The Open Client Toolkit exposes an application service running on an AppServer™ to Open Clients (non-ABL clients). It is a component of several products: Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge, OpenEdge Studio, WebSpeed® Workshop, 4GL Development System, and OpenEdge Development Server. The Open Client Toolkit allows you to generate an interface, tailored for your particular type of Open Client, that encapsulates the remote ABL procedures and functions supported on an AppServer. Your Open Client application can then access these AppServer procedures and functions through methods of the generated Open Client interface.
The supported Open Clients are Java, .NET, and OpenEdge Web services. Open Clients support both intranet and Internet access to the AppServer. When directly accessing the AppServer (.NET and Java only), you can use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to exchange encrypted data transmissions. When you use the Internet (all Open Clients), you can use HTTP or HTTPS (abbreviated as HTTP/S) to communicate through firewalls and HTTPS to exchange encrypted data transmissions.
This chapter describes the Open Client architecture and how the Open Client Proxy Generator (ProxyGen) maps AppServer procedures to proxy objects for access by .NET and Java Open Clients, and to produce SOAP Web service definitions for consumption by Web service clients. Other chapters provide information about how to develop and deploy Open Client applications and OpenEdge Web services.
