Remote scripting using a servlet

Erik Hatcher ([email protected])
President, eHatcher Solutions, Inc.
01 Feb 2001

The users of Web applications have suffered a dramatic shift in experiences from the world of desktop applications. Many Web applications do not at all mimic the usability, interactivity, and dynamic nature that is available in typical standalone or client-server desktop applications because of the constraints that HTML and HTTP impose. Here, Erik Hatcher explains how remote scripting can be used to enhance the interactivity and dynamic nature of a Web application experience.

One of the major drawbacks to Web applications is that the user experience is typically inferior to that of desktop applications. Most current Web applications lack in interactivity because once the browser receives a response to its URL request it is on its own, failing to communicate back to the server until a hyperlink is clicked or a form is submitted. Techniques such as using JavaScript and DHTML can be used to make the browser feel more like a desktop application; fancier techniques like using Flash, ActiveX, and Java applets can also accomplish this end.

But even with these newer techniques and technologies, the client is still mostly on its own after it receives the content from the Web server. The technique described in this article offers a solution that allows the browser and Web server to communicate behind the scenes. The browser can invoke remote Java servlet methods that enable the user experience to resemble that of a desktop application, such as populating a drop-down box dynamically based on the selection of a related drop-down box (that is, category/subcategory), or polling the server for messages and refreshing the display dynamically with continuously updated content.

Client side

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