Run a GWT page without backing server? - java

As GWT translates java-code to JavaScript: is it afterwards possible to run a page without a backingserver? Like just production the html,css,js folder and just running it in a browser without a server?
Especially when using GWT with Canvas?

Absolutely, yes. If you don't have a need for a server then, well, you don't need a server.
Note: you'll have to use the xsiframe linker if you intend to serve the files from disk rather than HTTP. In most browsers the std linker (the default linker) won't work with file:// URLs.

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Where is the gwt server in production mode?

I am learning GWT with the guide here, http://www.gwtproject.org/gettingstarted.html
I execute:
ant build
and see all files generated in the war/ folder.
However, that's all static and frontend things.
I open the generated HTML file only to find that the ajax requests failed because there is no server serving that.
I tried putting the war/ folder in tomcat's path, and open the HTML through tomcat server, it doesn't work, either.
So where is the server side program generated by gwt and how to use them?
In production mode, only JavaScript and associated files are generated - you can use any server you want. For production, you almost certainly want more control over the server than what DevMode would provide with its built-in server (in fact, I would suggest that most teams shouldn't use the built-in server in dev mode either, except for the simplest of "Hello World" apps).
For something simple to get going and very similar to what DevMode can provide by default, check out Jetty or Tomcat, but there are many other great options as well, depending on what features you'd like to have.

Launching JNLP from a dotnet web application

Oracle recommends using the JnlpDownloadServlet to launch JNLP from Java web applications - https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/javaws/developersguide/downloadservletguide.html
However, I need to launch a JNLP application with a dynamically generated JNLP file from a dotnet application.
What would I need to do to enable this?
set content type as application/x-java-jnlp-file
output the JNLP file as a download.
Is there anything else?
The JNLP file is just an XML file that happens to be an executable file as long as you have Java Web Start installed on your machine. This is usually installed on a machine.
From a .NET Web Application point of view, you'd need to ensure the following:
Correct content-type (application/x-java-jnlp). You might need to add configuration to your .NET server to enable this mime type.
The file needs to be accessible via a URL (kind of obvious, but worth mentioning for completeness)
The file needs to be downloadable. Conceptually it is the same as returning any other file.
For seamlessness, the browser needs to be setup to automatically execute jnlp files. Sometimes company/default browser settings do not do this and you'd end up needing an extra click. Not a big deal, but just something to be aware of
In terms of "configuring"/implementing the actual serving of the JNLP file from a .NET Application:
Your end goal is that whatever JNLP file you return is executable with Java Web Start. This gives you a nice repeatable test while you're working on this.
You need to ensure that your .NET Application is able to serve the jar files needed by the JNLP application. Typically the codebase attribute and the resources element needs to reference your .NET application. The JNLP File Structure Page should help with this.
If you look at the JNLP servlet source code you will see that all it does is use the .jnlp file as a template and substitute place holders for specific values. There is nothing special about it that couldn't be duplicated in a .Net MVC or API controller.

Web application using JSP web application or applet?

If i want to make a web application in java i mean JSP should I create an Applet and put it into a browser or create "Java web project"?
In other words the big companies system like Oracal and others have there own system by creating java web application or using applet and putting it into browsers.
Thanks
I would create a "Java web project".
Using an applet is considered a bad practice due to all of the security issues, the need for the user to install the correct version of java, and enable it in the browser.
Go with a solid java web framework like spring / spring-mvc. See this guide on how to start: https://spring.io/guides/gs/serving-web-content/
Java Applet runs on client side (in the brouser, like javascript), but JSP is part of Java Servlet API and runs on server side (you need to install servlet container like Tomcat to run them). It's not equivalent technologies with different abilities and application area.
Applets are old fashioned now, Applets were used to create interactive web applications in the early days of http development when developing a interactive website was not possible using any browser based technologies like html, css and java script.
But now the things have changed with the evolution of web-2.0. Now you can develop the interactive web application by using only browser based technologies and you don't have to install any third party tools or plugins like in the case of applet, JRE should be installed on client machine.

What are some techniques for deploying a single page application that depends on a rest api?

I'm building a Single Page Application (using AngularJS) that renders data from a REST API call it makes to a legacy system. This legacy system is very large, written in Java and takes minutes to deploy so we decided it would be more productive to develop the Single Page Application completely separate from the legacy system.
The problems occurred once we tried to communicate with the legacy system's REST API. Although both apps were deployed locally to the same host, they were deployed on different app servers so I needed to use different ports when communicating. But because the SPA was communicating to a REST API on a different port, the browsers prevented my requests to protect against Cross Site Scripting attacks.
We found this build tool name lineman (that leverages grunt) that made it easy to proxy http requests. This got us around the cross site scripting limitation but this was only suitable in development mode.
Now that we've got a proof of concept working, we want to know how we're supposed to deploy these apps together without the proxying. It's hard for me to find advice on how to do this because Angular doesn't assume you have a backend in the first place and most people that use Angular on the front end aren't using Java in the backend (if that even matters).
We're running into issues like, the context paths of the apps change depending on if they're deployed in prod mode vs dev mode so we've gotta think of clever ways to avoid broken links that work for both modes. I wonder if/where I took a wrong step here along the way. Should I avoid developing the SPA on a separate server from the backend?
We had the same issues. The URL situation is that you will have different URL paths to your java REST API because you are in different environments.
In order to make these paths cascade down to the angular application, we had to first externalize the base paths in the web app (the app that spawns Angular) to use values that are set during deployment depending on where it is deployed to. We have values in our app servers that link to XML values in config files that we then reference in the application.
Then we create a call from the Angular app to the webapp that spawns it (not the java REST API) that will return the URL that is correct for the environment.
In the angular application, we can then setup the resuorce with the correct base path (the rest of the URL should stay the same from environment to environment).
If you can get the first part working correctly with externalizing the environmental settings, the rest is not difficult.
I would put apache in front and use mod_proxy as a reverse proxy to the apps.
Say your REST API is at http ://localhost:9000. If the angular app is only static assets you can deploy it directly under apache. If not you reverse proxy it as well.
For the REST api yoivsetup a reverse proxy for say /api to localhost:9000. So any request hitting the apache at http://some.host.name/api will now be forwarded to the legacy system. Now fix the angular app and you are done.
For local development you can use node-http-proxy which is ease to setup in a similar fashion

Do JAVA apps have to run on JSP?

Do JAVA apps have to run on JSP? Are there other ways the app can be interpreted on the client side?
Clients (assuming you mean browsers like Firefox, IE etc.,) can understand HTML and Javascript only. Your JSP code will be executed on server and respective HTML code will be sent to browsers.
There are lot of alternatives like JSF, HTML etc., are available. I would suggest reading this tutorial.
JSP is a technology that runs on the server side and produces a response that will typically be viewed in a web browser. There are many other ways to do the same, including Java servlets, JSF, etc.
Java can run on the client side either as an application (i.e. the user downloads a file and runs it locally), or as an applet (which runs in the web browser).

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