Remember, back in grade school, when someone pointed out that your epidermis was showing, how hard it was to muster up the courage to ask what the word "epidermis" meant? That's kind of how I felt as a Java programmer admitting that, for all the talk and excitement about JavaBeans, I had never actually seen one, never actually used one and certainly never actually built one.

Foundations This month I wrap up my two part review of the Application Foundation Classes with a closer look at the user interface controls it provides. In my past two columns, I've showed you how to install and use the Java SDK 2.0, which includes the Application Foundation Classes, and how to begin using the Application Foundation Classes in your own applications. Now it's time to take a closer look at what the Application Foundation Classes can do for the user interfaces of your Java applications.

I want... I want... I want... Seems like those childlike wants of ours never disappear, they just change slightly to match our changing environments! If you have to build a Web site, whether for internal use on an Intranet or for publication on the Internet, you want a complete set of tools. You want a Web Server program with a simple administration interface, a Browser, a Web Page Editor (or two!), a graphics program with image map capabilities and some extras for accessing databases from your site, providing search engine capabilities and supplying fill-in forms for your site's visitors to use. Perhaps you want to provide secure pages for conducting credit card business on the Web and want tools to simplify that task. But, you don't want to spend a fortune to get them.

Last month, we started this column by looking at the development tool, Visual Café Pro. Visual Café Pro makes the perfect companion for the developer, giving instant access to the editor, on-line help and runtime environments. The main goal of this column will be to teach the reader the power behind Java by using Visual Café Pro, one of the most popular integrated development environments in use today.

SuperCede has a picture of a man that resembles the comic book character Flash'. This character is highly representative of the SuperCede development environment and SuperCede Flash Compiler' technology that allows the developer to modify the code of a running application. This Java development environment allows the user to generate standard Java classes for portability or native executables for Intel-based PCs. SuperCede comes in three flavors: the Java Edition, the Java/Active X edition and the Database Edition. This review concentrates on the Database Edition. The Database Edition is not just a well-written and well-packaged development environment for the Java developer, but also opens the door for Visual Basic and PowerBuilder developers to develop applications in Java that can not only generate enterprise-wide applications for the Intel platform but for any platform the Java Virtual Machine is developed for.

In many companies, Web site statistics must be analyzed by many people throughout the organization. Your consulting division may want to know how often its page has been hit and by whom, while your software products division will want to know how often a particular page has been visited and how long each page was viewed (as well as who viewed it.). To generate this kind of information, it previously was necessary to ask the Webmaster to do so, which would normally entail either going to the server yourself (if you were the Webmaster) or requesting that they set aside some valuable time to generate the report. Many log analysis programs can be configured so that a specified report (such as most common domain name) can be e-mailed to a number of recipients. This is a nice feature, but if you're not the Webmaster and you want to request additional information, you'll have to annoy your poor, overworked Webmaster again. How can you give people throughout your organization access to the information they need (especially marketing people with little technical background) and give them the flexibility they want (while at the same time keeping them out of your hair)?

What Is The AFC? I know that football season is right around the corner, but you're not going to find an in-depth analysis of football's weaker conference here. The Application Foundation Classes, or AFC, are Microsoft's answer to the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT). The AFC builds on the AWT foundation to provide more user-friendly controls for your applications. The AFC is currently available only as a preview release and requires a Java 1.02 or 1.1 compatible compiler and Virtual Machine.

Roaster Release 3 is the latest version of the Java Macintosh development environment from Roaster Technologies, a spin-off of long-time Macintosh developer Natural Intelligence. As an early market leader with a year of interim developer releases, Roaster's Release 3 is a solid, fully-featured, professional-quality development environment that integrates a variety of tools including a project manager, a syntax-sensitive editor, a class source browser, a class tree viewer, an HTML documentation extractor, a compiler and a source-level debugger. Release 3 also includes a beta preview of a just-in-time compilation runtime system. While Release 3 only supports JDK 1.0.2, a free JDK 1.1 upgrade will be available in August to registered Roaster Release 3 users. Roaster includes 90 days of free technical support from a very responsive and knowledgeable support organization.

Welcome to Your New Language One can assume that if you're reading a journal devoted to Java you've taken the first steps into this relatively new and emerging language that has filled up many columns in every major trade magazine since its release only a couple of years ago. You've seen the hype, read the leaflet, digested the ads and got the T-shirt! At this stage, you know Java is the language of the future, with its built in security and communication. Its ability to run on any platform supporting the runtime environment has been well publicized. You now want to join the throngs of developers who are churning out Java code 24 hours a day worldwide. But where do you begin?

