Overview

A variety of utilities are available to develop IBM® WebSphere® sMash applications. This topic provides an introduction to help you pick the one that's right for you.

Command-line interface

The IBM® WebSphere® sMash command-line interface (CLI) provides basic support for developing and running WebSphere sMash applications. Alternatives for developing applications include App Builder, a lightweight browser-based development environment or an Eclipse plug-in for intensive development on Java™, Groovy and PHP.

App Builder

App Builder is a non-released Web-based tool for developing IBM® WebSphere® sMash applications.

Quick-start tutorial

This tutorial covers basic concepts for using App Builder. You will learn the basics of running App Builder, various functions for creating a new IBM® WebSphere® sMash application, how to create a simple Groovy script, and using a query parameter.

Creating applications

Applications may be added to App Builder by creating new, copying/linking from repository, opening existing, and importing zipped modules.

Editing applications

Application editing includes file editing and dependency management.

Managing your local repository

App Builder provides a visual means of managing the contents of your local repository.

Debugging applications

The debug view in App Builder enables you to set breakpoints and step through Java™ and Groovy code while viewing local variables, thread status, and stack frames.

Flow Editor

The flow editor enables visual manipulation of IBM® WebSphere® sMash Assemble flows.

Building Web-to-data applications with Zero Resource Models

App Builder supports rapid development of Web-to-data applications based on Zero Resource Models. Editors for the application components, which includes data models and visual data grids and forms, facilitate user-interface-first and data-first development styles.

Eclipse support

IBM® WebSphere® sMash plug-ins for Eclipse are non-released components and generally for platform developers (i.e. those who are developing extensions for the platform). App Builder is the recommended tool for application development.

How to move your applications

This article provides tips for moving applications to other servers and switching applications to the stable module group.

Experimental modules

RESTdoc (zero.restdoc.webtools)

You can create documentation for your RESTful resource handlers with RESTdoc. The RESTdoc tool generates HTML tables that describe the RESTful APIs exposed by your application and its dependencies.

FlowRESTdoc (zero.assemble.flow.restdoc)

You can create documentation for your flows with FlowRESTdoc that is similar to RESTdoc (zero.restdoc.webtools). The FlowRESTdoc tool generates HTML tables that describe the RESTful APIs of Assemble flow in your application and its dependencies.

IBM WebSphere sMash Getting Started Guide

Experimental modules