Lately IBM has been publishing videos on YouTube to help teach you about Web Experience Factory. WEF is IBM’s rapid development tool for building multi-channel and multi-device applications. This the product formerly called Portlet Factory, but since it does so much more than build porltets, the name change reflects its real purpose – to build web experiences.
So WEF is just another IDE right? Well, not really. WEF allows you to build web applications without coding (or with coding if you like). You use ‘builders’, which are wizard-like screens you fill out to enter parameters about your application, and assemble the builders to through WEF to complete the application. As an example of a builder, you can consume a web service by including a service consumer builder in you application. In the builder, you provide the address of the service and the builder will pull out the available methods for you. You then select the method to call and the builder will bring the data back to WEF so you can manipulate it prior to sending it to the browser. You can include a Form builder and hook it to the service consumer to provide an easy way to view or modify from the service.
Since you use builders to create your application, experienced code developers may find it difficult to learn WEF because you are so used to coding. WEF has always included good samples and tutorials for the basics. These new videos provide more examples, including advanced topics. You can find all the videos on the Lotus Information Development Channel or LotusIDC.
