Developing HATS rich client applications

The steps for building and testing a HATS rich client application are essentially the same as those for a HATS Web application. You use HATS Toolkit with tools provided in the HATS perspective to develop a HATS rich client project from which a HATS rich client application is generated. The same wizards, editors and views are provided to support the various activities required during development.

As with HATS for the Web environment, you develop the appearance and operation of the application, including customizing default rendering settings, screen navigation (by way of skip screen macros), and the fonts and colors used to render screens.

The majority of features available in a HATS Web application are also available in a HATS rich client application. These include, but are not limited to:
  • Default rendering
  • Global rules
  • Text replacement
  • Custom screen transformations
  • Prepopulated transformations
  • Global variables
  • Custom components and widgets
  • Macros and macro handlers
  • Background connections
  • Java™ business logic
  • Application-level events, for example start, stop, connect, and disconnect
  • Keyboard support
  • Asynchronous updating
  • Local test environments analogous to Run on Server for a Web project
Features available in HATS Web applications that are not available in HATS rich client applications include:
  • Creation of Integration Objects
  • Creation of EJB access beans
  • Web Express™ Logon (WEL)
  • HATS administrative console

A HATS rich client project is an Eclipse plug-in project. As a project, it exists in a workspace and is developed by a HATS application developer. Once developed and tested, the project is exported as a HATS rich client application, which is an Eclipse plug-in that can be installed into an Eclipse environment. An Eclipse plug-in is a component that provides a certain type of service within the context of an Eclipse environment. In the case with HATS, the plug-in provides the service required to transform a host application.

Each HATS rich client application plug-in depends on several runtime plug-ins. The dependencies are referred to in the rich client project's manifest file, MANIFEST.MF. You must ensure these required plug-ins are included in your local test environment and in the deployed production environment for your HATS rich client plug-in to run properly. For more information see HATS RCP Runtime Extension project, Testing HATS rich client applications, and Deploying HATS rich client applications.