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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to IBM WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0.0.9 and Feautre Pack 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in new editions.
Developing
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
Presentation layer
WebSphere Commerce uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. The view layer is in charge of retrieving data from the database through the use of data beans and formatting it to meet the display requirements. The view layers determines whether the request is sent to a browser or streamed out as XML. JSP files present a clean separation between data content and presentation.
Management Center framework
The Management Center framework is the foundation for business user tooling. The business objects are defined by the individual components that make up the Management Center. The framework uses those definitions to provide all of the features that you can use to find, create, modify, and delete the defined business objects. If you plan to customize the Management Center, it is important to understand the framework and the components that make up the Management Center.
Common Management Center user interface flows
Once you are familiar with the Management Center user interface, its views, definitions, and services used, it is also useful to understand how a business user interacts with the most common elements within the Management Center, and how the Management Center framework manages each flow.
Opening a tool flow
After a business user logs onto the Management Center, they can start managing objects using the applicable tool.

Opening a tool flow

After a business user logs onto the Management Center, they can start managing objects using the applicable tool.

To open a tool, from the Management Center menu select the tool name, for example, Catalogs.

Management Center menu

After the tool is selected, the business user must select the name of the store that they want to manage with the selected tool.

Select store list

After the business user selects the name of the store, the explorer view is populated.

Explorer view filter

For more information about the explorer view, see Explorer view flow.

To accompany the screen captures, here is the underlying flow that the Management Center framework performs internally when the user opens a tool:

The business user selects a tool name from the Management Center menu (for example, Catalogs), and then selects the name of the store that they want to manage with the selected tool (for example, Sample B2B Store. The explorer view is populated. The Management Center framework calls the Init services to populate context data.
Each wcfGetChildrenService of the top object definition is called to return each immediate child of the top object. The top object definition's template dataset is instantiated to create any defined organizational objects under the top object.
On the user interface, the explorer view is populated with each child of the top object. The set of objects that are displayed is determined by the default filter.