Handout #4 - Project 2

• A lot of resources are available on-line and in the library. It is great to use these, but please always cite them in your projects.

Objective

In this project you get to learn Java Servlets and, if you choose to, WebMacro. Your task is to build a site that displays the data you gathered in project 1. In the following project you will add dynamic activity to the site in the form of stock trading.

Additional information

See the course web page for:

• Documentation
• Instructions on installing apache, java, etc.
• Instructions on creating charts in Java

Set-up

When you run your own copy of apache, you will need to use a port other than the customary port 80. Use port 80XX according to the above table. You also need a port for the servlet engine: this is used for the communication between apache and the servlet engine. Use port 90XX for that. 

Web pages

• Home page with search fields:
  • Visually appealing page, list your name and reference the course, and briefly describe the data available on your site.
  • Include a link to the company listing.
  • Include a search field in which one can enter a ticker and arrive at the corresponding company page.
  • Include a second search field in which one can enter a partial word and arrive at an intermediate search results page with links to the pages of the companies that include the search term (i.e. you need to search in the companies.name field).
• Company listing
  • Names and tickers of all companies and links to each company page
• Company page
  • Overview data collected about the company, e.g. business description, current market cap, outstanding shares, current price, etc...
  • Buttons, links or drop-down menus to display charts, provide the following features (be creative, see financial sites for inspiration):
    • Ability to select the date range and granularity of stock price charts
    • Text field to enter additional ticker symbols (space or comma separated) to plot on the same chart
    • Ability to choose chart type (absolute/relative/tabular)
• Absolute chart
  • Plots the stock price (top Y axis) and trading volume (bottom Y axis) of one or multiple stocks over a selected date range and granularity
  • For each time unit (day/week/month) plot an error bar showing the low/high/close price
  • Always plot split-adjusted prices and volumes (i.e. prices/volumes relative to the current number of outstanding shares)
  • If possible, place a marker at stock split dates
  • Provide fields to change the date range and granularity
  • Provide links back to company page, home page, etc...
• Relative chart
  • Same as absolute chart, except that the price of each stock is defined to be "100" on the first date the stock is plotted and all other dates are normalized to that
  • No trading volume is plotted
• "Tabular" chart
  • Same as absolute chart, but display a table with low, high, open, close, split-ratio, and trading volume for each day in the date range (the granularity is always a day)
  • Split-ratio is the ratio between that day's outstanding shares and today's outstanding shares

Notes:

• All web pages that show data contained in the database must be generated dynamically, i.e., it is not acceptable to generate static HTML at server start-up and then serve these static pages.
• Do not use frames! If you want consistent headers, footers, menu strips, etc, use tables for formatting, and use includes to pull in the common elements.
• You will need pages in addition to the above, especially for error handling.

What to turn in

Write a "two page" project overview describing the overall structure of the servlets and a complete list of all pages of the web site. For each page, describe the contents briefly (1 line), and list which other pages it links to. In essence, this is a flow chart through your site.

Bring a printed copy of the above overview and flow, and a listing of the servlet(s) (and templates, if you're using webmacro) that display the absolute chart page to class on the due date.

Grading criteria

• Site usability
  • ease of navigation
  • presentation
  • usability of search and charting
  • error handling
• Correctness
  • correctness of links, etc.
  • correctness of data presented
  • error handling
• Source code
  • design and architecture
  • clarity