My First J2EE Project (tm) -- requesting advice!

Question

My client is deeply invested in FileMaker for their Mac-based prepress division, and now they want what will eventually be a very sophisticated application to automate the production of customized paper products. I looked at all the options, and it seemed like my choices were Lasso (FileMaker's own server-side scripting language, sort of a poor man's ColdFusion) and Java. I decided that if I was going to go the JSP route, why not go all the way and do J2EE? Nobody in management knows, just yet, exactly how big this project will become; J2EE seems to offer the greatest potential for absolute scalability and flexibility.
I'd greatly appreciate if someone would take a glance at these requirements and give me any pointers or warnings that come to mind.
The servers will all run on Mac OS X. I'm locked into FileMaker as the database, and WebStar 4D as the server -- those are completely non-negotiable. I plan to use WebStar's Tomcat extensions and just store all the project web documents on the Tomcat server; and I plan to use JBoss as the application server, unless someone convinces me I should buy something more commercial. (Neither our budget nor our predicted project requirements put us anywhere near the Websphere/Dynamo level, but I could probably talk them into a few thousand.)
The eventual workflow will be like this:
1. Client logs onto website, customizes his product by selecting text attributes, typing in text, choosing images from a library, and so forth. Eventually, we might be using a full-scale interactive design applet. Most importantly, he chooses from a few possible document sizes and ink colors.
2. The application generates a low-resolution, watermarked PDF from the client's input, and displays it to him for his approval. If he approves the PDF, a high-resolution, print-ready one is sent to press. Here's the vital part: the PDF must contain proper specification of spot and process colors! If this is lacking, the whole thing goes down the crapper.
3. Somewhere along the line, the client pays for the product via credit card. I assume the best way of dealing with this is to contact a bank that offers online merchant accounts and ask them how to integrate their software into my application.
That's it, for now. Any advice I get will be very greatly appreciated. The PDF question is very important; I'd like to open a separate topic for it, on a more appropriate forum, but I'm not sure which of the forums here is best for that. Any suggestions?
And yes, I'm new to J2EE, coming from a PHP background -- but I've done some studying and built a sample GUI application in Java, so I feel I have a decent grasp on the language itself, and I'm rapidly absorbing J2EE concepts as I go through docs and tutorials. That's not to say I won't hang on your every word if you have some pearls of wisdom.
Please help me out here -- our alternative is to use Lasso. :)

Answer 1

Hi Ceties,
it's difficult to answer general questions about architecture because every person can do it differently, and still all of those ways can be right.
Your device class hierarchy seems well designed and I wouldn't change anything there.
The most comfortable way for me to organize my project is to use auto-populating folders. 
I also wouldn't use nested file organization, rather separate folder for every class. This way you don't need to remember the inheritance pattern while going through the files outside of the project.
For more information please visit:
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/3573#toc4
especially the last paragraph "Additional Resources"
I hope that helps, TRSns
Best regards, Piotr
Certified TestStand Architect
Certified LabVIEW Architect