Web Objects and Web Applications
Web Objects are used in Web Applications and provide functionality similar to that of views in Windows applications. A web object can either be a Web Browser Object (WBO) or a Web Service Object (WSO).
- Web Browser Objects (WBOs) are used with browser-based applications.
- Web Service Objects (WSOs) are used to provide web services.
The conventional file extension for both types of web objects is .wo.
Web Objects are designed using the same principles as views. A web object contains a Data Dictionary Object (DDO) structure, which must be properly linked using the same rules applied to views. Since web objects are non-visual, they do not use data entry objects to interact with the DDOs. Instead, they contain custom methods that perform the necessary business processes. These methods send messages to the Data Dictionaries to execute all database processes.
Web Application interfaces used to access web objects must be exposed to the Internet. As part of the development process, you must specify which methods inside a web object should be public. This is referred to as publishing the web interface.
- Web Browser Objects expose this interface to the Active Server Page being used to access it.
- Web Service Objects expose the interface as a web service and formally make its definition available as a service description document (WSDL).
Just like views, web objects can be created and tested individually. You can build a web object, test it in the program, and then assemble any number of web objects into a single web application, knowing that with proper encapsulation, the single application will work as expected.
Both Web Browser Object and Web Service Object components have a file extension of .wo.