1.0 Introduction
2.0 Changes from the previous release
3.0 Limitations
3.1 Cases when a page template will not be applied to a Web page
4.0 Known problems
4.1 JSP Validator does not auto-compile on dependent Java changes
4.2 Performance Tip: Close inactive projects
4.3 Performance Tip: Disabling automatic validation
4.4 Enabling and disabling Page Designer Classic
4.5 Page Designer Toolbar menu customization limitation
4.6 Broken Link warning on Applets
4.7 Inserting applets in HTML and JSP files using Page Designer
4.8 Previewing an HTML file that includes Shockwave may cause WebSphere Studio to exit abruptly
4.9 Trouble displaying some GB18030 characters on Windows 2000/XP
4.10 BiDi issue for WebArt Designer, Animated GIF Designer and PageDesigner classic
4.11 JSPs should use explicit import statements.
4.12 Bi-directional language support for Page Designer Classic
4.13 Migrating relational data in 4.0.3 Web projects
4.14 JSPs and Java Servlets that are designed in a DBCS environment for a J2EE 1.3 level on the WebSphere 5 server require an extra code snippet
4.15 Dragging and dropping items onto Quick Edit view
4.16 Using Snippet view items with simple actions in the Quick Edit view
4.17 Mobile language support for Page Designer
4.18 Page template support for Page Designer
4.19 Notes for using site parts with Web Site Designer
4.20 Changing system settings of colors and fonts
4.21 Search annotations on unsaved files in editors
4.22 ClearCase restrictions using Web Site Designer or Page templates
4.23 Javascript Form Submit Problem in JSP's generated by Database Web Pages Wizard
The Web development environment in WebSphere Studio provides the tooling necessary to develop Web applications. Web applications include static Web pages, JavaServer Pages (JSPs), Java Servlets, an XML deployment descriptor (web.xml), and other Web resources. This readme file describes the known problems, limitations, and workarounds that are associated with tools used in the Web development environment.
The Web Content and Java Source folder names within a Web project are now configurable. The default names are WebContent and JavaSource; however, default names for new Web projects can be changed on the Web Tools->New Project Preferences page. Folders for existing projects can be renamed using the Navigator.
NOTE: Folder names other than the defaults are not compatible with WebSphere Studio Version 5.0.0. Do not change the default names if you need to maintain workspace compatability with version 5.0.0.Two new views have been added to the Web perspective to assist in HTML/JSP page editing. The Palette view contains a set of items which can be dragged and dropped onto a Web page in Page Designer. The Quick Edit view allows users to add/edit scripts and tag events' scripts in Page Designer. For more details, please refer to the Help system.
There are several circumstances that can cause a page template to not be applied to a Web page when using any of the page template wizards:
- Page template is not applied to a Web page that has a different encoding than that of the selected page template.
- Page template is not applied when either the selected page template or the Web page is described by XML Style JSP.
- Page template is not applied to a Web page that already has a page template associated with it.
The JSP validator will not automatically re-validate a JSP file when a Java class that it references is changed. The JSP validator can be re-run on the file by selecting it in the Project Navigator and selecting Run Validation from the context menu.
It is recommended that you close any projects that are you are not actively working with to improve performance. Only open projects are rebuilt when a Rebuild All is performed.
By default, validators are automatically run when you save resources in a Web project. If you do not want validators to run automatically when you save these resources, open the Web project Properties dialog from the context menu in the J2EE Navigator view. Then enable the Override validation preferences option and disable the Run validation automatically when you save changes to resources option from the Validation page. You can also disable automatic validation (and builds) for all projects by selecting Window > Preferences and disabling Perform build automatically on resource modification from the Workbench page. If you disable automatic builds, you can manually run a build (and validation) by selecting Project > Rebuild Project.
The WebSphere Studio V4 version of Page Designer (now known as Page Designer Classic) has been redesigned for Version 5. The new Page Designer (referred to as Page Designer within the user interface and product documentation) is the recommended version. It is also the default version. Page Designer Classic is not available as an installable feature, but can be enabled using the instructions below.
