Wizard Limitations

Setting database parameters

When you get to the Connection page of the wizard and click the Set Database button, the dialog box presents the database parameters that are set in your Eclipse Preferences. These are not necessarily the preferences for the database to which you are connecting via the Wizard. You can change the parameters if you want to connect to a database that is different from either the one noted in the dialog or the one in the Wizard Connection page. We are aware of this confusion and are working on a solution for future versions.

Target platforms

The Template Application wizard currently generates only Struts applications.

Context information

The Template Application Wizard provides limited context information while a template is being customized. For example, there is no "Preview" option for caption customization.

Customized database

The Template Application Wizard assumes that the database to which you connected during customization, is the same database accessed from the generated application.

Database column type support

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.

Database update

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.

Database column names

Our sample databases contain some column names that cannot be used in databases of certain vendors, for whom these names are reserved names (e.g., INDEX).

Form entry validation

Form entry validation is partially implemented. If invalid data is used in an entry (e.g., an empty string in an integer field) the generated application may fail.

Naming Limitations

Several limitations exist for the naming of data source fields. Do not use Java reserved identifiers (such as if, int, etc.) to name data source fields, using any combination of letter case and spacing. In addition, the first two letters of a 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.