JRapid IDE is the most complete tool to build JRapid applications. One of its distinguishing features is that it is web based, allowing programmers to access it remotely from any computer with internet connection.

The IDE provides an integrated environment to generate JRapid apps either through a visual method or programming native JRapid XML language; it allows the programmer to easily modify the generated files, manage the private cloud, deploy projects, and more.

Development Process

1. Create

The initial phase is the creative stage of the application development.

Basically, this process consists in adding entities to the model.

These entities can come from different sources:

• New Entity: Add new entity, created from scratch. User defines entity name and other attributes, as properties and other elements.
• Import from CSV/MS Excel: Lets the user upload a CSV (Comma-separated-values) file or MS Excel spreadsheet, discovering the columns and generating the necessary entity for the underlying data model. It also imports the information stored in the file.
• Reverse Engineering DB: This tool accesses an existing database, analyzes its schema and quickly provides a JRapid model to be customized.
• Import template (from Community site): JRapid provides several pre-built modules that represent the building blocks for a quick development process: email, invoices, user authentication and login screens, and more options that grow every day through JRapid's community website.

2. Generate

The next step immediately after modifying the business model, is to regenerate the application

Regenerating the application means that all the necessary files are rewritten (although changes made by users are always preserved)

The user may choose to either generate just the presentation layer (UI generation) or to generate everything (All layers generation). The difference is very simple:

• UI generation: Generates just HTML files, so the user can quickly preview visual changes in the application.
• All layers generation: Generates all files, from Java to HTML. Invokes a project build and a context restart to reflect changes in server side code. Obviously, this option takes a little more time.

3. Manage

Each JRapid project runs in a JRapid Development Cloud

Management of this cloud is provided through a series of shortcuts available through the IDE.

Some of the actions that can be executed are:

• Preview the application in this context: Preview the current application running in JRapid Dev Cloud.
• Clean Project: Clean output directory for project and rebuild all Java classes.
• Build Project: Invoke a compilation of all Java classes.
• Refresh Context: Refresh application context in Dev Cloud's application server.

4. Deploy

JRapid also provides a JRapid Production Cloud where projects are placed once in production level.

This environment, based on a cluster of servers over Amazon EC2, represents a secure and easy way of deploying JRapid applications instantly to the cloud.

Anyway, users may prefer to download their sources or WAR's locally and deploy them manually to their own servers.