Launching a technology into stardom begins with an enormous creative effort. The combined technical and marketing forces pouring out of Java tool vendors is as impressive as the fires fueling the giant first stage of a Saturn rocket. But the first stage burns out quickly, followed by a less flashy, more sustained effort. With 75 percent of developers programming database applications, Java IDEs must tap this fuel to reach a long-lasting orbit.

If you are planning to deploy your database application on the Internet or Intranet, very soon you will need to deal with state management.' The stateless nature of Web architecture makes it radically different from the other (traditional) client-server architectures. The servers do not maintain any information on a client after the request is served. NetDynamics offers a solution for such problems. You can develop a fully object-oriented Web application in Java using the NetDynamics system. It supports server side Java for the generation of dynamic Web pages, application logic and database connectivity. It also addresses security, access control and flow control of the user in a Web application.

What's In The Java SDK 2.0 Have you been itching for JDK 1.1 support in Visual J++? You might have been disappointed to find out that when you upgraded to Visual J++ Version 1.1, it didn't include JDK 1.1 support. Well, the cure for your blues is almost over! Microsoft has recently released the Microsoft Java SDK 2.0 Preview. The Microsoft Java SDK 2.0 includes support for most JDK 1.1 classes, improved ActiveX integration, support for JavaBeansª, the Application Foundation Class (AFC) libraries, JDBC support, Direct- X support, a new version of the Java compiler and a Java Virtual Machine. Let's take a closer look at some of these important improvements.

Visual Basic programmers look high and low for the perfect ActiveX/OLE Control to use in their next client/server project. Protoview's DataTable OLE control is one such ActiveX/OLE control. The DataTable control falls into the grid/spreadsheet class of ActiveX/OLE controls and has a boatload of features to allow for a multitude of presentation views and styles.

Domino, the latest incarnation of the software system formerly known as Lotus Notes, provides Web developers with an effective, efficient and inexpensive vehicle for building and deploying full-featured Web sites. The current release of the Notes server software is called Domino 4.5 and it maintains the Notes heritage for developing robust work flow applications (with features like field level replication) while extending it to the Web. Lotus amplifies Domino's Web server capabilities with a number of template databases. The Domino.Action template enables Web site developers, after setting various parameters such as company name and logo, to automatically generate a complete Web site with links from the home page to pages like About the Company, FAQ, Job Postings and so forth. There are a variety of other templates as well. Domino.Connect provides a mechanism for populating Domino Web pages with data from back end databases, while Domino.Merchant gives a business everything needed to set up a Web storefront. When it comes to making Java applets work with Domino, however, things are a bit more obscure.

Squeezing the power of a high-end multimedia authoring program into a rich, easy-to-use Java RAD tool like Hyperwire probably wasn't easy, but thankfully someone did it. No surprise that that someone is Kinetix, a division of Autodesk and maker of 3D Studio MAX, a company with years of experience designing for designers. For anyone working to create interactive, visual content for the Java virtual machine, Hyperwire is, quite simply, a dream come true.

Editor's Note: Bluestone Software will be coming out with a 100 Percent Pure Java implementation in version 4.0 by the end of the summer. Instead of generating C or C++, it will also generate 100 Percent Pure Java on the server that can run in any Java Virtual Machine

Recently, Microsoft introduced version 1.1 of Visual J++, its Java development environment. This latest version of Visual J++ builds on the first edition and includes an improved customizable integrated development environment, an integrated debugger, more wizards which assist in the development process, improved database support and an integrated help system. The Visual J++ Java compiler also continues to be one of the fastest available on the market, with the ability to compile over 10,000 lines per second.

Rooms by ichat is the premier comprehensive solution for creating Web sites that allow multiple users to interact. It provides several key features that make it suitable for Web sites of any size and has cross-platform support that makes it accessible to users on almost any imaginable platform.

JavaSoft has promised that they will deliver many enterprise-based APIs to the Java environment, and, hopefully, they will one day make Java the ideal language for creating professional business applications quickly. Until that day comes, however, we have Vibe. Vibe is the latest in the long line of Java IDEs that claims to deliver high-performance, easy-to-use, Java power to developers. In this newly maturing field, there have been two basic approaches to the creation of development environments. Sun Microsystems, not surprisingly, has placed their faith in an IDE created entirely in Java, which gives them certain advantages, but also has numerous drawbacks. The opposite approach, taken first by Symantec's Café, is to write the IDE in an older-generation language, like C++, to increase its speed and efficiency. Vibe takes this latter approach, but extends it in ways that its competitors have not. Not only does Vibe have a first-rate IDE with all of the basic features, it also provides developer with an extensive set of classes, implemented in native C, which support features from graphics to printing to ActiveX integration. Visix claims this set is "superior to any other Java tool in existence". And they're not kidding.

