Java Explorer is a GUI-driven tool that is well suited for QA personnel who are proficient with Silk Performer in facilitating analysis of Java components and thereby creating Silk Performer projects, test case specifications, and scripts from which tests can be run.
Developers who are proficient with Java may also find Java Explorer helpful for quickly generating basic test scripts that can subsequently be brought into a development tool for advanced modification.
Java Explorer emulates Java clients. When working with Web services, Java Explorer achieves this through the use of proxies, which are conversion encoding/decoding modules between the network and client. Proxies communicate with servers by converting function calls into SOAP (XML) traffic, which is transferred through HTTP. Requests are decoded on the remote computer where the component resides. The XML request is then decoded into a real function call, and the function call is executed on the remote server. The results are encoded into XML and sent back to Java Explorer through SOAP, where they are decoded and presented to the user. What you see as the return result of the method call is exactly what the server has sent over the wire through XML.