Web Tools Platform 1.0 M4 - New and Noteworthy for Web Services Tools

Highlights

There are a number of enhancements in Web services tools in M4. We have also defined some internal provisional APIs for the Web services frameworks and the command/wizard framework. The APIs in WTP 1.0 are all provisional instead of public because of the extreme youth of the APIs and the lack of any third-party extensions besides Apache Axis to help validate the design of the APIs. As the community begins extending the framework by using those internal provisional APIs, the APIs can be validated, revised and promoted to public in a more appropriate release of the Eclipse WTP.

Here are the highlights of the changes to the Web services tools for M4:

  • Defined internal provisional APIs for Web Services frameworks. Refer to the Design document for the Web Services Wizard Framework for more detail.
    • Defined Web service / Web Service Runtime framework.
    • Defined Web service scenario extension points for discovery, development, assembly, deploy, install, startup, test, publication and announcement.

  • Defined internal provisional APIs for the Environmental Command framework and the Dynamic Wizard framework.

    • We had intended to converge with the J2EE Operation framework but had since found out that Eclipse is defining a similar framework. So we decided it would be best to enhance the framework in the direction towards converging with the J2EE Operation framework and define internal provisional APIs for them. We would address converging with the Eclipse and J2EE framework after WTP 1.0.

  • Retrofit the existing Web services extensible wizard to support the newly defined Web Services frameworks.

    • Refactored J2EE and server configuration code to the appropriate spots in the extensible scenario flow.

  • Retrofit the existing Axis extension code to make use of the new or modified Web services framework and command/wizard framework.

  • Exploit flexible projects in Web services tools.

    • We enhanced the Web services wizard and Web services client wizard to exploit the flexible project structure. Now the user can select the project and module they want to create Web services or Web service clients in.

  • Remove the need to seperately download third party JARs.

    • Because of legal concerns, we were not able to ship the third party JARs in the WTP driver in M3. The users had to follow a long procedure to download the third party JARs. This had been a source of confusion and frustration for many. The legal concerns had now been cleared up. The third party JARs are now packaged with the WTP drivers and the user do not need to get them seperately.

  • Moved Web Services Explorer plugin from the JST to the WST subproject.

    • We removed the dependencies on JST.WS compoents and refactored the Web Services Explorere to WST.WS.

  • Enable Web Services Explorer to run outside of Eclipse.

    • The Web Services Explorer can now be run as a Web application independent of Eclipse. Refer to defect 89101 for the instruction for running the Web Services Explorer outside of Eclipse. Please note that only the support for UDDI is functional but the support for WDSL invocation is not.

  • Replace Apache SOAP by Apache Axis as WTP's Web services runtime.

    • The Web Services Explorer, UDDI4J and Web Services Parser now uses Apache Axis as the Web services runtime.

  • Put together a design document for Supporting multiple Axis Versions.

Please check the following M4 milestone plans for more detail on the enhancements made in M4:

Presentations

The following presentations give an overview of the Web services tools in WTP, the plugins being contributed and the internal provisional APIs.

Tutorials

The following tutorials are updated to show the M4 functionality of the Web Services tools:

Known Problems

Please be aware of the following known problems when using the Web Services tools:

  • 86418 and 86527: Do not hit the Browse button in the Web Services Explorer to bring up the WSDL Browser to browse for WSDL files in the workbench. Doing so might crash the Eclipse workbench on Linux and would cause the WSDL Browser to hang at showing the message "Please wait while the form loads...".

  • 93283: The UDDI support in the Web Services Explorer is not functional when launching within Eclipse. Launch the Web Services Explorer outside Eclipse as detailed in 89101 to access UDDI using the Web Services Explorer.

  • 92429: The Web Services Explorer does not work with the Netscape browser. Change the default Web Browser by using Window -> Preferences -> General -> Web Browser.

  • 93269: The Next buttons in the Web Services wizard and Web Services Client wizard are always enabled. When you get to the last page of the wizard, clicking Next would just do nothing. You should click Finish then to dismiss the wizard.

  • 90957: Creation of bottom-up Web service from a Java bean depending on classes from another project does not work. You will get a java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError on the class in the dependent project. To workaround the problem, copy the classes from the dependent project to the project containing the bean you want to create a Web service for.

  • 93278: The generation of sample JSP would not work if there are more than one J2EE Web module in the project where sample JSPs are generated in. The sample JSP would be launched at the wrong URL and if you correct the URL manually, the sample JSPs would have compile error.

  • 93309 and 93170: Defaulting and validation of the Deployment Configuration Page (page 3) of the Web services wizard and Web services client wizard might not be correct all the time. For example, the values set in the Web services server and runtime preference page are not being used in the Web services and Web services client wizard. If the Web service or Web service client is generated into the wrong project/module or is using the wrong server, hit Next to get to the third page and validate all the inputs before clicking Finish.

  • 92603: If you get "Error when deploying Web service to Axis runtime" when creating a Web service when running Eclipse on JDK 1.5, switch to JDK 1.4.2 or JDK 1.4.1 and rerun the Web service scenario since JDK 1.5 is not a supported JDK for this driver.

  • 94010: Do not create bottom-up Web service from beans in default package. Otherwise, you will get "Error in getting method from bean" when going through the Web Service wizard. Instead, put your service bean in a Java package before creating a Web service from it.

  • 85823: When creating a Web service from Java bean, if you specify Generate proxy and Test the Web service, compile errors might show up in the server console the first time the server is started complaining about "package org.eclipse.jst.ws.util does not exist". This is a timing problem because webserviceUtils.jar, which contains the class org.eclipse.jst.ws.util.JspUtils, is not added to the WEB-INF/lib directory of the Web project in time for the JSP compile. Despite the error, eventually the sample JSPs come up OK and the Web service can be invoked successfully.

  • 86420: Do not use the Configure Handler context menu. It will cause a "An internal error occurred" message and a blank handler wizard would come up.

  • 86552: If the service name in the WSDL file used in Web service client scenario does not follow Java naming convention, e.g. having a lowercase first letter, the Proxy class generated by the Web service client wizard may not be able to correctly reference the generated type and may have compile errors.

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