Programming Tutorials

J2EE Clients

By: aathishankaran in Java Tutorials on 2007-02-22  

Update: Java EE, which was previously called J2EE, is no longer in active development as of 2018.

A J2EE client can be a Web client or an application client. Now we will see about both web client and application client in this article.

Web Clients

A Web client consists of two parts: dynamic Web pages containing various types of markup language (HTML, XML, and so on), which are generated by Web components running in the Web tier, and a Web browser, which renders the pages received from the server.

A Web client is sometimes called a thin client. Thin clients usually do not do things like query databases, execute complex business rules, or connect to legacy applications. When you use a thin client, heavyweight operations like these are off-loaded to enterprise beans executing on the J2EE server where they can leverage the security, speed, services, and reliability of J2EE server-side technologies.

Applets

A Web page received from the Web tier can include an embedded applet. An applet is a small client application written in the Java programming language that executes in the Java virtual machine installed in the Web browser. However, client systems will likely need the Java Plug-in and possibly a security policy file in order for the applet to successfully execute in the Web browser.

Web components are the preferred API for creating a Web client program because no plug-ins or security policy files are needed on the client systems. Also, Web components enable cleaner and more modular application design because they provide a way to separate applications programming from Web page design. Personnel involved in Web page design thus do not need to understand Java programming language syntax to do their jobs.

Application Clients

A J2EE application client runs on a client machine and provides a way for users to handle tasks that require a richer user interface than can be provided by a markup language. It typically has a graphical user interface (GUI) created from Swing or Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) APIs, but a command-line interface is certainly possible.

Application clients directly access enterprise beans running in the business tier. However, if application requirements warrant it, a J2EE application client can open an HTTP connection to establish communication with a servlet running in the Web tier.