JDev 12.1.3: Use Default Activity Instead of the Deprecated Invoke Action

Posted on 20. August 2014 by Timo Hahn

Since JDeveloper 12.1.3 the invoke action used in earlier version has been deprecated. Users still using the old invoke action to load data on page load should migrate their code to using the default activity in a bounded task flow instead. This article describes how to use the executeWithParams method as a default activity in a bounded task flow (btf) to load data to be shown in a region. For this we implement a common

Use Case:
in a text field the user enters a string which should be used to look-up data in the DB and show the data as a table in a region.
For this we use the HR schema and build a look-up for locations after the name of the city of the location. In a page the user can insert the name or part of a cities name into a text field. This input is send as parameter to a bounded task flow. The default activity of the btf calls a method in the view object which uses a view criteria to search for cities starting with the given input data. In a second implementation the same technique is used but a where clause is used in the VO and the VO is called with executeWithParams. The result of the search is displayed as a table in a region.

Implementation

Model Project:
We start by creating a new ‘Fusion Web Application’ and creating a model project of the HR DB schema. Here we only use the location table for which we create entity object and view object.
Now we create the view criteria which we use to find locations by part of the city name.

Next step is to create the java class for the view object including the method to safely access the created bind variable. In the class we add a method to apply the created view criteria which we expose in the client interface well as the methods to access bind variables.

: Create View Criteria

: Select the Type for the Parameter as Bind Variable

: Add Bind Variable

: Create New Bind Variable

: Create Java Classes

: Select to Create JAva Class for ViewObjectImpl

: Add Code to Applay View Criteria

: Create Client Interface

: Select Methods

: Add Methods to Client Interface

Finally we have to make sure that the locations view object is part of the data model of the application module.

Resulting Application Module Data Model

Next we add another view object to the data model which we use to implement the use case a second time. This time we use the view criteria we defined in the view object LocationsView and select it as the default where clause.

: Add LocationsView Again to the Data Model

: Change the Name of LocationView2

: To LocationsWithParamView

: Click the Edit Button in the Top Left Corner

: Select The ViewCriteria LocationsByCityVC to be Selected

: Final Data Model

ViewController Project:
We start implementing the view controller project by first adding a start page, ‘Start’, to the unbounded task flow in adfc-config.xml. For this page we use a quick layout (One Column, Header stretched).

: Add Start Page to Unboundned Task Flow

: Select Quick Layout for the Page

After opening the page (which creates it) we add a third grid row to the panelGridLayout we got from the quick layout which later holds the result table. In the first grid row we add a captain for the page, ‘Execute with param sample’, the second grid row we add an af:inputText which holds the users input for the city name to search for.
The page looks like

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<f:view xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" xmlns:af="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/faces/rich">
    <af:document title="Start.jsf" id="d1">
        <af:form id="f1">
            <af:panelGridLayout id="pgl1">
                <af:gridRow height="50px" id="gr1">
                    <af:gridCell width="100%" halign="stretch" valign="stretch" id="gc1">
                        <!-- Header -->
                        <af:outputText value="ExecuteWithParams Test" id="ot1" inlineStyle="font-size:x-large;"/>
                    </af:gridCell>
                </af:gridRow>
                <af:gridRow height="50px" id="gr2">
                    <af:gridCell width="100%" halign="stretch" valign="stretch" id="gc2">
                        <!-- Content -->
                        <af:inputText label="City" id="it1" value="" autoSubmit="true"/>
                    </af:gridCell>
                </af:gridRow>
                <af:gridRow id="gr3">
                    <af:gridCell id="gc3">
                        <!-- REGION HERE -->
                    </af:gridCell>
                </af:gridRow>
            </af:panelGridLayout>
        </af:form>
    </af:document>
</f:view>

Now we create a pageDefinition for the page, where we define a variable and an attribute binding which holds the users input into the inputText we added to a grid row below the header.

: Go To pageDefinition

: Confirm Create New Page Definition

: Create Variable inside Variable Iterator

: Define attributeValue

: Create Attribute Binding in variables Iterator

: Define Value Binding for City

: Select Expression Builder

: Set value for InputText Field

The final inputText look like

<af:inputText label="City" id="it1" value="#{bindings.searchCityName1.inputValue}" autoSubmit="true"/>

As you see we set the autoSubmit property to true as we don’t have (and need) a button to submit the data to the binding layer.

