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RESEARCH

On this page you will find information about Martin's research projects.

Feel free to download and use material on this page for personal use. If you have any questions, comments or would like to use any material here for commercial benefit please contact Martin.

Licence and Disclaimer: Please bare in mind that all material here, including source code, is supplied "as is" and is not supported. By downloading and installing the material provided on this site you agree that Martin Hunter is not liable for any damages, commercial or otherwise, that may occur in using, or as a result of using, this material. All source code is supplied under a BSD licence, a copy of which can be found here and is also provided with source code downloads from www.martinhunter.co.nz.

• The Rich Web-Client Framework (RWF)

  Current Version: Beta 5.0

  The RWF is a framework for developing Internet browser based web applications. The RWF uses DHTML, JavaScript, XML, XSLT, Active-X Objects and SOAP based XML Web Services to produce extremely light weight web application presentations with minimal HTTP traffic and a smooth and clean user experience. The RWF uses AJAX-style techniques for managing the exchange of XML based data between client-side JavaScript and server-side Web Services. For further information, please refer to the white paper on this site which covers the RWF architecture and programming techniques.

  To perform a basic install of the RWF library and sample application please follow the steps set out below. Please note that you will require a Microsoft Windows machine with the .NET Framework and ASP.NET installed to run the sample Web Service. Any operating system platform and web server can be used to serve the RWF library and sample application to your browser.

  • Download the sample code .zip file from here.
  • Unzip the download package to a folder on your local machine (e.g. "C:/RWF").
  • Setup a web server mapping to the unzipped Application folder and call this mapping "Book". (Note: If you are using Microsoft IIS, you will need to create a new Virtual Directory called "Book" that maps to the unzipped Application folder on your local machine.)
  • To use the sample Web Service, setup a web server mapping to the unzipped RWF (Web Service) folder and call this mapping "RWF". (Note: The code provided is for an ASP.NET Web Service and is written in C#. You will need a Microsoft Windows machine with IIS, the .NET Framework and ASP.NET installed to operate the Web Service. You may also need to use the Visual Studio project files supplied to recompile the Web Service Remote.asmx to operate successfully on your local machine. If you would like to use an alternative technology to provide the Web Service, please refer to the C# source code provided in Remote.asmx.cs to create a web service with an appropriate interface and functionality.)
  • Open the file application.xml in the unzipped Application/application folder and modify the values of the children of the <default-web-service> and <logon-web-service> XML elements to the Web Service URLs, namespaces and operations that you intend to use for the application (e.g. "http://localhost/RWF/Remote.asmx" (URL), "http://www.rwf.org" (namspace) and "AuthenticateUser" (Logon operation)).
  • Open Internet Explorer and navigate to Book/application.htm. This should launch the RWF and display the sample application.

  Please note that you may need to add your new RWF web site as a "trusted site" in Internet Explorer. You will need to do this if an error reading "permission denied" is displayed when you attempt to load the RWF's application.htm page. To add the RWF site, open the "Tools/Internet Options..." menu item and select the "Security" tab. Next, select the "trusted sites" zone and click the "Sites..." button. Use the dialogue that opens to add the RWF site to the trusted sites listed.

• Tabby Servlet Container for .NET

  Current Version: Beta 2.3.1

  What is Tabby?

  Tabby is an Http Servlet Container for the Microsoft .NET framework. It's similar in style to the Apache Tomcat Servlet Container, though currently much more basic. Tabby Beta 2.1 upwards includes HTTP basic authentication. Tabby is written using C# and .NET 2.0. You will need Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to open the solution and project files for the source code, though the Tabby service and runtime libraries can be installed using the .MSI installer provided if you want to install Tabby and start using it straight away.

  What is an Http Servlet Container?

  An Http Servlet is an Object that receives Http requests and returns Http responses to the caller. A Servlet does a similar thing to an ASP.NET page; but whilst an ASP.NET page is written using markup and a traditional class to support "code behind" event handling (i.e. following the Page Controller pattern), an Http Servlet is a much more simple, traditional class that receives Http requests and returns a response - whatever those requests and responses might be or contain. An Http Servlet is not in any way tied to responding with HTML, though very often they do.

