of Extra from Exadel we would like to share tips on how to use Exadel Studio and Exadel Studio Pro in a more efficient way.

FEBRUARY TIP: Did you know that you can create any number of custom page templates?

Open the Visual Page Editor and create the markup that you want to save into a template
Save the file
Switch to Web Projects view and find the page
Right click the page and select Save as Template...
Enter a template name

That's it!

When you create a new page, you will have an option to base it on the newly created template. To manage your page templates, select Window/Preferences/Exadel/JSF/JSF Page (or Window/Preferences/Exadel/Struts/Struts Page).

If you have questions or comments about Exadel Studio or Exadel Studio Pro that you would like to share with us and the Exadel community, visit our forum at http://forum.exadel.com/.
If we publish your tip in Extra from Exadel, we will send you our famous Exadel T-shirt.

YOUR OPINION IS VALUABLE

If you have questions or comments about Exadel Studio or Exadel Studio Pro that you would like to share with us and the Exadel community, visit our forum at http://forum.exadel.com/.