Web application overview

The Web development environment provides the tools you need to develop Web applications as defined in the Sun Microsystems Java Servlet 2.3 Specification and the Sun Microsystems JSP 1.2 Specification. Web applications can be simple (consisting of only static Web pages) or they can be more advanced and include JavaServer Pages (JSP) files and Java™ servlets. These resources, along with an XML deployment descriptor (web.xml) and other Web resources, are contained within a Web project during development. When you are ready to publish the Web application to the Web, you deploy the Web project to the server in the form of a Web archive (WAR) file . The end user can then view the Web application as a Web site from a URL.

Development Phases

Though the Web pages and associated files that comprise your Web application are the most fundamental resources you will create, there are several phases in the development of a Web application, and many things you should consider during each phase to ensure that your Web application is cohesive and complete.

Web technologies - Before you begin developing your Web application, you should learn about the many Web technologies that are at your disposal.
Web projects - As the first step in development, you must create a Web project to hold all of your Web application resources.
Web development tools - You should explore and become familiar with the Web perspective and its associated views and editors as the tools you will use to develop your Web application.
Web site design - Begin to populate your Web project by considering the high-level goal of the Web site, including the flow of the business logic, the layout and structure of the Web pages, the navigation of the site, and the visual look and feel of the site.
Web page design - Create and design the individual Web pages that compose the Web site, from static HTML pages to dynamic JSP pages, considering style sheets, images, linking, data access and more.
Web resources - Create the resources that are required as part of the Web project, but have not been created during site and page design, such as tag libraries, servlets, or Struts resources.
Note: This phase is typically distributed throughout Web application development, though sometimes it can be completed at the end.

After you complete the phases of Web application development, you can test and deploy your Web application to a server. See the server tools documentation for more information on publishing your Web applications.

Information pathways

There are several pathways, or common development scenarios, that can help you walk through the general Web application development phases. If your development needs fit one of the following pathways, you can follow the task overview as a template for helping you through the development process. If these pathways do not fit your development needs, you can still find them useful as examples to help you learn the general development process, and many of the most commonly used features in Web tools.

Pathway 1 - You want to create a basic new Web application, and you have no existing resources. You want to create your Web site from the design phase to populating the pages, to running on a server.
Pathway 2 - You already have an existing Web site and you want to import your Web site, including enabling the new Web project to use Web Site Designer.
Pathway 3 - You already have an existing Web project and you only want to create a JavaServer Pages (JSP) page, and create and add Visual Custom Tags (VCTs). You also have a style sheet that already exists in the project, and you want to apply a cascading style sheet (CSS) to your page.