The next task is to create a new bounded task flow which has one input parameter, which is used to search for locations with cities starting with the given parameter from the inputText component.

: Create new Bounded Task Flow

: Create Task Flow for Location

: Drag Method onto Task Flow

: Edit Action Binding: Set Value for Parameter

: Task Flow Default Activity

: Page Flow for Bounded Task Flow

: Create ADF Page Fragment for Locations

: Drop VO Location and Drop it as Table

: Create Table for Locations

: Add Parameter to Task Flow

: Final Task Flow Definition

Once the bounded task flow is created we can drag this btf onto the start page and drop it in the girdCell in the third gridRow and wire the parameter for the task flow to the value we have stored in the in the variable iterator via the inputText.

: Drag the Task Flow onto the Page and Drop as Region

: Set Value for Parameter in Expression Builder

: Edit Task Flow Binding: Add Parameter for the Task Flow

: Select the Region

: Go to Page Definition

: Selecting the Regions Task Flow Binding

: Set Refresh Property of Region to ‘ifNeeded’

Finally we make the region refresh whenever the inputParamter of the task flow changes by setting the regions refresh property to ‘ifNeeded’.
The final ‘Start’ page layout looks like

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<f:view xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" xmlns:af="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/faces/rich">
    <af:document title="Start.jsf" id="d1">
        <af:form id="f1">
            <af:panelGridLayout id="pgl1">
                <af:gridRow height="50px" id="gr1">
                    <af:gridCell width="100%" halign="stretch" valign="stretch" id="gc1">
                        <!-- Header -->
                        <af:outputText value="ExecuteWithParams Test" id="ot1" inlineStyle="font-size:x-large;"/>
                    </af:gridCell>
                </af:gridRow>
                <af:gridRow height="50px" id="gr2">
                    <af:gridCell width="100%" halign="stretch" valign="stretch" id="gc2">
                        <!-- Content -->
                        <af:inputText label="City" id="it1" value="#{bindings.searchCityName1.inputValue}" autoSubmit="true"/>
                    </af:gridCell>
                </af:gridRow>
                <af:gridRow id="gr3">
                    <af:gridCell id="gc3">
                        <af:region value="#{bindings.showlocatiobycitybtf1.regionModel}" id="r1"/>
                    </af:gridCell>
                </af:gridRow>
            </af:panelGridLayout>
        </af:form>
    </af:document>
</f:view>

This concludes the first implementation and we can run the application

: Running Application

: Searching for Locations Starting with ‘s’

: Searching for Locations Starting with ‘b’

The sample application can be downloaded form ADFEMG Sample Project. It contains a second page (Start2) which uses the other view object (LocationsWithParamsView) inside the region. It’s build like the first version. The difference is that the default activity nor is the executeWithParams from the VOs operations instead the self implemented method from the VO. You spare writing the method and exposing the method in the client interface this way.
Be aware that the sample uses the HR DB schema and you have to change the connection information to point to your DB.

JDeveloper 11g R1: Advanced Multi Column Table Sort

Posted on 14. April 2014 by Timo Hahn

A question on the JDeveloper and ADF Community Space found my attention. A user asked how to sort an af:table after more then one column.
Well, there is the official way, which Frank Nimphius’s bloged about in ‘Declarative multi-column sort for ADF bound tables’.
However this declarative approach needs the user to select the columns and their sort order. In most cases the sort after a second column is driven by the use case specification. A sample would be that the departments tables should normally be sorted after the column selected by the user, but then the data should always be sorted by the department name inside the first sort.
The image below shows the Departments table sorted first after the LocationId and inside the LocationId sorted by the DepartmentName.

Departments sorted after LocationID and DepartmentName

Now lets see how to implement this. There are some possible solutions:

add a sort criterion in a managed bean
add a sort Criterion in the ViewObject
a combination of 1) and 2)

All solutions have their advantages and disadvantages. Let’s start with the managed bean approach. This is pretty simple as we only need to add sortListener to the af:table which is pointing a bean method. In the sample below we are using the departments table where we wire up the secondary sort to the DepartmentName column.

...

