Plug-in provides visual method for building Web interfaces Innoopract on Monday is shipping its World Wide Web Windowing Toolkit (W4T) Eclipse Plug-In, which provides a visual method for Java developers to build interfaces to Web applications.Functioning with the open source, Java-based Eclipse IDE, Innoopract’s plug-in enables developers to build the presentation layer of Java server applications quicker than current methods, according to Innoopract.The company seeks to make it easier to develop in Java, officials at Innoopract stressed. Having worked on object-oriented technologies for eight years, Innoopract has seen corporations moving to Web-enable their applications and adopt Java, said Eric von der Heiden, managing director at Innoopract. “This makes it challenging, and a lot of corporations don’t necessarily have the skills in-house to Web-enable their applications in Java, so we decided to target the UI side of the problem,” he said.The company’s plug-in provides a graphical method for developing Web interfaces and streamlines Java development, according to the company. Innoopract said its software overcomes the issue of having to build Web interfaces restricted by Web scripting languages separate from Java, such as HTML, HTTP, CSS, and JavaScript. These methods require testing applications against various browsers to ensure consistency of look and feel, according to Innoopract.Applications built on W4T Eclipse can run on most application servers. The product, which features a visual editor and a component library, also will support the Java Server Faces specification when the specification is complete. Acknowledging Sun Microsystems’ plans to offer Java Studio Creator to make Java development easier, Innoopract’s Jochen Krause, founder and president, noted Sun’s offering is not yet shipping and that his company’s tool works with the already-existing Eclipse platform.“Sun is creating functionality all by itself and we are available now,” Krause said.Available Monday, W4T Eclipse Plug-In is available for $129 for a developer license, with runtime licenses starting at $199. A trial version is available free of charge, the company said. Software Development