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Use XML to develop with the Google Web Toolkit

Build easy Ajax applications with the help of XML

Tyler Anderson (tyleranderson5@yahoo.com), Writer, Freelance

Tyler Anderson received both his B.S. in Computer Science in 2004 and his M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2005 from Brigham Young University. Tyler has worked with Stexar Corporation as a Design Engineer, R&D, since May 2005 to August 2006 when Stexar died. Since Tyler was discovered by Backstop Media LLC in early 2005 he has written and coded numerous articles and tutorials for IBM developerWorks and DevX.

Nicholas Chase (ibmquestions@nicholaschase.com), Writer, Freelance

Nicholas Chase has been involved in Web site development for companies such as Lucent Technologies, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Nick has been a high school physics teacher, a low-level radioactive waste facility manager, an online science fiction magazine editor, a multimedia engineer, and an Oracle instructor. More recently, he was the Chief Technology Officer of Site Dynamics Interactive Communications in Clearwater, Florida, USA, and is the author of three books on Web development, including Java and XML From Scratch (Que) and the upcoming Primer Plus XML Programming (Sams). He loves to hear from readers and can be reached at nicholas@nicholaschase.com.

Summary: The Google Web Toolkit enables you to use Java™ syntax to create the JavaScript™ necessary for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) user interfaces. Most of these Ajax applications use XML to transfer information to and from the server, so your application must be able to both parse and create XML data. This tutorial shows you how to manipulate and create XML using the Google Web Toolkit.

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Date: 10 Apr 2007
Level: Intermediate
PDF: A4 and Letter (3134 KB | 52 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity: 21493 views
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Before you start

In the past couple of years, Ajax has practically become a requirement for new Web sites, but that doesn't make it any easier to create. To create Ajax-enabled sites manually means that you create JavaScript to make asynchronous HTTP requests using objects that do not comply with browser standards, which can make for a very long programming day. The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) abstracts the JavaScript tasks necessary for an Ajax-enabled application into a few Java classes, to make creating these interfaces much more intuitive for Java programmers. But most of these Ajax applications use XML to transfer information to and from the server, so your application must be able to both parse and create XML data. This tutorial shows you how to send, receive, manipulate and create XML using the GWT.

This tutorial assumes that you're familiar with Java concepts and with HTML, although the code is fairly simple. Familiarity with XML will be helpful, but we will provide a short introduction to XML and the Document Object Model (DOM). See Resources for some links to get you started.

What is this tutorial about?

This tutorial explains how to use XML with the GWT, a set of Java classes designed to make the creation of Ajax-enabled Web sites easier. During the course of this tutorial, you will learn the following:

What Ajax is
What the GWT is
What XML is
What the Document Object Model (DOM) is
How to create a GWT application
How to retrieve an XML document using the GWT
How to parse an XML document using the GWT
How to manipulate a XML Document using the GWT
How to send XML data using the GWT

In this tutorial, you will build a very small, very simple mashup application, combining information from three different sources.

Prerequisites

To follow along with this tutorial, you will need to have the following tools installed:

Java 2 SE 1.4 or higher: The GWT uses Java classes to generate JavaScript, so you need to be able to compile them. You can download the Java Software Development Kit.
The GWT: The actual toolkit is available as a download from Google Code.
WinZip or another zip utility: You will need to decompress the GWT. You can download a trial version of WinZip.
An IDE such as Eclipse or IBM® Rational™ Web Developer will be helpful, but you can just as easily use a simple text editor to edit your files. You can download Eclipse at Eclipse.org or a trial version of Rational Web Developer.

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