And the sortTableListener in the bean

    public void sortTableListener(SortEvent sortEvent) {
        //log the selected column (just for information)
        List criteria = sortEvent.getSortCriteria();
        for (SortCriterion sc : criteria) {
            logger.info("Sort after: " + sc.getProperty());
        }
        // Create new SortCriterion for DepartmentName in ascending order
        SortCriterion scNew = new SortCriterion("DepartmentName", true);
        // Add it to the list
        criteria.add(scNew);
        // and apply it back to the table
        Object object = sortEvent.getSource();
        RichTable table = (RichTable) object;
        table.setSortCriteria(criteria);
        logger.info("----------------------END----------------------");
    }

That’s all we need to do to get the output from the first image. You’ll notice, that both columns are showing the sort icon. Only the one for the DepartmentName can’t change to descending order as we wired things up to always sort in ascending order. From the users point of view this can be disturbing as it’s not obvious why this happens.

For the second solution we use the model layer instead of the view layer. Here we implement the ViewObjectImpl class of the EmployeesView and overwrite the setOrderByOrSortBy(…) method. This is the method the framework calls when you click on a header on the table to sort it.
Now we can hard wire the secondary sort column, as we did in the managed bean. However, let’s think about how to make this more flexible. A nice add on is that we can use the custom properties of each table attribute to define the secondary sort column. This way we can decide which columns to sort after for each of the attributes available. We can even decide to add more then one column for secondary and third sort.

: Select Attribute

: Add Custom Property fro Secondary Sort

The overwritten setOrderByOrSortBy method looks for the custom property named ‘SECONDARY_SORT’ and if found, creates a new SortCriterion with the column name give in the custom property. This new sort criterion is then added to the list of SortCriteria.

    @Override
    public String setOrderByOrSortBy(SortCriteria[] sortCriteria) {
        SortCriteriaImpl scNew = null;
        // iterate current sort criteria
        for (int i = 0; i < sortCriteria.length; i++) {
            logger.info("Sort: " + sortCriteria[i].getAttributeName());
            // check for SECONDARY_SORT propertie on each attribute
            int attributeIndexOf = this.getAttributeIndexOf(sortCriteria[i].getAttributeName());
            AttributeDef attributeDef = this.getAttributeDef(attributeIndexOf);
            Object object = attributeDef.getProperty("SECONDARY_SORT");
            if (object != null) {
                logger.info("Secondary sort:" + object.toString());
                scNew = new SortCriteriaImpl(object.toString(), false);
            }
        }

        if (scNew != null) {
            // Create a new array for the added criteria
            SortCriteria scNewArray[] = new SortCriteria[sortCriteria.length + 1];
            for (int j = 0; j < sortCriteria.length; j++) {
                scNewArray[j] = sortCriteria[j];
            }

            // add the new criteria
            scNewArray[sortCriteria.length] = scNew;
            //and exceute the search
            return super.setOrderByOrSortBy(scNewArray);
        }

        return super.setOrderByOrSortBy(sortCriteria);
    }

The image blow shows the result for the employees table which is first sorted after the ManagerId and then after the FirstName of the employee.

As you see, only the ManagerId column shows the sort icon. The secondary sort column, FirstName, doesn’t show the sort icon.

You can download the sample application, which uses the HR DB schema from GitHub: BlogAdvancedTableSort.zip

Using one ViewObject for Global Lookup Data (Part 3): Multi Language Support

Posted on 5. March 2014 by Timo Hahn

In an earlier post I blogged about a how to use a DB table to hold look up data like gender, weekdays or title which can used in different locations as ‘List Of Value’ data (Using one ViewObject for Global Lookup Data (Part 2)).
This third part adds a use case where we add multi language support when we read data from the DB table. This is an enhancement of the use case implemented in part 2. The old use case could load data in one language only. Now we add the the language to the data in the db table to allow retrieval of language specific data.