Page Designer provides enhanced usability and features, such as view-based attribute editing and simplified tag library support.
Some features are not carried over from Page Designer Classic. These include:
- Bidirectional (BiDi) support
- Dynamic Elements (including dynamic tables)
- Accessibility checker
Unless you need the specific support for features included in Page Designer Classic, use the default Page Designer. If you want to enable Page Designer Classic, do the following:
Installing Page Designer Classic:
- Exit WebSphere Studio before beginning the installation.
- In Windows Explorer, open the directory WSAD INSTALL DIR/bin and double-click pdclassic.exe.
- When you restart WebSphere Studio, the Updates dialog will be displayed. Click the Yes button.
Note: If this is your first time using the workbench, this step and the ones that follow will not occur.- In the Configuration Changes dialog. Select the checkbox within the Detected changes area. Then click the Finish push button.
- In the Install/Update dialog, click the Yes push button. The workbench will restart to make the changes effective.
Mapping Page Designer Classic as the default Web editor:
After installing Page Designer Classic, by default file associations between this editor and several HTML and JSP file types (including *.htm, *.html, *.jsp, *.jhtml, *.shtml, *.shtm, and *.html-ss) are mapped, so that you can use Open With > Page Designer Classic in the J2EE Navigator view context menu to open a selected file in Page Designer Classic. However, if you want to make Page Designer Classic the default editor for HTML and JSP file types, do the following:
- Select Window > Preferences.
- Expand the Workbench settings and open the File Associations page.
- Select applicable file types (one at a time) from the File types list box.
- Select Page Designer Classic from the Editor Selection dialog and click the Default push button.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each applicable file type.
Note: If you later disable and then re-enable Page Designer Classic, the file associations will also be reinstated. However, the default editor for the mapped file type will revert to the new Page Designer.
Optionally, you can make updates to Page Designer Classic editing preferences. Select Window > Preferences, and then expand the Web Tools settings. Expand Page Design (Classic) to make the desired updates.
Disabling Page Designer Classic
To disable this feature (including the help), and resume using the default Page Designer, perform these steps:
- Select Help > Software Updates > Update Manager.
- In the Install Configuration view, expand Current Configuration to locate Page Designer Classic 5.1.0, and select it.
- Click the Disable push button in the bottom-right corner of the Preview pane.
- In the Feature Install dialog, click the Finish push button.
- In the Install/Update dialog, click the Yes push button. The workbench will restart to make the changes effective.
Enabling Page Designer Classic (after it has been disabled)
To re-enable Page Designer Classic, do not re-run pdclassic.exe. Instead, perform these steps:
- Select Help > Software Updates > Update Manager.
- In the Install Configuration view, click the toolbar button called Show Disabled Features.
- Expand Current Configuration to locate Page Designer Classic 5.1.0, and select it.
- Click the Enable push button in the bottom-right corner of the Preview pane.
- In the Feature Install dialog, click the Finish push button.
- In the Install/Update dialog, click the Yes push button. The workbench will restart to make the changes effective.
After customizing the toolbar using the Customize Perspective dialog (accessed by selecting Window > Customize Perspective), the Page Designer Toolbar menu cannot be used to further customize the toolbar. In this case, you must use the Customize Perspective dialog to customize which toolbar items are displayed.
LinksBuilder may incorrectly flag the code attribute value of an applet as an invalid link if a fully qualified Java classname is used:
<applet code="aaa.bbb.AnApplet" codebase="MyApplets">This warning can safely be ignored and does not affect the behavior of the applet when it is run on the server.This warning can be avoided by using a path separator ('/') instead of the ('.') separator, and ensuring that the .class extension is explicitly stated. For example:
<applet code="aaa/bbb/AnApplet.class" codebase="MyApplets">
The Java source folder (by default, JavaSource) of a Web project is for server-side classes, so the source code for applets cannot be placed in this folder. Therefore, the following is recommended when developing applets:
- Create a Java project for applets and create the applet classes in the project.
