Abstract: Embodiments of the invention comprise a design tool for designing an application interface. The design tool includes a graphical user interface (GUI) that visually represents a hierarchy of data and the relationships between the data. Thus, the design tool eliminates the need for an interface designer to have independent knowledge of the structure of the data (i.e., the data fields and relationships between the data). The design tool's GUI represents the data and the relationships between the data in a hierarchical display referred to as a data palette. An output hierarchy comprised of output levels is created as the user selects fields from the data palette to be displayed in the application's interface. When a data field is selected, the design tool automatically determines the appropriate interface component and output level of the output hierarchy using the relationships defined for the data. Output levels are associated with interface components that comprise the application's interface.

Abstract: In a distributed object system, the services available on the network are modeled as network objects. A client typically communicates with and uses these objects using Internet connections. As the number of clients increase the servers can get overwhelmed by the number of connections coming into the server resulting in sluggish response and/or loss of service. The invention describes the mechanisms for reducing the required number of connections by automatically concentrating multiple connections onto a single connection. This is done by introducing shared intermediate connection concentrators called gateways. When the client invokes on an external object reference, the ORB running on the client automatically forwards the request to a gateway assigned to it, which then forwards it onto a shared connection to the server. The solution is symmetrical—if the server invokes on an object running inside the client, the invocation again flows through the gateway.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention comprise a method and apparatus for synchronizing interface objects of an application's graphic user interface (GUI) with underlying data. A design tool is used in embodiments of the invention to specify an interface object's binding properties. Data binding properties can define an association between an interface object and underlying data for synchronization purposes. In addition, a validation binding can be specified for an interface object that can be used to validate the data entered via the interface object. An expression binding associates an interface object to a plurality of interface objects and/or underlying data sources that contain data used in evaluating an expression the result of which is displayed in the interface object. A query expression binding associates a plurality of interface objects and/or underlying data sources and to an evaluatable expression the result of which is used in a query to retrieve a data source's data.

Abstract: The present invention provides a three tier environment with improved data access capabilities. A browser can obtain data from a data source by interacting with that data source through an application server. The application server consists of a web server portion and a data server portion. Instead of CGI scripts interacting with a data source through a CGI interface, the present invention uses applets and objects to interact directly with a data source. A web page requested by a browser includes a “presentation” which is applet code that accesses data from a data source. When the application server receives a request for a page that is to contain data from a data source, the application server identifies a page that includes a reference to a presentation. The non-data portion of the page emits itself to the browser while at the same time the presentation undertakes the data retrieval. The browser receives the page, which contains an applet tag. The applet class is sent to the browser.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention comprise a design tool for designing an application interface. The design tool includes a graphical user interface (GUI) that visually represents a hierarchy of data and the relationships between the data. Thus, the design tool eliminates the need for an interface designer to have independent knowledge of the structure of the data (i.e., the data fields and relationships between the data). The design tool's GUI represents the data and the relationships between the data in a hierarchical display referred to as a data palette. An output hierarchy comprised of output levels is created as the user selects fields from the data palette to be displayed in the application's interface. When a data field is selected, the design tool automatically determines the appropriate interface component and output level of the output hierarchy using the relationships defined for the data. Output levels are associated with interface components that comprise the application's interface.