Getting Started

In this section we will explain where to download Ample SDK, how to set up the development environment which will include: the client in which the application runs,
the server which serves application resources, the IDE that is used for developing code and the debugger that will help debugging the code. Finally we will see how to deploy Ample SDK for use.

Overview

• Downloading Ample SDK
• Setting up Development Environment
• • The Client
  • The Server
  • The IDE
  • The Debugger
• Deploying Ample SDK
• Running a "Hello World!" application

Downloading Ample SDK

If you haven't yet downloaded Ample SDK, go to the Download Ample SDK online web page and obtain a copy. On this page you can always get the latest stable version of the software as well as the latest weekly build. It is usually safe to download the weekly build for development purposes. The software available on the site is licensed under the "Free License".

Setting up Development Environment

It is very likely that you already have a development environment setup that you are comfortable with. If so, you may skip reading this section and jump to the next section.

The Client

In order for an Ample SDK application to run, a standalone or embedded web browser is required. The most widely used web browsers are:

• Internet Explorer 6+
• Mozilla Firefox 2+
• Opera 9+
• Apple Safari 3+
• Google Chrome 0+
• Konqueror 3.5+

Pick up any, but remember: you will need more than one browser installed on your system in order to thoroughly test your application before it goes live. Although Ample SDK shields you from many differences between browsers, you may still run into an issue that was not covered. This is mostly true for CSS styling where rendering behavior is not only strongly inconsistent across major browsers, but also gets changed with the evolution of their software. We recommend testing your application thorough in at least the four most widely used browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Safari (or Chrome).

The Server

You can use any web server to serve your application files. The most widely used web servers are:

• Apache
• IIS
• Tomcat

The choice of a web server usually depends on server-side technology you need, such as .Net, Java, PHP or Ruby.

The IDE

There is never a good recommendation on a what IDE to use. Some like apples, some like pears. However these are probably features of an IDE that you will find useful:

1. Markup code highlighting / completion / validation
2. CSS code highlighting / completion
3. JavaScript code highlighting / completion

The most widely used IDEs are:

• Eclipse
• Netbeans
• Aptana

Ample SDK comes with an integration plugin for Aptana IDE, that enables features highlighted above.

The Debugger

The choice of a debugger application usually depends on the choice of web browser made earlier. A good debugger usually has the following features:

1. DOM introspection
2. JavaScript debugging
3. CSS runtime editing
4. Network monitor

Here Firefox's "Firebug" is worth looking into, or Internet Explorer's "Development Tools" that is of a great value, included in IE 8 and later.

Deploying Ample SDK

Deploying Ample SDK for development is as easy as unpacking the downloaded archive into a directory on your web server (for the sake of the following section let's call it {AMPLESDK_ROOT}). Worth mentioning here is that you can also run examples as well as your applications directly from the file system, however when developing real applications you will most likely need a web server to enable server-side scripting.

Running a "Hello World!" application

Now when you have everything in place you can try and run the "Hello World!" application. Navigate to {AMPLESDK_ROOT}/examples/helloworld.html file in your browser and see the result. If everything is right you should see a page with the red text "Hello world!" in bold. When clicking on the text an alert should popup with a message about the name of the element that you clicked on.

If you do not get the result described, there might be two reasons:

1. You are running application from the file system in a browser with high security restrictions (Solution: lift security restrictions in your browser)
2. Your web server does not serve content properly (Solution: examine the network activity details)

You may also try other examples accessible at {AMPLESDK_ROOT}/examples/index.html