To make the use case work, we add two columns to the existing table GENERALLOOKUP. The first one holds the language code and the second one an id which is unique in the type and language. We use this new id named ‘GROUPID’ in the LOV to show the data of the selected type.
The ‘GROUPID’ remains identical for each type and language so that we can enter data in different languages. For the language code we use the codes we get from a Locale class. A sample for the data of WEEKDAY Monday:

Sample for Multilanguage Entry

We start by changing the DB table GENERALLOOKUP we used in the sample introduced in part 2. The sql script setup_db_multilangual.sql which is part of the project workspace, adds the two mentioned columns. You find the link to download the workspace at the end of this post. The script holds the needed data for the multi language look up too.
The final DDL for the GENERALLOOKUP table is

  CREATE TABLE "GENERALLOOKUP" 
   (	
    "ID" NUMBER, 
	"TYPE" VARCHAR2(20 CHAR), 
	"DATA" VARCHAR2(255 CHAR), 
	"LANGUAGE" VARCHAR2(5 CHAR), 
	"GROUPID" NUMBER
   ) ;

Next we synchronize the existing EO with the new GENERALLOOKUP table to get the new attributes into the EO

Synchronize with DB

Here are some of the dialogs which you see when synchronizing the DB to the business objects

: Differences between DB and EO

: Changes done

: Changes in EO

Now we have to add the new columns to the VO as well

: VO before Adding the new Attributes

: Selecting the new Attributes

: Add the new Attributes to the selected Attributes

These changes now allow to use the VO GeneralLookup to select language dependent look up data from the db. We now a new view criteria, named TypeLookupByLanguageViewCriteria, to use the language information to only select data for one language and one type from the table.

: Creat new ViewCriteria

: Using two Bind Variables

This new view Criteria uses two bind variables to select only data of one type and one language. How to set these variables we see later in this post.
As we don’t want to break the old application we create a new VO based again on the existing Lookuptest entity object and name it ‘LookupMultiLanguageView’

: Create new VO based on LookupTest EO

Next step is to set up the LOVs accessors for the attributes WeekdayId, GenderIs, PositionId and TitleID. Here we only show how to do this for the WeekdayId attribute. The images below showing that we not only set the bindType to ‘WEEKDAY’, but the bindLanguage variable too. Here we use a groovy expression to get the current language from the current locale

: Setup the LOV for the Attribute WeekdayId

: Image 3: Use GenerallookupView to select WEEKDAY

: Groovy Expression to get Language

The real work is done in pictures 3, 4, 5 and 6 where we use the view criteria we’ve build earlier (TypeLookupByLanguageViewCriteria) to select the type and language from the GeneralLookupView.
In Image 3 we use the GenerallookupView as view accessor for the weekdayId. We rename the accessor to WeekdayMultiLanguageLOV for better understanding what the view accessor does. As the WeekdayMultiLanguageLOV can select any type in any language, we have to use the view criteria and set its bind variables to only get the data we want. In this case we set the bindType variable to ‘WEEKDAY’ and the bindLanguage variable to the current language used in the browser. As this language can change, we can’t use a static string like we used for the bindType. The language has to be calculated. For this we use a groovy expression:

oracle.adf.share.logging.ADFLogger LOGGER = oracle.adf.share.logging.ADFLogger.createADFLogger(source.getClass()); 
loc = adf.context.locale; 
if (loc == null) {
  LOGGER.info("Language not set -> en");
  return 'en';
} else {
  lang = loc.language;
  shortLang = lang.substring(0,2);
  if (!"#de#it#fr#en#".contains(shortLang)) {
    LOGGER.info("Language not recognized -> en");
    shortLang="en";
  } else {
    LOGGER.info("Language set to -> "+lang.substring(0,2));
    shortLang = lang.substring(0,2);
  } 
}

Yes, you can do more with groovy then just simple calculations like “sal *12”!
We use groovy expression like a java function to get the locale from the AdfContext (groovy: loc = adf.context.locale;) and from the locale we get the language (groovy: lang = loc.language;). Now, there are some checks to make, like is the locale is set and if the language found is one of the languages we support. In this sample we only support ‘en’, ‘de’, ‘it’ and ‘fr’ but you can add other languages too. As the language we get from the locale can look like ‘en_US’ or ‘de_CH’ we only use the first two characters (groovy: shortLang = lang.substring(0,2);). You can even use a logger to print out information into the log.

We can now test the switching of languages in the application module tester. Before we start the tester we make sure we can change the locale in the tester. Open the menu ‘Tools’->’Preferences’ and select the node ‘Business Components’, then select the ‘Tester’ node where you can add different languages for the tester.

Supply Languages to Tester

Running the tester

: Show LOV Data for WEEKDAY

: Select Italian

: Select a Language not in the DB

: Showing French Data

: Select ‘French’

: At first Locale is not set

: Run Tester

Please notice the log output which is visible below the tester which shows the groovy log messages.

