Wysiwyg Java Servlet

The main problem of servlet design is that code on the server side has to emit HTML. Are there any IDEs that allow real wysiwyg interface design?

-- Do it yourself

Actually there is: VisualAgeForJava. It includes a tool called the ServletBuilder? that allows you to construct Servlets in the VisualCompositionEditor? the same way you would applications or applets. Unfortunately, it's an idea that never quite caught on--and for good reason. I'm not so sure it's a good idea.

The way it operates is that it has a framework that parallels Swing that generates HTML from widget classes. These are dropped WYSIWYG on the workspace. Now, the problem is that the whole widget idea has a flaw: those widgets take up a lot of memory, and quite a lot of what you would want to do with them can be better done through JavaServerPages. So that's why IBM doesn't promote the ServletBuilder? much anymore...

-- KyleBrown