Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 1/16 Oracle HTMLDB introduction CERN Oracle Developers Forum: May 12 th 2005

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 2/16 What is HTMLDB A rapid web application development tool for the Oracle database. 100% web based development PL/SQL driven

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 3/16 Architecture Everything is in the Database! RDBMSHTMLDB WebServerClient

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 4/16 Pros & Cons Pros Fast development 100% web based No code required Ready to use components Professional looking Easy to create mock-ups Easy to deploy Easy to understand Fast (no overhead) Cons Platform lock Difficult to debug Tricky to customize Scaling problems Difficult version control

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 5/16 Trade Off Comparison Effort Results J2EE HTMLDB ? Good for small/simple projects

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 6/16 Designer Comparison HTMLDB is not a replacement for Designer Lacks the “design” part Targets Web Apps The layout is a lot more flexible Doesn’t have any “compile” phase

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 7/16 Real World Examples AskTom CERN AIS –Pre Registration Tool –Safety Information Registration –Core Training Application HTMLDB Itself!

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 8/16 Development Cycle HTMLDB Web Interface Web Application Developer User HTMLDB Engine RDBMS Application Metadata

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 9/16 HTMLDB Interface Application Builder SQL Workshop Data Workshop Create pages Manage shared components ( Items, Templates, Translations, … ) Import & Export application Browse DB Objects ( Tables, Packages, DBLinks, Java Classes, …) Create DB Objects Run arbitrary SQL Import/Export Data from/to XML/Spreadsheet

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 10/16 Page Creation: Overview Pre-processing Rendering Post-processing Branching Client Page Same or other Page Order can be finely tuned mixing processing and rendering. Request

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 11/16 Page Creation: Rendering User Interface Items Data Loading PL/SQL Repository Input Text Checkbox Report Every Item corresponds to a “global” variable

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 12/16 Processing & Branching Processes execute PL/SQL manage sessions state Reports pagination Many others … Computations Set “item” values SQL or PL/SQL driven Static values Other item values Branches Application Page External URL Functions returning URL/page Others …

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 13/16 Example: Room Booking Use Cases Search for first available time slot Book desired time slot Show room availability

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 14/16 Conclusions Fast implementation Good looking results Good for small to medium applications It takes some time to get used to it

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 15/16 Resources Official Oracle Page Good support forum AskTom Newsgroups comp.databases.oracle.tools comp.databases.oracle.tools

Oracle HTMLDB introduction IT-AIS-HR Giovanni Chierico 16/16 Questions?