Finally we adjust the UI by adding a new page MultiLanguageLookup and hook it up with the existing LookupTest page.

Setup New Test Page

Then we need to setup the faces-config.xml to support multiple languages

Setup New Test Page

Now, if we run the application and change the browser language, reload the page we see the language change

: Start with German

: Show Data in Italian

: Show Data in Italian

The sample used in this blog can be downloaded from the ADF-EMG Sample repository. The sample uses JDeveloper 11.1.1.7.0 and the HR DB schema.

Good News: ADF and IE11 working together again

Aside

Yesterday (Jan 15th, 2014) Oracle support came up with a patch for JDeveloper in concern of running ADF applications using IE11.
Form Article Id 1599898.1:

Below is a list with available patches for IE11 issues. The list will be updated once more patches become available. However this does NOT mean IE11 is certified but the patches allows you to access the application IE11:

patch 17236592 – IE11 SUPPORT: ADF APPS DON’T LOAD WITH IE11
Patch to avoid the popup shown above from appearing.
Versions: 11.1.1.6.0, 11.1.1.7.0

You need a support contract to get the patch.

Empty Test for String Values using Expression Language

Posted on 20. October 2013 by Timo Hahn

On the OTN ADF & JDeveloper space (aka forum) I often read use cases where an action depends on the state of an af:inputText, or better the value entered in the component.
This is problematic as a String value can either be null or it can be empty. The problem is that is you want to test a String value using Expression Language (EL) in the UI, you can’t use e.g.

#{bindings.myText1.inputValue eq ''}

The solution is an existing, but mostly unknown operator of Expression Language (EL) called ’empty’. This operator checks a String value if it’s empty. Usage of the operator is a bit different from the other operators which are used after the value. The ’empty’ operator is used in front of the valeu like

#{empty bindings.myText1.inputValue}

Sample:
consider the following use case: a button should be enabled only if a inputText component is not empty. For this we can use this code

            <af:panelGroupLayout layout="scroll" xmlns:af="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/faces/rich" id="pgl1">
              <af:inputText label="Label 1" id="it1" value="#{bindings.myText1.inputValue}" autoSubmit="true"/>
              <af:commandButton text="commandButton 1" id="cb1" disabled="#{empty bindings.myText1.inputValue}" partialTriggers="it1"/>
              <af:outputText value="Working (empty bindings.myText1.inputValue): #{empty bindings.myText1.inputValue} --- not working(bindings.myText1.inputValue eq '': #{bindings.myText1.inputValue eq ''}" id="ot1"
                             partialTriggers="it1"/>
            </af:panelGroupLayout>

As you see, the af:inputText component stored it’s value in a pageDef variable (or a VO row) and submits the entered value using the autoSubmit property set to ‘true’. The af:commandButton gets enabled only if the EL
#{empty bindings.myText1.inputValue}
returns false. This is the case when you enter anything into the af:inputText. The final piece to make it work is the partial trigger on the af:button component listening to the change of the input value.
The outputText below the button is just to show that the EL
#{bindings.myText1.inputValue eq ''}
does not work correctly.

JDev 12c: How to reset a filter on an af:table the 12c way

Posted on 6. August 2013 by Timo Hahn

This post is a continuation of an earlier blog about how to reset a filter on an af:table.
A question on OTN JDev and ADF spaces brought a change to my attention which I like to share here.
Using the code from the former post now results in a depreated warning in 12c:

    public void resetTableFilter(ActionEvent actionEvent)
    {
        FilterableQueryDescriptor queryDescriptor =
            (FilterableQueryDescriptor) getEmpTable().getFilterModel();
        if (queryDescriptor != null && queryDescriptor.getFilterCriteria() != null)
        {
            queryDescriptor.getFilterCriteria().clear();
            getEmpTable().queueEvent(new QueryEvent(getEmpTable(), queryDescriptor));
        }
    }

Warning(7,28): getFilterCriteria() in oracle.adf.view.rich.model.FilterableQueryDescriptor has been deprecated

and a look into the javadoc for the getFilterCriteria() method showed

Deprecated. Please use #getFilterConjunctionCriterion

AFAIK you only get the javadoc if you have access to the source code of ADF which you can get via support.oracle.com.