  In Tabby, all Http Servlets inherit from Tabby.Runtime.Servlet.HttpServlet. Follow the readme.txt instructions with the Tabby download to write new Http Servlets of your own.

  Prerequisites

  Tabby uses the Apache log4net logging framework, version 1.2.10. You can find here: http://logging.apache.org/log4net/

• Tabby Web Services

  Current Version: Beta 2.1.0

  Tabby Web Services is a Tabby servlet library that implements Web Services using servlets that exchange SOAP 1.1 XML messages (SOAP Web Services) and servlets that respond to simple HTTP requests (REST Web Services). You can use the Tabby Web Services library to implement SOAP 1.1 and/or REST Web Services using Tabby.

  Important note: This library now supports WSDL and DISCO

  To install Tabby Web Services, you will need to:

  • Download the Tabby Web Services .zip file from this web site.
  • Copy the file bin\Tabby.WebServices.dll file from the .zip to the Tabby installation directory on your target machine (e.g. "C:\Program Files\Martin Hunter\Tabby").
  • Open the Tabby.exe.config file from the Tabby installation directory, and add "Tabby.WebServices.dll" to the "ServletClassLibraries" <AppSettings> key.
  • Restart the Tabby service.

  To implement your own Web Service, you will need to:

  • Create a new Class Library Visual Studio project.
  • Add references in the project to the Tabby.WebServices.dll and Tabby.Runtime.dll assemblies in the Tabby installation directory.
  • Create a new class which extends (inherits from) the class Tabby.WebServices.Soap11.Soap11Servlet.
  • Add the attribute "ServiceContract" to your new class.
  • Write a "Hello World" operation to test your class. This will require an "OperationContract" attribute.
  • Your code should look something like the following example:

    using Tabby.WebServices.Contract;
using Tabby.WebServices.Soap11;

[ServiceContract]
public class MyWebService : Soap11Servlet
{
  [OperationContract]
  public string HelloWorld()
  {
    return "Hello World!";
  }
}


    Note: All of the public operations you declare in your new class will be executable via SOAP!

  • Build your class library (to Release) and copy your assembly's .dll file to the Tabby installation directory.
  • Add your assembly .dll name to the "ServletClassLibraries" <AppSettings> key in the file Tabby.exe.config.
  • Restart the Tabby service.
  • You should now be able to execute your Web Service using SOAP over HTTP. To help you test your web service, I have included a sample HTTP POST request here: Tabby.WebServices.ExamplePOST.txt. This file is also available in the Tabby Web Services download.

• Http Proxy

  Current Version: Beta 1.0

  The Http Proxy is a useful .NET utility for monitoring and logging the HTTP traffic between your local machine browser and a destination site. It is intended for use by developers and technical support staff to identify and debug issues with applicaitons that transact data over HTTP. The proxy is deployed here as raw C#, and needs to be used in conjunction with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

  To use the proxy, please follow these steps:

  • Download the proxy source code from the link above and un-zip the files to a location on your local machine.
  • Load the Visual Studio solution in Visual Studio 2005.
  • Compile the solution and execute it in debug mode. This will launch a form which includes details about which ports the proxy will listen for traffic on and forward to.
  • Open your browser, and configure it to use the "localhost" as an HTTP proxy server. Ensure that the proxy server port number matches that in the Http Proxy form (the default is port 8080).
  • Start the proxy by clicking "Start" on the Http Proxy form.
  • Navigate to an address using your browser.

  All the HTTP traffic transacted via the proxy will be logged in Visual Studio's output console. You can change the level of information logged by the proxy, and the format in which it is logged, by adjusting the Http Proxy's "Console / Log Output" settings: "Verbose" output will log everything that is transacted; "Simple" output will log just the URLs requested and the transaction size (in bytes); "Bytes Read" will log just the number of bytes in each HTTP request / response transacted.

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