J2EE Spider is a new open source tool for rapidly developing form-based web applications. The objectives of J2EE Spider are simple:
Generating codes whenever you want, with whatever you want and however you want.
When allow us to generate codes not only in the beginning of the project, but also to perform an incremental build. This concept of successive builds uses merge whenever necessary so that it won't lose customizations that may have been done in the code.
With what is the flexibility in the choice of frameworks. This allows the developer to decide which technologies will be part of the generated code, taking advantage of his/her team's know-how. In the future, it is intended to allow the generation with the greatest possible number of frameworks.
How allows us to alter the generation code template so that the generated code will be as similar as possible to the development methodology of each team. It is also possible to add new resources to the standard code generation in an easy and simple way.
Key features of J2EE Spider include:
- Visual interface for generating code
- Integration with Eclipse
- Incremental builds
- Round-trip engineering
- Generated code is Internationalized
- Code generation using templates
- Supports multiple frameworks
As well as being able to provide custom page templates for your applications, new technologies can be integrated as necessary. However, for "out of the box" functionality the following technologies are provided:
- Web frameworks: Struts, JSF and Mentawai ( Brazilian web application framework)
- Dependency Injection Containers: Spring
- O/R Mapping: Hibernate
- Page Templates: SiteMesh and Facelets
At the moment the documentation is limited. The best source of information is through several screencasts. These demonstrate the features in action and are available in several formats:
- Windows (self-executable) - http://downloads.sourceforge.net/j2eespider/spider_video-1.0.0-M1.exe?use_mirror=osdn
- Multiplatform (displayed in a browser) - http://downloads.sourceforge.net/j2eespider/spider_video-1.0.0-M1.zip?use_mirror=osdn
The minimum requirements to use J2EE Spider in your projects is Java 5, Eclipse (with WTP), a JEE or Servlet container and the J2EE Spider plug-in. More information, as well as the download location for the plug-in, can be found at the J2EE spider website http://www.j2eespider.org.