Knowing what to use instead of the deprecated method is half the solution. It turned out that it’s not enough to to use the new method to get the FilterConjunctionCriterion but that you have to iterate over the ConjunctionCriterion and reset them one by one. Here you have to check which type of ConjunctionCriterion you get from the iterator as there are two

AttributeCriterion
ConjunctionCriterion

Only the AttributeCriterion needs to be reset, the ConjunctionCriterion represents a group of AttributeCriterion.
The final code looks like:

    /**
     * method to reset filter attributes on an af:table
     * @param actionEvent event which triggers the method
     */
    public void resetTableFilter(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
        FilterableQueryDescriptor queryDescriptor = (FilterableQueryDescriptor) getEmpTable().getFilterModel();
        if (queryDescriptor != null && queryDescriptor.getFilterConjunctionCriterion() != null) {
            ConjunctionCriterion cc = queryDescriptor.getFilterConjunctionCriterion();
            List<Criterion> lc = cc.getCriterionList();
            for (Criterion c : lc) {
                if (c instanceof AttributeCriterion) {
                    AttributeCriterion ac = (AttributeCriterion) c;
                    ac.setValue(null);
                }
            }
            getEmpTable().queueEvent(new QueryEvent(getEmpTable(), queryDescriptor));
        }
    }

The rest of the implementation remained unchanged so you only need exchange the resetTableFilter method in ResetTableFilterBean.java.
The sample used the HR schema as DB connection. You can download the sample workspace for JDev12c from the ADF-EMG Sample Repository.

JDeveloper 12c: New or Changed Features

Posted on 18. July 2013 by Timo Hahn

Over the last couple of days I took some time to check out some of the new features and changes in the UI of the new JDeveloper version 12.1.2.0.0 (aka JDev12c). My other post on this issue already mentioned some features.
This new post adds some more:

UI & Handling
In my post Creating Variables and Attribute Bindings to Store Values Temporarily in the PageDef I showed how to setup page variables using the ‘variables’ iterator of the pageDef. There have been some change to the UI so that you can’t insert new variables via the pageDef editor (as it was in 11g). Variables are now added via the structure window only. I’m not sure if this is a bug or feature.

Completion Insight
This is the feature you use to get help in the editor window when you hit ‘ctrl-space’ on Java code or a jsf tag. It shows you which methods (for java) or which properties (for tags) are available. You can open a ‘Documentation’ window which should get you the e.g. javadoc. It looks like this functionality does not work for ADF or Trinidad components at the moment.

Completion Inside broken

For default java methods you get help as in earlier version

Completion Inside working

Javadoc
Javadoc comes in a new, more modern design. Just put your cursor on some java code (e.g. String) and hit F1:

Javadoc in new Design

Compile and Rebuild
A new useful addition to the compilers errors and warnings are the ‘Live Issues’ in a tab you get when you compile or rebuild a project or class. This new tab allows you to quickly check audit rules and fix minor issues directly.

Live Issues

Another long waited for feature is the direct compile option which can be switched on in the preferences for the compiler settings (two last check boxes in the image below):

Compile After Save Option

Activating this option will recompile all changes after you save them. If you change a page and save the changes (e.g. you add a detail item and add a table on it) you’ll get

<18.07.2013 17:27 Uhr MESZ> <Warning> <Socket> <BEA-000449> <Closing the socket, as no data read from it on 127.0.0.1:50.303 during the configured idle timeout of 5 seconds.> 
[05:50:33 PM] Updated /P:/jdeveloper/system/system12.1.2.0.40.66.68/o.j2ee/drs/BlogTest12c/BT12cViewControllerWebApp.war

but the added showDetailItem will not be able to retrieve the data. Instead you get an ‘Access denied’ message.

Saving is not enough

Clicking on ‘Compile’ to make it work you have to recompile it again to get

<18.07.2013 18:02 Uhr MESZ> <Warning> <Socket> <BEA-000449> <Closing the socket, as no data read from it on 127.0.0.1:51.020 during the configured idle timeout of 5 seconds.> 
[06:03:08 PM] Updated /P:/jdeveloper/system/system12.1.2.0.40.66.68/o.j2ee/drs/BlogTest12c/BT12cViewControllerWebApp.war/WEB-INF/classes

Now you should be able to retrieve the data too. Look like hot deployment is working!

