Nexaweb Offers 4.0 RIA and AJAX Dev Tool

• By Kurt Mackie
• 03/20/08

Boston-based Nexaweb Technologies released the latest version of its integrated development environment (IDE) for the enterprise. Nexaweb Studio 4.0 provides a drag-and-drop development environment for the creation of dynamic Web applications. It can be used to create composite applications, mashups, and rich Internet applications (RIAs).

When used in a service-oriented architecture, the IDE lets users design RIAs that run on top of legacy applications and data. It integrates with the Eclipse Foundation's Web Tools Project, allowing the developer to debug JavaScript code in Eclipse. Developers can also add AJAX-based user interfaces to applications and deploy them using the product's Dojo-based AJAX client.

Developers can use Nexaweb's IDE and add third-party Java tools to it using the product's plug-in architecture. Alternatively, Nexaweb provides plug-ins to other IDEs. Those plug-ins include:

• A visual AJAX editor for drag-and-drop development;
• A user interface event manager to simplify click actions, mouseovers and other Web application user events;
• Data bindings that make it easier to find XML, JSON and Java object data sources; and
• A data services configuration tool.

Nexaweb Studio 4.0 can be obtained as a plug-in to a number of development frameworks. It works with Aptana Studio, IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere, myEclipse, SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio and Vanilla Eclipse.

The IDE is particularly designed to help development teams with code reuse and application modernization efforts, using the development environment of their choice, according to Bob Buffone, Nexaweb's chief architect.

"By helping them re-use assets across applications and adopt new Web-oriented development and deployment scenarios, Nexaweb Studio 4.0 lets developers utilize the latest technologies with the IDEs and processes that make architects and CIOs comfortable," he stated in a press release.