This article was just going to be about posting data to a servlet. However it has expanded itself into a mini experiment mixing together several technologies, tools and methods.

It has gone from this single article to a Web Site comments/discussion system that can be used by any web site regardless of the platform.

Other things that this experiment demonstrates are posting data into a Notes Database without using a notes form, collecting data on one web site and posting to another, and also the View Component from the DXProject's exclusive Framework.

One thing I would point out: This solution is hugely bloatware! - a hammer to crack a peanut - but its for demonstration purposes and also to create a platform for some future 'experiments'.

Tools Used

In order to put this experiment together I used the following tools:

Macromedia's Dreamweaver

IBM's Visual Age For Java

DXFramework Web Designer Client (Lotus Notes Version)

Domino Hosting Service at dominodeveloper.net

Standard Web Hosting Service here in the UK

Intended 'deliverables'

What I wanted to achieve from this mini project (apart from demonstrating posting data to a servlet!) was to firstly have 'add' and 'view' comments functionality to each days blog, and also to all the articles that I write - giving users the ability to ask questions direct to me regarding the content, and secondly to create a good user experience when reading through/replying to comments.

A third aim which only came to me half way through was it was a good opportunity to demonstrate how the DXFramework can be used to web enable 'legacy' Notes applications that may have been put together a long time ago and by the nature of their design may be impossible to convert - without third party help.

How I intended on doing this is have the servlet put all the comment requests into a standard Notes discussion database and then create a 'DX application' that uses this database as its data store but giving the user a completely different visual/UI experience.

Overall Design

To start with I am using a standard html form created within Dreamweaver to get input from the user. This form is stored on my web host in the UK together with all the other html pages on this site.

This then posts the data entered to a Java Servlet which is sitting on a Tomcat/Jakarta Server at dominodeveloper.net in the US. Incidently this service comes free with my $10 a month hosting.

The servlet then takes this data - cross references an 'id/title' lookup database (to look up a category name) and then creates a post in the Notes Discussion database.

Then using a 'comment viewer application' provides a user interface to view and reply to comments made.

Simple? We shall see. The next article will be building the HTML form.