Oh no they didn’t. Wait they did!
WebORB is the kitchen sink and then some. For many of us, just the AMF transport ( “The ABC’s of AMF.” ) of G-zipped SON blobs is all we will ever need, but you never know what you really need until you have to live without it. One spin around WebORBs management console and your needs will change forever.
It is as easy as 1,2,3.
1. Pick your favorite server technology and install the WebORB server. I chose .NET.
Hit your WebORB service and you are presented with the management console. If for some reason you are not, the folks at http://www.themidnightcoders.com/ have created a start page that might just point out exactly what you have to do to get your service up and running. In my case I was installing it on a Windows Server 2008 VM and it did require some extra attention to get the gateway going. Once I pushed past this everything was straight forward.
The management console has everything you need to begin to develop with this technology, there is no need to go back to the http://www.themidnightcoders.com/ for docs and examples. See the console main tabs below.
One cool thing is that the examples are running right there on your server providing the proof that the gateway is functional, there is no question if the code you are writing does not work that it is a server issue.
2. Follow the instructions on how to create a C# data class file and code up a test method, I suggest having at least 1 parameter on this method to make it a realistic test. Compile it and drop it in the WebORB bin folder.
Now for some real magic, go back to the management tab on the console and you will see your DLL listed in the Deployed Assemblies tree control on the Services sub tab. Expand that DLL, Expand your namespace, expand your service name and presto, there is your test method. One nice thing about WebORB is that it respects the access specifiers of (public, private, protected) and will not show private methods in this tree (or allow calls via the gateway). Click on your test method name and the right panel changes to a form that allows you to test your method with params!!! You didn’t even have to write any client code to test your server code, they are fricken’ holding our hands here people… Now, go back to the Deployed Assemblies column and click on your service parent. The Code Generator Tab should show up. This is actually usable code that mimics the server API on the client, this was my “aye Dios mio” moment. Now for the capper, look to the right panels Code format / style and choose your client technology from a long list including Cairngorm, PureMVC, AJAX client, and ARP framework. Did I mention WebORB is “Free“?
3. Chose the client example that best fits your need and take the pieces you need for your project, change the properties to match your namespace and method names, and wallah, you are transmitting data in arguably one of the the most efficient manners possible across the wire.
As I said, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to WebORB features. Click around the console and see for yourself just how powerful and feature rich this package is, you will amazed.
My hat is off and I am fully bowed to The Midnight Coders for unequaled performance and delivery of a very usable data service. Just what does all this other stuff do!
Note:
AMFPHP is pretty decent and may have everything you need. My team at Method used AMFPHP in our Flex projects during my tenure. We didn’t know about WebORB at the time or I am certain we would have used it.
Feature Request:
Please make the value fields in the results object browser selectable. It is a real pain to type in a .net GUID into the params value field for an invocation of a method that is keyed off of that GUID. Better yet, make it a right click on the result value field and send to param (of choice) option.
