Look and feel of a web services mashup designer
Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for providing a visual mashup designer application. A design surface is provided that displays a graphical representation in a toolbox of components that can be used to create a mashup application, at least one of the components being a wrapper to an existing web service. The visual mashup designer displays operations that each component placed on the design surface has available. A graphical mapping utility allows a user to graphically map outputs of a selected operation from a first component to inputs of a selected operation from a second component. When placed on the design surface, each component is displayed in a respective container. The respective container displays one or more operations that the respective component supports. When the user selects a particular operation for a particular component, the system displays one or more input parameters and output parameters for a particular operation.
1 . A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform steps comprising:
provide a design surface that displays a graphical representation in a toolbox of a plurality of components that can be used to create a mashup application, at least one of the components being a wrapper to an existing web service created during a wrapper creation process;
graphically represent one or more operations that each component placed on the design surface has available; and
provide a graphical mapping utility that allows a user to graphically map one or more outputs of a selected operation from a first component of the plurality of components to one or more inputs of a selected operation from a second component of the plurality of components.
2 . The computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the computer-readable medium further has computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the step comprising:
graphically represent a flow of execution between the components on the design surface.
3 . The computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the computer-readable medium further has computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the step comprising:
graphically represent a flow of data between the components on the design surface.
4 . The computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the source code is generated using a dynamic language.
5 . The computer-readable medium of claim 4 , wherein the dynamic language is JavaScript.
6 . A method for providing a visual mashup designer for creating a mashup application comprising the steps of:
receiving input from a user to place a plurality of components onto a design surface of a visual mashup designer;
displaying each of the plurality of components in a respective container, each respective container displaying one or more operations that a respective component of the plurality of components supports; and
displaying a graphical mapping utility that allows the user to graphically map an output of a first component of the plurality of components to an input of another component of the plurality of components to create a resulting mashup application.
7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein a flow of operations is displayed between the components.
8 . The method of claim 6 , wherein each respective container is displayed in a format selected from the group consisting of a cloud, box, oval, and circle.
9 . The method of claim 6 , wherein each respective container is displayed with an identifier of a source of the respective component.
10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the identifier is a logo for the respective component.
11 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the identifier is a name for the respective component.
12 . The method of claim 6 , wherein at least some of the one or more operations for each respective component are displayed in a drop-down box.
13 . The method of claim 6 , wherein at least some of the one or more operations for each respective component are displayed in a list box.
14 . The method of claim 6 , wherein a plus sign is displayed as each of the plurality of components is placed onto the design surface.
15 . The method of claim 6 , wherein an add phrase is displayed as each of the plurality of components is placed onto the design surface.
16 . A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the steps recited in claim 6 .
17 . A method for graphically representing operations supported by a particular web services mashup component comprising the steps of:
receiving input from a user to place a particular component onto a design surface of a visual mashup designer, the particular component being a wrapper to an existing web service;
displaying one or more operations that the particular component supports; and
displaying one or more input parameters and output parameters for a particular operation when the user selects the particular operation.
18 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the one or more operations are displayed in a component container of the particular component.
19 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the one or more operations are displayed in one or more drop-down boxes.
20 . A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the steps recited in claim 17 .