- Download
- Install
- Quickstart
- Installing QAML UI Builder
- User Manual
- Tutorial
- FAQ
- Support
- Extended Installation Walk-Through
- License and service agreements
Download your copy of QAFE:
Go to http://registration.qafe.com/ and receive download instructions plus a trial licence key instantly.
Installing QAFE is easy:
1) Make sure you have a Java virtual Machine. JDK6 is the default. (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html)
2) Get your hands on a server. For example Tomcat 6, http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi. Installing Apache Tomcat is easy. For more information on the installation of Apache Tomcat, check http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/index.html
3) Copy QAFE to the webapps directory. You might want to rename the downloaded war file to qafe-web-gwt for the GWT QAFE engine (or qafe-web-flex).
4) Start Tomcat
5) Open your favorite (modern) browser (like Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla FF) and go to to http://localhost:8080/qafe-web-gwt (or http://localhost:8080/qafe-web-flex). The port 8080 is default to Tomcat.
So now the QAFE environment is started! You’ll see the desktop of QAFE.
For more information, watch the videos on QAFE Channel (http://www.youtube.com/qafechannel).
Quickstart in 3 minutes!
- prerequisite: the tomcat server is already started
In the WEB-INF directory one can find an application-config.xml which defines your applications.
In the application-config.xml you’ll find the application “helloworld” which refers to helloworld.xml.
1. Edit this file from this location with your favorite editor (preferably one with code completion for XML) and change the displayname-attribute in the window tag from:
<window id=”myWindow” displayname=”Hello World” width=”400″ height=”400″ >
to:
<window id=”myWindow” displayname=”Hello Joe” width=”400″ height=”400″ >
2. Save the file (overwrite the file)
3. Go to the http://localhost:8080/qafe-web-gwt/
4. If you start the Hello World application (from the “Programs” on top), you’ll see Hello World.
5. Now if you click on “QAFE Labs” menu and “Reload applications”, the modified helloworld.xml becomes active.
6. If you go to the “Programs” menu and click Hello World you’ll already notice that the name of the window changed.
Note: this option is only available in the GWT, because it’s lightning fast.
Installing QAML UI Builder
Obtain a valid (trial) license on http://registration.qafe.com/ Add the two jar files (after unzipping) to the eclipse plugin directory. Copy the license file to the eclipse home directory. Restart eclipse.
User Manual?
You can find a copy on http://www.qafe.com/qafe-manual/
Tutorial?
Try http://www.qafe.com/tutorial !
FAQ?
The answers to most questions are published here http://www.qafe.com/faq/
Support
Call or email us: http://www.qafe.com/qafe-support/
Example of Oracle Forms Conversion with QAFE?
http://www.qafe.com/oracle-forms-conversion/fmb-conversions/conversion-code-walkthrough/
Extended Installation Walk-Through?
Here you go ->
Java
QAFE requires a JDK (Java Development Kit)1.6 or higher to run. The JDK can be obtained from Oracle’s website.
Once the JDK is installed, you will need to set the JAVA_HOME environment variable, pointing to the root directory of the JDK. Some JDK installers set this automatically. Existence of this variable can be verified using commands “
echo %JAVA_HOME%
” in a DOS prompt, or “
echo $JAVA_HOME
” in a shell.
Follow the steps to set JAVA_HOME environment variable manually in Windows, if it is not already present:
1. Right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and select properties
2. Click the Advanced Tab
3. Click the Environment Variables button
4. Click New
5. Enter JAVA_HOME as the variable name and the directory where you installed Java
When the above steps have been completed, you should be able to see the following printed when the command “
%JAVA_HOME%\bin\javac
” is given in DOS prompt.
Usage:
javac
where possible options include:
…
Apache Tomcat
QAFE uses Apache Tomcat 6 as application server for the development environment because it’s lightweight and easy to use. Feel free to use any JEE Application Server or JEE Web Container implementations, with JDK version 1.5 or higher.
Apache Tomcat can be downloaded from the Apache site.
After installing Apache Tomcat you might want to change the following:
- Port number:
Go to the conf directory of the Apache Tomcat installation, and modify the server.xml file on the following line:
from
<Connector port="8080" maxHttpHeaderSize="8192" maxThreads="150" ....
to
<Connector port="9080" maxHttpHeaderSize="8192" maxThreads="150" ....
- Memory:
Go to the bin directory of the Apache Tomcat installation, and modify the catalina.bat file by adding the following line:
set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -Xms256M –Xmx512M
Note: feel free to adjust these settings to match your needs.