WebSpice is a collection of more than 1000 royalty-free GIF and JPEG images that you can use with your web pages. The images were created by professionals at DeMorgan to enhance the appearance of your web pages.

WebGain says that Visual Cafe "gives developers the fastest, most productive visual programming environment ever for creating Java applets and applications." Usually, this would be corporate puffery. Well, in this case, WebGain is actually understating the power of Visual Cafe.

NET-Install, from 20/20 Software Inc., allows software to be distributed over the Internet. It combines downloading, decompression and installation into a single step which is accomplished from within a browser. NET-Install currently supports Netscape Navigator 2.0 and above by way of plug-in technology and Internet Explorer 3.0 using Microsoft's ActiveX technology.

In December 1995, Bill Gates mobilized his company into a war to dominate the Internet. Every product would now require an Internet strategy. Also, Microsoft would "embrace and extend", especially in regard to the threat of Sun's Java. To this end, Microsoft developed Visual J++, which allows you not only to create pure Java programs ("embrace"), but also to develop programs that use the Common Object Model ("extend").

If you've been struggling, trying to work around Java's lack of an installation toolkit, then you should probably take a look at Setup Factory 4.0 by the Indigo Rose Software Design Corp. Most Java programs or packages require an installation which might involve something as easy as placing a few files on the user's system, or it might be much more complex. More complex installations might require the installation of native libraries, configuration files and even require feedback during the installation process from the user.

WebSite Professional from O'Reilly & Associates is an award-winning Web server which runs on Windows 95 and NT 3.51 or higher. The Professional edition is the high-end version of the Standard WebSite server. In addition to the usual Web server functionality it includes many exciting features such as enhanced security, a new WebSite Application Programming Interface (WSAPI) and the Cold Fusion database application development tool. Other tools included with the product are the SpyGlass Enhanced Mosaic browser, HotDog HTML Editor, MapThis! image map editor, WebView for graphically managing your Web, and WebIndex and WebFind for indexing and searching your web.

EchoSearch is a Java-based, multi-search engine query assistant. Through its primitive interface, anyone can quickly develop queries to go against its seven predefined Web or Usenet search engines. The concept behind EchoSearch is great, and surely needed. However, execution leaves much to be desired, given other more powerful tools on the net.

The ability to add TCP/IP communications capability to your PowerBuilder applications can make you a valuable member of any development team. In the past, developers have relied on skills which required low-level coding and a steep learning curve. This might include making difficult calls to the Winsock API and managing socket connections, application protocol processing and state level management. Your project could grow old while you learn the Winsock API!

Sun's Java WorkShop, the most important product to enter the Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE), is a powerful integrated toolkit that allows quick and easy cross-platform application development in Java. Sun Microsystems, whose JavaSoft group created Java, has taken its time developing this IDE, and poses a serious challenge to Symantec, Borland, Microsoft and other companies who sought to win market share by coming out with a product much faster. Sun's offering is clearly a full industrial strength development tool; however, as with most first release versions, it can be frustrating to the casual developer.

Asymetrix SuperCede for Java is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Java development on Windows 32 platforms. The IDE includes a C++ compiler for making native methods. SuperCede is the first product available to make Intel x86 executable code directly from Java source.

On today's Internet, a Web site cannot afford to be old fashioned. An antique Web site is a dusty, unvisited vestige of yesteryear. Today's sites have to be interactive, multimedia experiences that create a lasting impression...sites that will get revisited often. The software industry has been bursting with new Web design tools, but it's still hard to find a WYSIWYG tool which can be used to design HTML pages that include the latest browser tags and plug-ins, let alone one that can be used to create dynamically produced documents. This type of program would create a unique experience for each viewer. Macromedia is well known for its animation and Web graphics tools. Now Macromedia has gone even farther into multimedia Web development with Backstage Designer Desktop Studio. In this issue, you'll learn about Backstage Designer Desktop Studio, and find out how it can make your site a unique experience for everyone who wanders onto it.

