Every standard WebObjects element, richly described

Every standard WebObjects element, richly described

The template editor now ships a full .apiext description for every one of the standard WebObjects dynamic elements — all 39 of them, from WOString and WORepetition to WOForm, WOPopUpButton and the rest. Until now these built-in elements were described by the old, thin .api files, which knew a binding’s name but little else. The new descriptions are far richer, and they light up everywhere the editor already helps you.

For each element and each of its bindings you now get:

• Real documentation — a written description of what the element does and what every binding is for, shown in the hover and the Element Reference.
• Typed bindings with direction — each binding declares the Java type it accepts, and whether the element reads it (pull ↓), writes it back (push ↑), or both. So you can see at a glance that a checkbox’s checked reads any value by truthiness but pushes back a real Boolean.
• Cross-binding rules — the “exactly one of these” and “if you bind this, you must bind that” constraints are now typed and checked, so the editor flags a mis-bound element as you write it.
• Sensible defaults and deprecations — default values are shown where they exist, and genuinely obsolete elements (WOApplet, WOVBScript, WOQuickTime…) are marked deprecated and struck through in the Element Reference, so it’s obvious what not to reach for.

The descriptions are grounded in the published WebObjects element reference and the elements’ documented binding behavior, so what the editor tells you matches what the framework actually does. This is also the largest body of real .apiext yet — a solid, practical proving ground for the format as it grows toward a full tag library.

From the changelog, July 4, 2026.