TABLE OF CONTENTS In the previous chapters, the modeling notations, the development process, and implementation techniques for data-intensive Web applications have been explained independently of any specific development tool. As the chapters of this last part of the book have demonstrated, the Entity-Relationship schema of the data and the WebML site views can be manually mapped into implementation structures, for instance, into a relational database and a set of JSP templates or components of the MVC architecture. The guidelines provided in the previous chapters assist Web engineers along the entire application lifecycle in producing a working Web application using any development standard or platform. However, when a well-defined software engineering method is in place, development can be greatly helped by CASE tools, supporting and documenting the design and assisting the production of the implementation code. CASE tools allow developers to rigorously adhere to the methodology and help decrease the design and implementation time.
This chapter is dedicated to a specific tool, called WebRatio Site Development Studio (WebRatio, for short), which supports the WebML design process. [1] With respect to the WebML development workflow introduced in Chapter 7, WebRatio covers the phases of data design and hypertext design, and supports implementation by automating the production of the relational database and of the application page templates. More precisely, WebRatio focuses on five main aspects:
Data design: supports the design of Entity-Relationship data schemas, with a graphical user interface for drawing and specifying the properties of entities, relationships, attributes, and generalization...
