Administration

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Administration allows you to manage your Rapid server and applications.

Contents

Rapid server administration

At the top of the administration screen are features with affect your Rapid Server:

- To create a new application use the Create... button. You will be prompted to enter a name and title for your application with an optional description. The name is used to create a prefix unique to your application which is used for all resource files. It's recommended that the name is as short as possible, but should also include a version number. You'll notice only the characters A-Z, a-z, 0-9, -, and _ are allowed. The title is presented to users. Finally the description is an optional free text field.

- To import a Rapid previously exported Rapid application use the Import button. You will be prompted to browse to the exported .zip file and specify a name for the imported app. The name must be unique and only the characters A-Z, a-z, 0-9, -, and _ are allowed. Your imported application will assume the new name, but will retain the same title.

- To select a Rapid application to manage in detail use the Application drop down. Only Rapid applications in which you have the "RapidAdmin" security role will appear. Once you select an application the administration tabs will appear.

- To open the designer to the application you have selected use the Design... button

- Rapid is highly extendable and you are able to create your own controls, actions, and adapters. Should you modify any of these and wish to reload them into a running Rapid server use the corresponding reload button. Should you modify any controls, or actions you will also have to reload the applications as this will regenerate the application source files, and incorporate your changes.

Application administration tabs

Once an application is selected from the Application dropdown the application administration tabs will become visible. Here you can manage any settings that affect your whole Rapid application.

General

- Use the Name box to change the name of your application. This will regenerate all resource files and change any urls to your application

- Use the Title box to change the title of your application as it appears to your users

- Use the Description box to change the description of your application

- Change the default start page with the Start page dropdown

- Advanced users might like to see the engine generated control and action ids amongst a control's properties in the designer. Use the Show control id numbers and Show action id numbers checkboxes to turn this feature on or off.

- Save any changes you have made to any of the above features with the save button. You will see a message "application saved" once this has been successfull.

- The Duplicate... button allows you to duplicate an existing Rapid application into a new Rapid application. This is useful for creating new versions, or experimenting with possible new features. You will be prompted for the name, title, and description of the application you are about to duplicate the selected application into. As usual only A-Z, a-z, 0-9, -, and _ are allowed

- The Export button allows you to export your Rapid application for backup, or for importing into a different Rapid server. Once you click the button a file called rapid.zip will start to download. It contains all off the files required to import your application.

- Finally you can delete any applications with the Delete application button

Application styles

Write any css rules which you want to be applied globally throughout your application. This is especially useful for overriding the default styling for controls.

Save any changes you have made with the save button

Database connections

Use the add connection... button to add any database connections to your application. You will be prompted to:

- Specify a Name for this database connection

- Choose a jdbc Driver for this database connection. By default Rapid ships with SQLite and Oracle jdbc connection libraries. More can be added in the databaseDrivers.xml file. This is covered in the Advanced topics.

- Specify the jdbc Connection string for your database connection. Have a look at the sample application for an example.

- Choose the Connection adapter to use for this database connection. Creating more advanced database connection adapters with connection pooling, and advanced security features such as trusted authentication is covered in advanced topics.

- Specify the User name for the database connection, if required

- Specify the Password for the database connection, if required

Once you have saved the connection settings, clicking on the connection you have made in the Database connection list will show the settings for that connection. Here you are able to change any of the settings and use the test button to test the connection. Use the save button to make the changes permanent.

Finally the settings you have entered can be tested with the test button before

When retrieving data using a database action you will prompted to select a connection.

SOA webservices

Rapid supports Service Oriented Architecture and this tab is used to create and manage SOAP webservices used for SOA.

Click add webservice to create a new webservice. You will be prompted for the following:

- The Name of this webservice

- The Type of this webservice. By default only sql webservices are supports. Creating your own webservice types such as using Java reflection is covered in advanced topics

Once the webservice is saved click on its name in the SOA webservices and this will bring up its detailed properties where, for sql-type webservices, you are ablw to:

- Change the Name

- Specify the Database connection (these are specified in the Database connections tab)

- Specify the name of the request root element, its child elements and their validation rules

- Specify the sql to run against the database connection when the webservice is invoked, the value of each child element is specified with a ? Values are passed into the sql in the order in which they appear in the list of child elements

- Specify the name of the response root element, whether the response is an array or single element, its child elements and their validation rules. Rapid will expect the fields to be present in the sql results and will produce the xml response accordingly.

Use the view wsdl link to view the wsdl for this webservice. Save any changes with the save button.

Security

Actions and controls