David Botterill's Weblog

Project Scope

When you use a web service in a web page, the web service is copied to the Project scope.  


There are two techniques for adding a web service to the web page and thus the Project scope, via the context menu and drag-n-drop.

With the visual designer showing the target page...

Context Menu: Entire Web Service

1. Select a web service  from the "Web Services" node.
2. Right-click on the web service and select "Add to page".

Context Menu: Web Service Method

1. Select a web service method from the "Web Services" node.
2. Right-click on the web service method and select "Add to page".

Drag-n-Drop: Entire Web Service

1. Select a web service  from the "Web Services" node.
2. Drag the web service  and drop it on the visual designer background.  A component is not a valid drop target for an entire web service.

You'll get the same results as adding a web service from the context menu above.
Drag-n-Drop: Web Service Method

1. Select a web service method  from the "Web Services" node.
2. Drag the web service method and drop it either on the visual designer background or on a component.

You'll get the same results as adding a web service method from the context menu above.

On to Refreshing

The most common use case of refreshing a web service I've seen involves a developer who is trying to get a web service interface correct so they keep changing the WSDL.  When they change the WSDL, they'd like to "refresh" the view of what Creator sees as that web service.  So now that we've looked at the scope issue above, you should know that we need to refresh the web service in both the IDE and the Project scope.

Refreshing the Web Service in the IDE Scope

Unlike the EJB consumption in Java Studio Creator, the web service consumption doesn't have a "refresh" option.  I have some good excuses but I won't go into those here.  In order to refresh the web service in the IDE scope, if you want to use the same name, you need to delete the web service and re-add it.  If you are OK with keeping multiple versions of the web service around, you don't have to delete the old one.  Simply add the new one.  The new name will have a number postfixed that will be incremented each time you add the same named web service.

Refreshing the Web Service in the Project Scope

This is a little more involved.  As I discussed above, a web service client property and also a web service data provider property are added to the web page. Web service client Jar files are also added to the project libraries.  If you really want to refresh the web service, the safest way is to delete the web service artifacts and re-add the web service to the project.

For example, if I drag-n-drop the "WorldTime->web service in the "samples"  folder  to a web page, I'll have these web service client artifacts added.

• Added to the Page (viewed in the Outline window) -  "worldTimeTzStampNow1" data provider and "worldTimeClient1" web service client.
• Added to the Project window "Libraries" node - "worldtime.jar" and "worldtimeDesignTime.jar".  If a non-sample web service was added, the jar name will be prefixed with the web service name. like "TravelWS-".

So to refresh this web service in this project, I would delete the "worldTimeTzStampNow1" data provider and "worldTimeClient1" web service client from the Outline window and I would remove the "worldtime.jar" and "worldtimeDesignTime.jar" from the "Libraries" node.  Then I would again drag-n-drop the "WorldTime->web service in the "samples"  folder  to a web page.

Also note that if you've written code around the web service client, re-adding the web service increments the number in the name.  To change this, click on the "..." next to the name in the property for the web service client and change it back to the name you used in the code.  Here's an example of some code that uses "worldTimeClient1".

          try {
                this.staticText1.setText(this.worldTimeClient1.tzStampNow("MST"));
            } catch (Exception ex) {
                log("Error Description", ex);
            }

Here's a snapshot of what you would change.