Testing your Web project

Begin on the Welcome page. If the Welcome to ZIETrans page is not displayed, click the Welcome to ZIETrans tab at the top of the editor pane.

  1. In the ZIETrans Projects view on the left side of the screen, select the name of the Web project you just created.
  2. On the Welcome page, click Debug On Server.
  3. You are given the option to see the display terminal while running the project. Click Yes to see the host screens in the display terminal as they are navigated while you test your project.
  4. The Server Selection window opens, where you select the server on which to run your project. Select the server to use. Click Finish to complete the run on server process.
    Note: The server selection must be compatible with the server you chose when creating your ZIETrans project.

Eclipse launches an instance of the selected server to run your project on your local system. When you test your project, you are using a local copy of the server that is provided with Eclipse. This local server is also called the local test environment.

Note: If after launching it, the local server stays in either Starting or Publishing state, the CPU utilization spikes to 100%, or your Web project starts but displays a blank page, then make the following local server configuration changes to try to remedy these issues:
  1. Edit the server by double clicking on the server in the Servers view.
  2. In the Server section:
    • Select Manually provide connection settings.
    • Clear the RMI Connection Type, and select the SOAP Connection Type.
    • Select Terminate server on workbench shutdown.
  3. In the Publishing section:
    • Select Never publish automatically.
  4. If the server is running, restart the server for the changes to take effect.
  5. One other tip: Do not use the same EAR name across different workspaces. If the same EAR file names are used in different workspaces, 404 errors can occur or the wrong application is presented. At project creation time, ZIETrans always defaults to an EAR name that is based on the version of WebSphere® Application Server for which you are creating the project. For example, when the target server is WebSphere Application Server v8.0, the default EAR name for all ZIETrans projects is ZIETrans_EAR8. To ensure that different EAR names are used for different workspaces, specify a unique name in the Enterprise application project field when creating your ZIETrans project.
When using the Debug on Server function in the ZIETrans Toolkit to test your project, the Eclipse console displays messages with the following information:
  • The ZIETrans runtime version and build information
  • The name of the transformation being applied
  • The name of the macro being played
  • The name of the Java™ method being executed for business logic
  • The name of the macro being played and the connection on which the macro is playing during a macro transaction
  • The name of the event being processed, such as the start or unmatched screen events, or your screen customization.
  • Indications that settings have changed

The messages are displayed by default. If you want to disable the messages, locate and double-click the web.xml file in the Web Content/WEB-INF/ path in the Navigator view to edit it. Select the Source tab, find the showStudioRuntimeMessages parameter, change the value to false, and save the web.xml file.

A Web browser is launched within Eclipse which displays a Web page with which you can test your project. The Web page is divided into two main areas:
  • The template, which usually covers the top and left sides of the Web page, comprising a graphical banner and navigation links. The template area typically remains the same for all, or most of, the Web pages in your project, giving your users a consistent appearance.
  • The transformation area which presents the transformed host application. The content of the transformation area is different on each Web page in the project.

To view the application as the user would see it, change the preferences in Eclipse to use an external Web browser. To do this, from the Eclipse menu bar, select Window > Preferences > General > Web Browser, select Use external Web browser, and select the external Web browser to use. The Web browser opens with a URL similar to the following: http://localhost:9080/myapp/. To enable other users to see the Web page from a different machine, give them a URL containing the IP address of the machine that is running ZIETrans Toolkit. For example, change the URL http://localhost:9080/myapp/ to http://myworkstation.mycompany.com:9080/myapp/.

Note: ZIETrans supports multiple browser instances from the same workstation accessing the same ZIETrans application. However, these multiple browser instances must not share the same HTTP session id.
Parent topic: Testing your project