Building view objects

Entity objects are created one-to-one, matching the database tables you will be using –– there are no design decisions to make when creating entity objects. View objects, on the other hand, represent the data you need for a specific use case or screen, so you need to have a good idea of the application you want to build before you can create useful view objects.

The storyboard

For the purpose of this book, we will be building a simple customer lookup screen, followed by a master-detail screen showing customers satisfying the search criteria; and for each customer, the films they have rented and not returned. It should look something like the following diagram:

Tip

Rough sketches of screens like these are called wireframes, and a collection of screens with navigation is called a storyboard. The preceding diagram was created with the specialized wireframing tool Balsamiq Mockups (http://www.balsamiq.com). It's a good idea for your organization to decide on a common tool to...