"Special Edition Using Java," published by Que, should win the prize as the biggest Java reference book on the market. It is huge, containing a wealth of information on Java and complementing topics like JavaScript and multimedia. It is based on Java Version 1.0 for MS Windows platforms Windows 95 and NT, Solaris 1.x and Macintosh. In addition, the book comes with a CD containing Sun's User Group library of applets, Sun's Java Development Kit (JDK), and a number of chapters from books on JavaScript, HTML, and CGI (Common Gateway Interface), plus the entire text of Que's C++ by example. The CD alone is worth $50.

The Microline Component Toolkit (MCT) is a powerful new product with years of experience behind it. Designed for professional developers, but usable by even a novice, the MCT brings new levels of GUI sophistication to Java, and for the first time brings professional UNIX-style components to those who still believe that "Motif" refers only to interior decorating. The MCT carries all the advantages of slick, powerful, UNIX widgets without the complexity and single-platform constraints traditionally associated with them. Using Java, Microline has helped to usher in a new era in GUI programming.

Web browsers are a way of life for many of us. For some, a day without using a browser would be a day off. Others may use the Web for entertainment, research, homework, or just a break from the routine. Regardless of how often you use a browser, at one point you had to make a decision about which browser to use. And it came down to the big two, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Of course, some of you checked out the other browsers, but according to statistics, the majority of you ended up using Netscape Navigator to cruise around the Internet.

The ability to author a program or applet on one computer system and have it run on many different platforms is a paramount strength of Java and its suitability for the Internet. This strength, however, introduces weaknesses in some areas of the implementation that limit Java's usability.

While a lot of Java development has been happening in the last few months, Java's learning curve has still put many a company's project on hold while developers learn to master the language. By the time the developers have caught up, new techniques and products come along. Now, we have a product that is supposed to eliminate the learning curve, and enables the developer to start producing useful applets (using drag and drop components with "actions") that can be used as is or improved on with code that you integrate into the applet. Penumbra Software's Mojo includes built-in components for drawing, rich-text editing, email, buttons and panels, calendar, clock, and animation. In this issue, the Java Developer's Journal takes a look at Mojo and lets you know if it's just the tool to put some magic on your site.

PERC is the embodiment of the technologies described in last month's article. PERC is a commercial clean-room implementation of Java designed specifically to address the needs of developers of embedded and real-time systems.The PERC acronym stands for Portable Executive for Reliable Control. PERC is intended to serve a spectrum of real-time application domains ranging from simple multimedia entertainment software for children to highly complex hard-real-time applications critical to the nation's defense systems. The intention is to standardize this programming notation as a common platform for the development of shared real-time software development tools and reusable real-time software components. Clearly, the rigor with which particular applications need to comply with real-time constraints depends on price and performance issues and risk analyses that are different for each application. The design of PERC is such that individual developers can choose to handle these tradeoffs differently.

"Well, Jim, the Web pages look pretty good, but they remind me of a food line at a delicatessen. Lots of food, but nothing looks like it belongs with anything else." "But boss, I put in all the information that you wanted!" "Yes, but I want our pages to have a style that's recognizable throughout the whole site."

Since the introduction of Java and Sun's Java Development Kit over nine months ago, Mac users have been left out in the cold waiting for their turn to get the slick GUI development environments. Sun finally came out with the JDK for the Mac, and now Metrowerks, whose CodeWarrior development environment has dominated the Macintosh programming tool market, has extended its reach to include Java with the recent release of CodeWarrior Gold 9. In this issue the Java Developer's Journal will take a look at CodeWarrior Gold 9 and let you know how it stacks up.

In early March of this year, Sun Microsystems' software company, JavaSoft, specified a standard SQL database access interface, the JDBC API. Java developers everywhere were finally given a tool to connect their applets and applications to databases, via the JDBC API. The API provided Java programmers with a uniform interface to a wide range of relational databases. Developers used the API as a common base on which to build higher level tools and interfaces. The JDBC API defined Java classes to represent database connections, SQL statements, result sets, database metadata, and allowed a programmer to issue SQL statements and process the results in their applets and applications.

Most of us have seen a standalone Java application of one sort or another. But few of us have seen any commercial applications of serious merit yet... until now, that is. CADIS has just released Krakatoa, the object-oriented client/server search and retrieval development program. Krakatoa is delivered to the client via either a java applet that is downloaded, or a combination of javascript and HTML frames, and allows Web users to search through structured content by refining their search criteria with finer and finer details of interest. By clicking on their selection with the mouse, the count of qualifying items is instantly updated, allowing users to find the products or documents they are looking for. URL's, product information or sales contacts are requested at that point, again via the mouse, enabling users to find exactly the information they are looking for with a minimum amount of effort. Krakatoa was named after a volcano. We'll take a look and see if it lives up to its namesake.