When you need to develop a Web application, you can create it quickly and easily with the WebObjects development tools. WebObjects provides many elements that you can use to build your Web application’s interface. These elements range from simple user interface widgets (for example, submit buttons, checkboxes, and tables) to elements that provide for the conditional or iterative display of content.
You can also define Web components. These are Web page templates that you can use to define your Web applications’ design. Web components can contain any of the layout elements mentioned earlier as well as other Web components. For example, you can create a toolbar component that provides a link to your main website and to a search Web page. Then, as you create other components, you include the toolbar component in them. When you develop a support page for your website that you want all the other other components to use, the toolbar component is the only place you need to add a link to it.
Web components encapsulate more than the layout of a Web page. They also encompass a Java file that links the component’s elements and subcomponents into a coherent entity. You put application-specific business logic in the Java class of a Web component.
For more information on Web applications, see “Web Applications”.