Project Explorer view and Web development

The Project Explorer view provides the following notable features:
  • For Windows You can drag and drop files from Windows® Explorer or the desktop into the Navigator view.
  • View filtering is supported by selecting Filters from the Navigator view Menu button. Resources can be filtered by name, project type or content type. Files beginning with a period are filtered out by default.
  • The status line shows the full path of the selected resource.
  • Dragging a .java file from the Navigator view into a JSP file will insert a usebean tag, the same behavior that is exhibited when a .class file is dragged into a JSP file.
  • Errors and warnings on resources (including Java™, HTML/JSP, and Links Builder errors and warnings) are indicated with a red error Error icon or yellow warning Warning icon next to the resource with the error, as well as the parent containers up to the project. This applies for all project types, not only Web projects.
  • Items available from the New cascading menu in the project pop-up menu are context sensitive. All menus will have Project and Other options.

Organization of the Project Explorer view

The Project Explorer view shows a custom view of all Web projects. The following are some of the notable top-level objects that appear beneath the project node (based on default folder names).

Web content folder - This folder contains items to be published to the server. By default, this folder will be named WebContent for newly created static and dynamic Web projects.
Note: You can change the name in the creation wizard Web facet page.
  • META-INF - This directory contains the MANIFEST.MF file, which is used to map class paths for dependent JAR files that exist in other projects in the same Enterprise Application project. An entry in this file will update the run-time project class path and Java build settings to include the referenced JAR files.
  • WEB-INF - The directory where supporting Web resources for a Web application are kept (for example: .xmi files, .xml files, and web.xml.)