The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Symantec Visual Café (for Java) 2.0
Bob Burt
 bobburt@melbpc.org.au

Are you interested in setting up a Web site on the Internet or a company intranet? If so, then you will need to consider what soft ware to use to construct the site. Symantec's Visual Café is an appealing choice for many, since it does not necessarily require detailed knowledge of the Java language. The manuals and tutorial tours provide example material which certainly eases the learning process.

The version of Visual Café under review is the Web Development Edition, which includes support for Java at the JDK 1.1 and JavaBeans level. Beans are small, self-contained development projects which are designed to be re-used, not only by the originating programmer, but by other developers, who can integrate the code into their own projects without the need to recompile for a specific platform. Symantec also supplies other editions for Professional Development, which includes pure Java code to native x86 compilation and dbDE-Database Development, which adds support for specialist servers and for over 30 databases through ODBC.


Figure 1. The Visual Cafe interface


Figure 2. Visual page, showing a constructed Web site home page

The package

The software is provided on a CD-ROM and contains

  • Visual Café‚, the main application
  • Visual Page, a visual Web page editor
  • Netscape Communicator
  • Netscape Communicator JDK 1.1 Patch
  • Object Design, including PSE (persistent storage engineering), an interface for storing and retrieving Java objects in one file
  • Object Space JGL, data structure and processing algorithms for developing Enterprise applications, using Java
  • Version Control for developers - a trial version
  • Totally Hip Web Painter, to create graphics and animations - another trial version
F our manuals, in the usual Symantec format, are included:
  • Visual Page "Getting Started" - installation and tour
  • Visual Page User's Guide
  • Visual Café "Getting Started" - installation and tour
  • Visual Café‚ User's Guide
Installation

This process is quite straightforward, but you have to be alert to the fact that if you include the tours and all the example JavaBean components (there are over 100 of them), you will require far more than the minimum 30 MB of hard disk space. The relevant manuals suggest that you may require up to 100 MB of space, but I used nearly 18 MB to install Visual Page and over 100 MB for Visual Café‚. While this is a substantial requirement, you will find, unless you are already an expert, that the tour material provides an excellent way of quickly coming to grips with the program so that you can then design your own Web pages with comparative ease.

I did not install any of the other components listed on the CD-ROM.


Figure 3 Using Form Designer in Visual Cafe

Using Visual Page

This is the Web design tool for creating and publishing documents (HTML format). It has a WYSIWYG environment and its main components are a visual designer, a source code editor and a publishing utility. It can be used independently of Visual Café, but is fully integrated with it.

With the tour components installed, you can "walk through" the tour, browsing the Web pages as they will appear after you have finished constructing them. You then follow detailed instructions on how to build a Web page, which assumes you have no previous experience of Web authoring or HTML code. The following tasks are fully covered:
  • Create a plain Web page
  • Create a Web page with frames
  • Import text and graphics
  • Add and run Java applets
  • Flow text around graphics
  • Create and modify a table
  • Link text and graphics
  • Use image maps and anchors
  • Create an e-mail form
A ll source code can be viewed and edited.

When you have created a Web site, you use Visual Page's built-in FTP network access tool to publish it on the Web (provided you have approved access to a particular Web server). From its FTP window, Visual Page provides the capacity to upload, download, rename or delete server-based files.

Using Visual Café

Symantec describes this program as working within a Rapid Application Development (RAD) environment. As the acronym RAD does not (yet) appear in Microsoft's Computer Dictionary, I presume that Symantec has invented it. In any event, it is a suitably descriptive term. Visual Café creates Java applets and applications and can do so very quickly, without the need for the operator to work with source code at all. It includes integrated tools, such as a project manager, form designer, component library, code editor, class browser, interaction wizard, graphical debugger, Java compiler and applet viewer.


Figure 4. Showing Java code in the Form Designer


Figure 5. Showing java code for a Web site home page

With such a battery of supporting tools, you could expect that it is likely to take time to become even basically familiar with the resources available within the program. Here again, the quickest and most comfortable approach is to work through the tour. You open the demonstration project (which is identified for you in the "Getting Started" manual), the names of the project HTML files appear in a window, you click on the "Home" file and Visual Page starts automatically and displays the Home page. You then explore the other pages at will, using the links displayed on the Home page. You can also look at the source code of any applet.

After completing the tour, the "Getting Started" manual instructs you to create an applet for the Web page. You are taken through

  • Creating and naming the project
  • Creating the applet
  • Adding the HTML links
  • Adding animation
  • Running the applet
  • Displaying the applet in a Web page
T he final chapter takes you through creation of an itinerary application, including setting properties; adding slideshow components, buttons, labels and custom Java code; and customising the menu bar, the About dialog and the Quit dialog. The last instructions take you through the use of the graphical debugger, which provides source-level debugging and enables you to browse data and manipulate calls and threads.


Figure 7. Using the Hierarchy Editor


Figure 7. Displaying all Java classes

Conclusion

After you have worked through both "Getting Started" manuals it will be clear that you can create quite impressive Web site material by using the components provided with Visual Café‚ and perhaps adding some others gleaned from the Internet with very minor modification. However, there is no doubt that to make full use of all the resources available with Visual Café‚ you will need to create more original material. To do this, you need a basic understanding of programming, preferably some knowledge of C++, including the principles of object-oriented programming and you will need to learn Java. Fortunately, there are many good instruction books available, with much manual-type material available on the Internet.

Of course, the creation of simple modifications of the example material may fully meet your needs. Similarly, very few of us will ever need to call upon all the resources available in a modern word-processing application. So there is then no reason why the package should not still be an attractive proposition, particularly as the quite low prices available spell great value for money.

Reprinted from the September 1998 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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