HCL Web Experience Factory key concepts | HCL Digital Experience

Builders, models, and profiles

With HCL Web Experience Factory, developers build portlets by snapping together a sequence of components called builders. Each builder has a simple wizard-like user interface and does the work of automatically generating or modifying part of an application. A builder implements an application design pattern.

Builders are assembled in models, which are like application production lines. Each time a change is made to any of the builders in a model, the application code is regenerated, allowing the developer to iteratively develop a custom portlet application. Some builders create webapp artifacts such as a page or a table, while other builders modify the artifacts created by previous builders by rearranging, hiding or adding columns to a table.

The builders generate all the application code, including JSPs, Java classes, and XML documents.

In addition, developers can create multiple variations of a portlet from one code base, without requiring additional code changes or republishing. This is done with the profiling feature of Web Experience Factory. Different profiles can be created for different user constituencies, based on any characteristics such as region, role, or group membership. The profiling technology is also used to support runtime configuration, so that business users can control application functionality through a simple browser interface. The net result is that Web Experience Factory allows companies to rapidly create adaptive applications that respond to change on demand – something traditional tools and technologies simply cannot provide.