1.0 Introduction
2.0 Changes from the previous release
3.0 Known problems and limitations
3.1 Renaming a J2EE Web project
3.2 JSP Validator does not auto-compile on dependent Java changes
3.3 Performance Tip: Close inactive projects
3.4 Performance Tip: Disabling automatic validation
3.5 Copy or Paste selections may be inappropriately disabled within the J2EE Navigator view
3.6 HTML 4.01 Document Types
3.7 Close Page Designer files when deleting related project resources
3.8 Enabling and disabling Page Designer Classic
3.9 Restriction on system IDs that contain double-byte characters
3.10 WAR import fails on files with same names, but different cases.
3.11 Page Designer Toolbar menu customization limitation
3.12 Previewing JSP files in Page Designer
3.13 Broken Link warning on Applets
3.14 Inserting applets in HTML and JSP files using Page Designer
3.15 Trouble displaying some GB18030 characters on Windows 2000/XP
3.16 BiDi issue for WebArt Designer, Animated GIF Designer and PageDesigner classic
3.17 Type Cast Considerations for Code Created with the Database Web Pages Wizard
3.18 JSPs should use explicit import statements.
3.19 Bi-directional language support for Page Designer Classic
3.20 Migrating relational data in 4.0.3 Web projects
3.21 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
3.22 Image map links in Netscape Navigator
3.23 Visual Custom Tags
3.24 HTML and JSP distinctions
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. Default names for new Web projects can be set 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.
If you rename a J2EE Web project in any view other than the J2EE Navigator or J2EE Hierarchy views, you will not be able to run it or any of its deployable resources in the Unit Test Environment, until you do the following:
- Open the application.xml file for the Enterprise Application project in which the Web project was referenced.
- Remove the Web module for the Web project under its original name.
- Add a new Web module for the renamed Web project.
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 J2EE 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.
From within the J2EE Navigator view, if the Copy or Paste context menu selections for a specific resource are inappropriately disabled, then perform the Copy or Paste from the Navigator view. If the J2EE Navigator view is not already open in a perspective, you can add it by selecting Window > Show View > Other, expanding Basic, and selecting J2EE Navigator, and then OK.
HTML 4.01 is specified in three variants for its document type. They are "HTML 4.01" (also known as "4.01 Strict"), "HTML 4.01 Transitional", and "HTML 4.01 Frameset". A HTML file can have one of them as its document type. However, most of editing features (content assist, HTML syntax validation, Properties view, and so on) do not distinguish them. For instance, even if "HTML 4.01 Strict" is specified in a HTML file, the file is treated the same as "HTML 4.01 Transitional".
On the other hand, if a HTML file is actually an XHTML file (i.e. it has a DOCTYPE declaration with one of XHTML DTDs), the document type specification is respected by editing features.
Before deleting a project, folder, or file, close any related files that you have open in Page Designer.
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 5.0.1, 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 5.0.1, 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.
If your ID contains double-byte characters, you should not use the default workspace directory for a new Web project location
An error will occur when importing a WAR file that contains two files with the same name, but in different cases.
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.
JSP tags are not displayed properly in the Preview page. You can check a JSP file's appearance using the Run on server option.
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 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 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 J2EE 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:
Web Contents/index.htmlcode is "aaa.bbb.AnApplet"
Web Contents/MyApplets/aaa/bbb/AnApplet.classthen the applet tag in index.html should contain:
codebase is "MyApplets"
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.
In the Database Web Pages wizard using the IBM Data Access Beans - Master Details Pattern some Databases have problems doing internal casting of Strings to the appropriate Data Type. For example Oracle 8.17i will not cast numbers from strings.
To fix this in the $Prefix$ViewBean.java file generated for each DataAccess query you will need to make a change in the prepareStatement() method.
For code that looks like:
//Add parameters descriptions to meta
data.DBParameterMetaData metaData = getDBSelect().getParameterMetaData();
metaData.setParameter(1, PARAM1_NAME, DatabaseMetaData.procedureColumnIn,
java.sql.Types.DECIMAL,
java.lang.String.class);
// Set parameters.
getDBSelect().setParameter(PARAM1_NAME, inSAL);
You will need to change it to:
//Add parameters descriptions to meta data.
You need to tell the Parameter Meta Data what type of Java Object your database is expecting. Than use the setParmeterFromString method instead of the setParameter method on the DBSelect instance. This will tell the DBSelect Object to do the type conversion instead of your Database.
DBParameterMetaData metaData = getDBSelect().getParameterMetaData();
metaData.setParameter(1, PARAM1_NAME, DatabaseMetaData.procedureColumnIn,
java.sql.Types.DECIMAL,
java.math.BigDecimal.class);
// Set parameters.
getDBSelect().setParameterFromString(PARAM1_NAME, inSAL);
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.
Links to other files from image maps will not work when you launch an external browser using the Page Designer Tools > Launch External Web Browsers menu.
However, if Internet Explorer is launched or the Preview page is used instead, image map links work.
A visual custom tag (VCT) is a JSP custom tag with the ability to render (visualize) itself in the Page Designer Design page. For example, a custom tag for page layout could actually be rendered as a table showing the layout of a Web page in the Design page instead of as an icon. To show or hide the visualized tags, from the JSP menu select or deselect Show Visual Custom Tags.
VCTs are accomplished by implementing a Java class called Visualizer, which generates rendering information for Page Designer. The Visualizers are implemented using APIs provided by Page Designer. Additional information about these APIs and others may be available at IBM WebSphere Developer Domain Web site.
- In Version 4.0.x, HTML files and JSP files were treated identically by Page Designer. For example, you could have JSP tags in an HTML file. This is no longer true: in this release, there is a distinction between JSP and HTML files, so you can no longer have JSP tags in an HTML file.
- The previous distinction affects encoding of non-English JSP files. In versions prior to this release, HTML encoding rules were used, even for JSP files, to determine the encoding named in a file. That is, the content type attribute of the META tag was considered (<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">). In the current release, JSP encoding rules are used to determine the encoding named in a JSP file. That is, the page directive of the JSP file is considered (<%@page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8"%>). For HTML files, encoding is unchanged from previous versions.
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