Extranets, intranets, and the Internet are all terms that Netscape has helped popularize since the company first came to the public's attention three years ago.

Now the latest buzzword is CrossWare, a term being applied to applications that let multiple companies cooperate as trading partners, using the Internet as the networking backbone that ties everyone and everything together.

With a new client, code-named Mercury, and new group of SuiteSpot servers code- named Apollo in the works, the cornerstone for CrossWare is a new Visual JavaScript development tool, formerly code-named Palomar.

Currently in the hands of beta testers, Visual JavaScript is a high-level scripting tool that corporate developers will use to glue together Java applications, JavaBeans components, and Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) objects to build interactive CrossWare applications.

"It's about time, because we have listened to their ideas for this new breed of applications, but there are no tools out there for us to build them," says Neil Fox, manager of multimedia with TRW in Cleveland, OH.

Due in final form by early in the fourth quarter of 1997, Visual JavaScript is not intended to replace other development tools, such as Symantec Visual Cafe, or SunSoft Java Workshop. Rather, it represents a higher-level tool that will use components generated by those tools and enable developers to build applications by literally connecting the dots.

Another distinguishing feature of Visual JavaScript is its ability to provide a single tool for building either client or server side applications. Currently, enterprise tools are aimed at creating mid-tiered applications for connecting to legacy systems. HTML or Java tools are designed mainly for building client applications. Visual JavaScript, Netscape officials say, will provide access to both with easily recognized icons separating server-side development features from client-side features.

Heading the list of features in Visual JavaScript is the Project Manager, the HTML Page Builder, the Component Palette, and the Connection Builder. Visual JavaScript also includes a debugger, as well as underlying technology, called Inspector, that enables a developer to customize components by exposing their properties and attributes.

Designed to be a shared resource among corporate developers, the Project Manager provides a tree-view of all on-going application projects, including a file manager and the ability to check in and check out files to maintain version control. The HTML Page Builder includes a forms generator, support for data tables, and dynamic HTML.

Perhaps the most significant feature is the Component Palette, which will act as the host for storing Java objects, JavaBeans, JavaScript objects, and CORBA objects. Developers will add components to an HTML page by dragging and dropping them. The Component Palette's API will be available to third-party developers who want to add components.

Netscape is planning to ship a suite of components with Visual JavaScript including JavaScript or JavaBeans components that provide interfaces to Netscape's line of SuiteSpot servers including Messaging, Directory, Certificate, Collabra, and Enterprise. Netscape is also providing a Component Developers Toolkit to help third parties build Visual JavaScript components.

Developers will also be able to reuse their existing stock of JavaScript code within Visual JavaScript. They will even be able to store their previously created JavaScripts within the Component Palette for later access.

"That is huge for us since we have done extensive work with JavaScript already and would not be real happy with having to dump all of that work and start over," says an intranet developer at a major financial institution in New York. "This will let me leverage what I have done with what I want to do going forward."

To support the creation of CrossWare applications, Netscape's client and server technologies are also due for a major upgrade later this year with the roll out of Mercury and Apollo.

The goal of both Mercury and Apollo is to enable Netscape to make Navigator an enterprise-level application environment with tighter hooks between SuiteSpot servers and legacy systems.

Using Visual JavaScript, developers will be able to create a connection between their Java applications and legacy database server systems, many of which support CORBA. In addition, applications created using Visual JavaScript will be able to remain persistent on the client side because Netscape is building an object-oriented file system into Mercury that will let users work offline.

These applications can be updated every time the user connects to the Internet, through the integration of Marimba's Castanet application distribution technology in Mercury.

For some Netscape users, though, the JavaScript language alone will be a powerful catalyst for the development of CrossWare enterprise applications.

"To date, I have not had a tool that could really enable me to build these types of new applications that span multiple platforms and multiple companies," says Jeff Harkins, an intranet consultant and architect at a major retail firm based in New York. "Now I am beginning to understand the ideas that Netscape has been preaching."

Mike Moeller is a senior editor at PC Week, where he has covered Web servers, browsers, applications, security, and Java. Reach him at mmoeller@pcweek.zd.com.

Visual JavaScript is available for free download from download.com, and from Netscape's homepage as well as others.

Source: ZD Internet Magazine