- Copy applet class files to the Web content folder (by default, WebContent) of a Web project. Do not copy them to the WEB-INF folder, because the folder is for server-side classes only. (In order to see the class files, you will need to change the Project Navigator view filters by selecting Filters from the view's Menu button drop-down list.
- Insert an applet in a Web page by selecting Insert > Others > Java Applet in Page Designer. At that time, you must set appropriate code and codebase attributes.
For example, if your applet class is aaa.bbb.AnApplet and the file structure is as follows:
WebContent/index.htmlcode is "aaa.bbb.AnApplet"
WebContent/MyApplets/aaa/bbb/AnApplet.classthen the applet tag in index.html should contain:
codebase is "MyApplets"
There is no known workaround for this.
GB18030 is a character set standard from the People's Republic of China that specifies an extended codepage and a table for mapping to Unicode. WebArt Designer and Animated GIF Designer cannot display GB18030 characters in the range 0xA840 - 0xA9A0 correctly if the system locale is Simplified Chinese and Microsoft GB18030 Support Package is installed.
For the WebArt Designer, this problem happens in the text fields in the WebArt Gallery view, the text fields in Logo Wizard (Specify Text 1/4) dialog, the text fields in the Edit Bookmarks dialog, and the menu items in the Bookmark menu.
For the Animated GIF Designer, this problem happens in the Comment field in the Frame Properties (Comment Frame) dialog, the Comment frame in the Frame Thumbnail View, and the text fields in the Create Animated Banner dialog
For example, if you input GB18030 '0xA877' character (in Unicode, U+2573 Box Drawings Light Diagonal Cross), it will be displayed as GB18030 '0xA876' (in Unicode, U+2572 Box Drawings Light Diagonal Upper Left To Lower Right).
WebArt Designer and Page Designer Classic sometimes fail to create the Logo image of the bidirectional language on Windows XP. If you specify character spacing when you create a Logo image of right-to-left characters, the characters in the Logo are not reordered. You must specify zero as character spacing to have a correct Logo image of bidirectional characters on Windows XP.
The animated banner of AnimatedGif Designer has the same restriction.
JSP files should use the 'import' attribute of the page directive to describe the types that are available to the scripting environment in that page. Some types may have been implicitly imported in JSP files contained in J2EE1.2 projects, but will show errors if used in a J2EE1.3 project. To avoid this problem, types should always be explicitly imported in the JSP page (unless the type is included in the default import list: java.lang.*, javax.servlet.*, javax.servlet.jsp.*, and javax.servlet.http.*).
You can enable the bi-directional support for Page Designer Classic by setting both the system default locale and the user default locale to Arabic or Hebrew on Windows.
To migrate relational data from WebSphere Studio 4.0.3 projects, you will need to do the following.
- From a 4.0.3 workspace, generate DDL files for each available database.
- Remove the database from the Web Project source/databases folder (via Data Definition view)
- Open the 4.0.3 workspace with WebSphere Studio Version 5.
- Migrate the Web projects for which you wish to restore relational data.
- Click File > Import > File System, and specify the DDL file(s) from your 4.0.3 workspace.
- In the Data Definition view of the Data Perspective, select Run against Local, and specify the target Web project.
The relational data artifacts will be restored.
This entry applies to JSPs and Java Servlets that are designed in a DBCS environment for a J2EE 1.3 level on the WebSphere 5 server. The following code snippet has to be included in the source before accessing any request parameters or attributes:
if(request.getCharacterEncoding() == null){
request.setCharacterEncoding( <encoding>); // typically this would be the encoding of the JSP or servlet
}
//...normal jsp/servlet code which access request objects like
// <%=request.getParameter("message")%>
If the above is not done, and the request does not include encoding information, then all the request parameters would be parsed in ISO-8859-1 so if any of the input parameters included DBCS characters they would appear incorrectly.
