Implementation

This Implementation section builds on the foundation established in BackOffice® Developer's Guide Scenarios 1 and 2. Scenario 1 demonstrated the design, implementation, and deployment of a three-tier application built on the Windows® DNA platform. Scenario 2 enhanced that application by adding an Exchange public folder application. In Scenario 3, the BDG focuses on coding techniques based on XML technologies that facilitate data exchange among the tiers in Windows DNA-based applications.

As you read this section, you will find that the application the developers implemented diverges from the description in the Design Decisions section. Final PT Application Specifications incorporates the design changes prior to implementation, but as in any software project, there were last-minute changes to fix bugs. The features and code discussed in this section represent the application as shipped.

During implementation, the developers encountered challenges that forced changes in design and logic. These challenges are discussed in Lessons Learned.

The following topics describe the process of implementing the LitWare Performance Tracking (PT) application:

• PT Application Features and Tasks provides a guide through the three themes that dominate BDG Scenario 3: XML, localization, and reusability.
• Understanding the PT Admin Application describes the final architecture at a high level and explains some of the developers' more interesting decisions, such as locating most of the application's business logic in SQL Server™ stored procedures.
• Implementing PT Application XML Features walks you through the code for implementing the application's menu bar and building localized HTML files from globalized XML template files.
• XML Merge: Assembling Form Views describes the process of building localized HTML pages.
• Coding Form Views focuses on the code that implements data flow in the PT Admin application and provides details about using the XML DSO to bind XML data to HTML pages.
• Implementing a Trusted Connection in global.asa shows how to allow users who have logged on to Windows NT® or Windows® 2000 to access the SQL Server database without further authentication.
• Reusable JavaScript describes the client-side tasks that application script performs, including tracking data changes, validating data, extracting parameters from URLs, and loading XML data into HTML lists.
• Components in NLS.dll and Litware.dll describes the COM components implemented in the application's business-services tier, and walks you through the code for some of the more interesting tasks they perform.
• Stored Procedures for the PT Application describes the stored procedures that interact with the database, and provides links to their code.
• HTML Data Refinery describes the Visual Basic® tool the LitWare developers wrote to facilitate the task of writing well-formed XML.
• Measuring Application Performance describes the methods for obtaining baseline performance measurements for the PT application and the results obtained during the performance tests.

Topics in this section discuss particularly instructive sections of the application's source code; the complete source code files are available in Code Listings and Object Reference.