QAFE
QAFE is available in several Web 2.0 front-ends:
- QAFE Web GWT (Google Web Toolkit): Is based on Javascript, any web browser can be used.
- QAFE Web Flex (Adobe Flex): Is a plug-in technology, any web browser with Adobe Flash player installed can be used. With QAFE Web Flex, it is possible to deploy QAFE web applications as desktop application on the computer using the Adobe AIR runtime.
QAFE Setup
Copy the QAFE war file to the webapps directory of the Apache Tomcat installation, and unzip the war file. For installing war files on other JEE Application Servers, please refer to the documentation of your Application Server.
The unzipped QAFE application has a WEB-INF directory where the web.xml file defining the application structure can be found. In this file you will find the QAFEContextFile context parameter. The parameter refers to an xml (default is application-config.xml) which in fact is the file where you define which QAFE web application you want to use. This is the starting point of QAFE.
Example:
<context-param>
QAFEContextFile
application-config.xml
<?context-param>
If the application-config.xml file is not present in the WEB-INF directory, create the file with the following content:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<applications xmlns=http://qafe.com/schema
xmlns:xsi=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance xsi:schemaLocation="http://qafe.com/schema
http://www.qafe.com/schema/application-context.xsd">
<application name="apps" id="system_app" >
<application-mapping-file location="qafe-default-system-app.xml"/>
<application name="Hello World" id="myApp" >
<application-mapping>
<presentation-tier>
<view>
<window id="myWindow" displayname="Hello World">
<rootpanel>
<verticallayout>
<button id="myButton" displayname="HellWorld"/>
<?verticallayout>
<?rootpanel>
<?window>
<?view>
<?presentation-tier>
<?application-mapping>
<?application>
<?applications>
The applications that are needed are specified within the application tag in the XML. The application tag has an id and name attribute. The name attribute is shown in the system application menu shown in the virtual desktop page which is used to invoke the application. The definition of the application is done within the application-mapping tag.
In the code sample, there are in two applications: system_app and hello_world. The xml file mentioned as attribute value in the application-mapping-file tag with the id system_app represents the system application menu.
We advice you to place all your QAML files (definition of your applications based on XML) including the application-config.xml file outside the QAFE software deployment location. This may become handy when the QAFE software needs to be updated as it will make sure that your QAML files are not affected when QAFE is updated. After an update of QAFE (if any), you will only need to redefine the location of the application-config.xml in the overwritten web.xml file.
NOTE: If you don’t want to have the files in your WEB-INF directory, you can modify the application-config.xml to other file locations as long as the file is reachable through a valid URL.
If QAML contains resources that refer to their statement files, then the statements files need to be located in the same directory (since the statements files are always relative file locations).
If there is an application-config file which contains an application which on its turn has multiple filelocations for the application-mapping, make sure that the statements file in the resources are defined in a correct and concise manner.
Example:
<application id="system_app" name="sysapp"> <?application>
To test the QAFE applications, start Apache tomcat by running the startup.bat file in the bin directory. Open a web browser and type the following in the URL bar:
http://localhost:9080/
- localhost: server name
- 9080: server port (configured above)
- context root: “qafe-web-gwt” or “qafe-web-flex”
QAFE AIR
Within QAFE Web Flex, the following properties should be specified when building QAFE AIR desktop application:
- air.application.name: represents the name of the QAFE AIR desktop application, only digits and letters are allowed, also do not use the reserved word “main”, default is “qafe”
- air.application.version: represents the version number, when this differs from the current installed QAFE AIR desktop application, the update confirmation dialog is shown when starting the QAFE AIR desktop application
- air.application.notes: represents the release notes, this will be displayed in the update dialog
- air.application.icon48: represents the icon (48×48) for the QAFE AIR desktop application, default is qafe icon
- air.server.url: represents the URL of the remote server, it has the format: http://<server.name>:<server port>/<context root>
The above mentioned properties can be included in a file named as external.properties and have to be included in the application-config.xml with the following line of code
external.properties file has to be put in the same directory as the application-config.xml file. The content of the created file can look like this:
air.application.name=myApp air.application.version=1.0 air.application.icon48=images/myIcon48x48.png air.application.notes=Release Notes: … air.server.url=http://localhost:9080/qafe-web-flex
Finally, the QAFE AIR desktop application can be deployed on the client machine by opening the web browser with the following URL address:
http://localhost:9080/qafe-web-flex/deploy_air.html
On submitting the URL, If the Adobe AIR runtime is not already installed on the client machine, it will install the same first. If it is already installed QAFE AIR desktop application will be built. If the air installation file already exists it will not build again. Click on the “Install AIR application” button when it becomes available, and follow the installation instructions.