Before dragging and dropping items or text from the Snippets or Palette view onto the Quick Edit view, first make sure the Quick Edit view is cleared of the "Insert an action/code snippet" instruction.
For each JavaScript Snippet view item, there is a corresponding simple action available in the Quick Edit view. In the Quick Edit view, it is not recommended to combine the use of simple actions with items from the Snippets view in the same event script. If the items must be combined, be careful of the Snippet item placement. Dragging and dropping items from the Snippets view onto the Quick Edit view when the editor already contains simple actions, may cause the Snippet item to be inserted into the wrong place. If this occurs, delete and reinsert the simple action.
Attributes that are unsupported in mobile languages, such as cHTML or WML, can be inserted from the Insert dialog or from the Attributes view.
However, you can check the validity of the code by using Tools > Validate HTML Syntax for a cHTML document, or by Tools > Validate WML Syntax for a WML document.
Page templates are supported only by Page Designer, not Page Designer Classic. You can use Page Designer to edit a HTML/JSP page using a Page template function.
- Some site parts are not valid for insertion in pages with certain document types. After clicking OK in the Insert dialog, you will receive the error "Cannot use this site part." This means that invalid source will be generated if the selected site part's specification file is used in the document type of the target page. For example, if a page's document type is cHTML or WML, almost all site parts contain tags that are invalid in those markup languages.
- The navigation bar may contain invalid source due to it's associated specification file. If you get many errors and/or warnings in the Tasks view, the navigation bar's specification file is likely the cause. Edit the specification file to correct the errors.
- A navigation bar in a page may contain broken characters. This occurs if a navigation label contains characters that cannot be encoded according to the specified encoding rule in the page. To avoid this, limit the types of characters used in the navigation labels to the encoding used in the page, or use a more expressive encoding rule in the page.
- All sample specification files listed on the Insert Site Map dialog can handle pages that are between level-1 and level-5 in the site structure. Even if you set an end level over 5 in the attribute view for the siteedit:sitemap tag, links to the pages over level-5 will not be included in the site map.
When you change the system settings for colors and fonts, you must restart WebSphere Studio to have the new settings applied to the Design Page of Page Designer and the Palette view.
In the Source Editor and the Source page of multi-page editors, like the XML Editor, the search function is working from the saved resource on the file system rather than from the contents of the editor. The search annotations in any unsaved editor may be unreliable. To avoid this problem, save the file before doing a search.
If you use Web Site Designer to work on a Web project, you must first ensure that the project files, such as html or jsp files and related files, are checked out of the ClearCase repository.
Also, if you use Page templates in your Web project, you must first check the appropriate files out of ClearCase.
In some JSP's generated by the Database Web Pages Wizard especially one's titled '***MasterView.jsp'
the links in the page titled 'Back', 'Refresh' & others may not work on all browsers. Problems were noticed in some browsers especially like Mozilla & Konqueror.
To fix the problem for most browsers change the Javascript code for the function named 'submitForm' in the JSP.
Change the variable 'document.<formName>.elements.action' in the method to 'document.<formName>.action'.
For example function submitForm(nav){ if(nav == 'SCHEMA_TABLEInputForm'){ document.myForm.elements.action = "/Web3/SCHEMA_TABLEInputForm.html"; } else if(nav == 'SCHEMA_TABLEMasterView'){ document.myForm.elements.action = "/Web3/SCHEMA_TABLEMasterView"; } else{ document.myForm.elements.action = "/Web3/SCHEMA_TABLEDetailsView"; }
becomes
function submitForm(nav){ if(nav == 'SCHEMA_TABLEInputForm'){ document.myForm.action = "/Web3/SCHEMA_TABLEInputForm.html"; } else if(nav == 'SCHEMA_TABLEMasterView'){ document.myForm.action = "/Web3/SCHEMA_TABLEMasterView"; } else{ document.myForm.action = "/Web3/SCHEMA_TABLEDetailsView"; }
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