Builder Limitations

Data support

A data source is a collection of related database fields and a set of actions that can act on these fields. The RAD Builder supports a single database per application and a single database table per data source.

When a database is updated from a form that does not contain all the fields defined in its corresponding data source, the content of the unspecified columns may get corrupted. You can avoid this problem by presenting all the fields of a data source in its corresponding views. When you add values to a database, and the database table contains non-nullable columns, the operation may fail. You can avoid this problem by adding all non-nullable columns of the database to the data source, presenting them in the corresponding views and filling in their values.

The Builder always connects to a database defined in the Eclipse preferences, not to the database that you may have previously defined for the data source. We recommend that you check your Eclipse preferences and make any necessary modifications there.

Database type support has some limitations: we do not support BLOB, INTERVAL, NUMERIC, DECIMAL, REAL and DOUBLE PRECISION types. We also do not support TimeStamp on Oracle. If you use databases from specific vendors that do not support the granularity of SQL type definition, the generated application may fail.

When you close the Data Source Management workbook, you are automatically disconnected from the selected database. When you reopen the workbook, you will need to reestablish the connection to your database.

Expressions

The RAD Builder expressions are not yet defined at a high level of abstraction, and must be written as legal Java expressions. We are still working on making these easier to use.

Naming Limitations

Do not name your Web pages "Error" or "Fatal Error", using any combination of letter case and spacing. This may result in a failure of the generated application.

Several limitations exist for the naming of variables and data source fields. Do not use Java reserved identifiers (such as if, int, etc.) to name variables or data source fields, using any combination of letter case and spacing. In addition, the first two letters of a variable or field name must be in lowercase. These limitations are actually more stringent than is necessary in the current version, but following these guidelines will guarantee that the generated application will perform as expected.

Eclipse Navigator view

We recommend that you do not remove or close RAD projects from the Eclipse Navigator view. Close all project-related files before you remove or close a project.

You should not rename or copy RAD projects and RAD project files from the Eclipse Navigator view. This may cause inconsistencies in your project data.

Flow editors

Data links are used to connect business logic units and their related data sources. You cannot reconnect a data link that has already been established. Instead, delete it and then create a new link between the desired entities.

In general, when you start dragging a link, you can press ESC to cancel the link creation. However, if you first clicked the Selection icon, the ESC key will not cancel the link creation. In this case, you will have to finish creating the link and then select and delete it manually.

If you position a node out of the visible work area, such that you need to scroll down to see it, you will not be able to connect this node to other project entities. In this case, first position the node within the visible work area, make the necessary connections, and then you can move the connected node to the desired location.

If you position a node above the visible work area, the node will disappear and you will not be able to access it from the visual editors. In this case, you can still configure the node properties, by opening the node via the Outline view.

If you start linking a node to another point, open the context menu and choose Delete, the node itself will be deleted. In this case, the link will remain, but will have no source or target. This link will not affect the application, even though it remains in the work area. To clear the link, close and reopen the editor.

Business logic

If you use the Sort by Field option in Read RDB actions, we recommend that you do not choose to sort by a field that is not retrieved as part of the Read action. The sort may not work properly.

When you use GetRecords action for business logic, make sure the variable read and the variable in which its value is stored are compatible.

Do not use the same name for both transient and data source fields. A generated application that contains a transient field and a data source field with the same name may not run properly.

Generated application

In Eclipse, if you set your preferences so that builds are not done automatically on resource modification, the generated application may not launch properly. To prevent this problem, make sure the option for automatic builds is selected.

When you choose to generate an application, do not choose a location that already contains an existing 'non-RAD' web project. In this case, the generated application will not run properly.

Preview

When you choose to view a Preview of the application, the Preview always opens from the initial application screen. This occurs even if you have already paged through several of the Preview screens.

Undo

Undo is not yet fully supported. Not all actions can be undone. At present, we recommend that you refrain from using the Undo function as well as from closing your editor without saving your work, since it may cause inconsistencies in the project data.