Running Application after Recompile

Debugging an Application
When you debug an application you normally end up with lots of breakpoints in different files. This is OK until you localized the cause of an error you are debugging. However, once you have found it you like to resume normal work without hitting all the breakpoints set earlier. For this the debug button bar has a new button to disable all breakpoints with one click:

Breakpoint Toggle

Edit Jsf Page
Not sure what we see here, but it looks like a quick way to edit labels of components. As long as the label property of a component is empty or shows an EL you get this little window where you can select a text resource, enter an EL or enter static text. Once you have static text in the property you don’t get the window until you remove the static text.

Label Quick Selector

Dependency Explorer
The Dependency Explorer allows you to quickly find where a component is used and how. This feature can be used e.g. to find out where a fragment is used.
Sample: you have a fragment open in the editor and like to know where this fragment is used in the project. Use menu ‘Search->Explore Dependency’ and you get a nice graphical display like:

Dependency Graph

Clicking on the numbers show you how the artifact is used (e.g. as taskflow call in another page)

How is the artifact used

True Mode
The design view now allows a quick switch into the so called ‘True Mode’. This display mode hides all visual help you normally get when you create a page or fragment. A visual help are e.g. the name and size of facets (e.g. of a panelStretchLayout). Turning this off give you a better feeling how the resulting page will look like in the browser.

Design Mode

True Mode

File Templates
The ‘What’s New’ document mentiones ‘File Templates’ as

File Templates: Define custom file templates and invoke them from the gallery.

You’ll find them in the Preferences under ‘File Templates’, but I couldn’t find any documentation about how to use them.
If someone knows how to use them, drop me a note, please.

This concludes the findings on new or changes on JDev12c for now. I’m sure there are many more useful gem hidden and waiting to be discoverd.

JDeveloper 12c: Features we waited for

Posted on 11. July 2013 by Timo Hahn

JDeveloper 12c has been made available today. As this is a major release it’s worth looking into the new feature list but I noticed some things we have ask for for a couple of month or years and which have been included in this version.

Splash Screen and Icon
Time to get something new to watch at! Fanzy new design with information on what is keeping JDev busy starting up. Well Done!
I like the new icon, RIP old coffee cup.

JDK
Yeah, JDev12c runs with JDK 1.7 under the hood!
The installer does not have the latest 1.7.0_25 on board, but still it comes bundled with 1.7.0_15.
The problems I had with 11.1.1.7.0 running on JDK 1.7 are fixed (at least I had no problems till now).
By the way, if you run the generic installer you need to run it on JDK 1.7.0!

Task-Flow-Templates:
If a task flow is based on a task-flow-template you had to know this (and the functionality) in the 11.1.1.x versions as there was no visual hint for this. JDev12c now shows the task flow template as gray shaded task flow. Good work!

Menu Structure and Toolbars
First thing one notice is that the menu structure has been changed. Sample: menu items to open ‘Database’ view, ‘Application Server’ view and many others are now moved from the ‘View’ menu to the ‘Window’ menu.
The toolbars don’t contain all possible icons available, but now holds only the basic stuff. You can edit the toolbar like your are used to to in e.g. word (the old one!). What I have not found yet (and already missing it) is the ‘Ant’ icon which I used very often.

As it takes time to check out all new stuff I’ll update this post in the next days with new findings.

JDeveloper: Showing a Popup when Selecting an af:selectOneRadio

Posted on 29. June 2013 by Timo Hahn

A question on the new OTN JDeveloper and ADF forum (or space if you like the new name better) inspired this post.

Use Case
The use case is to show a popup each time the user clicks on one of the radiobuttons of a button group. This popup should show an inputText component to let the user enter some text for the selection. After the selection the text is shown on the page under the button group.
To make it more interesting, it was not ask for this in the question, the popup should show which radio button was clicked.
UPDATE
An additional question on the OTN forum asks how to display the label of the selected radiobutton and not it’s value. I updated the workspace to show how to implement this.

Implementation UPDATE
The use case sounds easy first: add a showPopupBehavior to the selectItem to show the popup and show the selected radioValue as the title of the dialog inside the popup. Problem with this solution is that a selectItem can’t handle client listeners, which a showPopupBehavior is under the hood. If you try this you get an error

Caused by: javax.servlet.jsp.JspException: ADF_FACES-60023:Component: RichSelectItem[UIXFacesBeanImpl, id=si10] does not support client listeners.

