These Magercises show how to use the JavaBeansTM
API and its component parts to develop component-based solutions with
JavaTM technologies. The Magercises tour the
Beans Development Kit (BDK) and its BeanBox tool and demonstrate
JavaBeans component manipulation within the BeanBox .
In addition, there are Magercises to create JavaBeans components, bean-info
classes, custom property editors, and customization dialogs.
Magercise Outline
About Magercises
A Magercise is a flexible exercise that provides varying levels
of help according to the student's needs. Some students may complete the
magercise using only the information and the task list in the Magercise
body; some may want a few hints (Help); while others may want a step-by-step
guide to successful completion (Solution). Since complete solutions
are
provided in addition to help, students can skip a Magercise (or several)
and still be able to complete later Magercises that required the skipped
one(s).
The Anatomy of a Magercise
Each Magercise includes a list of any prerequisite Magercises, a list
of skeleton code for you to start with, links to necessary API pages,
and a text description of the Magercise's educational goal. In addition,
buttons link you to the following information:
- Help: Gives you help or hints on the
current Magercise (an annotated solution). For ease of use,
the task information is duplicated on the help page with the
actual help information indented beneath it.
- Solution: The
<applet>
tag and JavaTM source resulting in the expected behavior.
- API Documentation: A link directly to
any necessary online API documentation.
Magercise Design Goals
There are three fundamental magercise types that you may encounter:
- "Blank screen"
- You are confronted with a "blank screen" and
you
create the entire desired functionality yourself.
- Extension
- You extend the functionality of an existing,
correctly-working program.
- Repair
- You repair undesirable behavior in an existing
program.
To make learning easier, Magercises, where possible, address only
the specific technique being taught in that Magercise. Irrelevant,
unrelated, and overly complex materials are avoided.
Where possible, Magercises execute via the web. However, Magercises
that must access Java features or library elements that could cause
security violations are not executed on the web.
Magercises, Introduction to the JavaBeans API
-
The Beans Development Kit
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK). It introduces the
BeanBox, a Bean testing tool, and describes how to connect two command button
Beans with a juggler Bean.
Educational goal(s):
- To be familiar with the Beans Development Kit (BDK)
- To learn how to connect Beans using event communication
- To understand how to configure a Bean's properties
-
Working with Beans
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK) to load a Bean,
Simple , which you first develop and then package in a JAR file.
Educational goal(s):
- To become familiar with basic Bean development procedures
- To understand how to package a Bean for use with a Bean-aware tool
-
The StickFigure Bean with Properties
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK), or a comparable
Bean-aware development environment, to load a Bean, StickFigure ,
and manipulate the Bean's characteristics. For this Magercise, you supplement
the Bean's functionality by adding a bound property.
Educational goal(s):
- To become familiar with basic Bean development procedures
- To understand how to package a Bean for use with a Bean-aware tool
- To become familiar with the JavaBeans design patterns for properties
-
The StickFigure Bean with Control Methods
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK), or a comparable
Bean-aware development environment, to load the Bean,
StickFigure , and manipulate the Bean's behavior. For this
Magercise, you supplement the Bean's functionality by adding a
surprise state, plus control methods for manipulating the state of
surprise.
Educational goal(s):
- To emphasize Bean
connectivity design issues
-
The StickFigure Bean with BeanInfo Support
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK), or a comparable
Bean-aware development environment, to load a Bean, StickFigure ,
and verify the Bean's icon. For this Magercise, you add a minimal bean-info
class that specifies an icon for the Bean.
Educational goal(s):
- To become familiar with
bean-info classes
-
The StickFigure Bean with a Custom Property Editor
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK), or a comparable
Bean-aware development environment, to load a Bean, StickFigure ,
and verify the behavior of a custom property editor. For this Magercise, you
design and implement a property editor for the Bean's "mood" property.
Educational goal(s):
- To become familiar with
custom property editors
-
The StickFigure Bean with a Customizer Dialog
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK), or a comparable
Bean-aware development environment, to load a Bean, StickFigure ,
and verify the behavior of a customizer dialog. For this Magercise, you
design and implement a customization dialog for the Bean's properties.
Educational goal(s):
- To become familiar with
customization dialogs
-
Exploring Bean Customization: FlexLabel
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK), or a comparable
Bean-aware development environment, to load the Bean, FlexLabel ,
and explore the JavaBeans framework's customization facilities.
Educational goal(s):
- To become more familiar
with JavaBeans customization facilities
-
A Client Socket Bean
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK) to design and test a
nongraphical Bean that implements client-socket functionality. The Bean makes
a socket connection to, for example, an echo server or a date-time server, and
then reads from and/or writes to the socket, depending on the server's
functionality.
Educational goal(s):
- To gain experience with
nongraphical Beans
- To become accustomed to
"Bean-ifying" nongraphical Java classes
- To gain experience with
client-level sockets
-
A URL Hex Dump Bean
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK) to design and test a
nongraphical URL Bean. The Bean makes a URL connection to a local file or a
remote HTTP address, and then performs a hex dump of the data at the specified
URL.
Educational goal(s):
- To gain experience with
nongraphical Beans
- To become accustomed to
"Bean-ifying" nongraphical Java classes
-
A JDBCTM
Bean Database Manager
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK) to design and test a
nongraphical Bean that implements a front-end to a database system, that is, a
simple middle-tier application server.
Educational goal(s):
- To gain experience with
Bean-oriented application services
-
Exploring an HTML Browser Bean
This Magercise uses the Beans Development Kit (BDK) to load a prepackaged HTML
Browser Bean suite and explore its capabilites.
Educational goal(s):
- To become aware of
currently available technology delivered as Beans
Copyright © 1998-1999
MageLang Institute.
All Rights Reserved.
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