Java Step and Launch Step Processor Toolkit Overview

This section provides an overview of the resources provided as part of the Java Step and Launch Step Processor Toolkit that may be used to develop a customized Java Step or Launch Step Processor.

Topics covered in this overview include:

Java Step and Launch Step Processor Toolkit

The Java Step and Launch Step Processor Toolkit includes of the Java UI Toolkit APIs. These are Java Interfaces and Beans that can be used to customize the look and feel of the user interface you create for a Java Step or Launch Step Processor. You may use these Interfaces and Beans instead of, in addition to, or in conjunction with Swing or AWT components to create the user interface. In other words, you can mix and match components to suit the interface.

The Java processor toolkit allows you to use the supplied UI (User Interface) Toolkit components in one of two ways: (1) use a text-based editor to program directly using the UI Toolkit components, or (2) use an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for drag-and-drop RAD (Rapid Application Development). The toolkit also provides a VWPanel container to hold the UI Toolkit components. You may add the vwpanel.jar as a panel in your preferred IDE (such as Visual Cafe, JBuilder, Forte, etc.) for easy drag and drop building of the interface.

The runtime versions of the UI Toolkit classes are included in the pw.jar file. If you are using an IDE, configure your IDE to use the vwpanel.jar file. (The vwpanel.jar contains the necessary classes and images for RAD programming.)

The Java Step Processor and Launch Step Processor use the UI Toolkit APIs to initialize and display user interface components and controls, as illustrated by the Step Processor samples provided with your installation. Note that these samples make extensive use of the eProcess APIs. You cannot modify or extend these Step Processor or Launch Step Processor samples without first understanding how to access workflow sessions, objects, elements, queues, rosters, and logs using the eProcess APIs.

In addition, this section includes reference and development information on the following topics:

Processor Session Sharing

The Java Step Processors shipped with Web WorkFlo run as applets hosted by the Java Plug-in in an ASP page, or as a dialog window that is opened by another window. One significant difference between the operation of the Java and HTML versions of the Step Processor and the Launch Step Processor is session sharing behavior. If the Java Step Processor opens from another eProcess window, they share the logon session, and the user need not logon again.

By contrast, the HTML Step Processors and Launch Step Processors are built on top of the JiGlue COM Bridge and the IDM Web Services Javascript objects. Therefore, any steps requesting attachments require the user to supply separate user credentials. If a Java Step Processor is opened from an email notification, it is run as an applet and behaves the same way as the HTML Processors.