Putting the showPopupBehavior onto the af:selectOneRadio isn’t a solution either as this would would allow to show the popup, but would prevent the selection of the radio button. This is because the showPopupBehavior is a client behavior tag which prevents the event to
go further.

The solution to the problem is to use a valueChangeListener on the af:selectOneRadio and show the popup from the bean code. Before showing the popup we need to process the value change event to get the selected value in the dialog of the popup.

The UI part looks like

        <af:panelGroupLayout id="pgl2">
          <af:selectOneRadio label="Activation" id="sor1" value="#{bindings.SelectedActivation1.inputValue}"
                             inlineStyle="border-width:thin; border-color:Blue; border-style:solid;"
                             valueChangeListener="#{RadiobuttonPopupBean.activationChangedListener}" autoSubmit="true">
            <af:selectItem label="Active" value="active" id="si1"/>
            <af:selectItem label="Inactive" value="not active" id="si2"/>
          </af:selectOneRadio>
          <af:outputText value="Last reason: #{bindings.PopupText1.inputValue}" id="ot1" partialTriggers="d1"/>
        </af:panelGroupLayout>
        <af:popup id="p1" contentDelivery="lazyUncached" binding="#{RadiobuttonPopupBean.radioPopup}">
          <af:dialog id="d1" title="Selected: #{bindings.SelectedActivation1.inputValue}">
            <af:inputText label="Reason" id="it1" value="#{bindings.PopupText1.inputValue}"/>
          </af:dialog>
        </af:popup>

The listener code in the bean, which is created in request scope as it contains a reference to a ui component, look like

import javax.faces.context.FacesContext;
import javax.faces.event.ValueChangeEvent;

import oracle.adf.view.rich.component.rich.RichPopup;

import org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.util.ComponentReference;

public class RadiobuttonPopupBean {
    private ComponentReference radioPopup;

    public void setRadioPopup(RichPopup radioPopup) {
        this.radioPopup = ComponentReference.newUIComponentReference(radioPopup);
    }

    public RichPopup getRadioPopup() {
        if (radioPopup != null)
            return (RichPopup)radioPopup.getComponent();

        return null;
    }

    public void activationChangedListener(ValueChangeEvent valueChangeEvent) {
        // process updates to get the selected value inside the popup
        FacesContext contxt = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
        valueChangeEvent.getComponent().processUpdates(contxt);
        //show the popup
        RichPopup.PopupHints hint = new  RichPopup.PopupHints();
        getRadioPopup().show(hint);
    }
}

The application running look like

: Start of Application

: Selecting ‘Active’ Radio Button

: After closing Popup

: Selecting ‘Inactive’ Radio Button

: After closing Popup

You see that the popup shows the value of the selected radio button as the title and the entered text in the popup is shown as ‘last reason’ below the radio button group. This ‘magic’ is done by simply adding a partial trigger to the outputText component which is listening to the dialog inside the popup.
As the sample don’t store the value of the selection of the radio group or the entered text in the db, I use the variable iterator to store these values. More about this technique can be found in my blog

UPDATED IMPLEMENTATION
As the use case changed a bit I changes the solution in a way to show how to implement this. First step is that I added another attribute to the variables iterator to store the selected label. The attribute is name ‘SelectedActivation1’ and is of type String. This attribute is needed as it’s not easyly possible to get the selected label of the radiobutton outside the selection listener. The changed valueChangeListener looks like the code below:

    public void activationChangedListener(ValueChangeEvent valueChangeEvent) {
        // process updates to get the selected value inside the popup
        FacesContext contxt = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
        valueChangeEvent.getComponent().processUpdates(contxt);
        //get the selected lable from the radio button
        // for this we need to iterate over the children of hte af:selectOneRadio
        // and find the child which has the same value as the new value
        RichSelectOneRadio rsoc =
            (RichSelectOneRadio)valueChangeEvent.getSource();
        List childList = rsoc.getChildren();
        String newVal = (String)valueChangeEvent.getNewValue();
        for (int i = 0; i < childList.size(); i++) {
            if (childList.get(i) instanceof RichSelectItem) {
                RichSelectItem csi = (RichSelectItem)childList.get(i);
                if (((String)csi.getValue()).equals(newVal)) {
                    // get the binding container
                    BindingContainer bindings = BindingContext.getCurrent().getCurrentBindingsEntry();

                    // get an ADF attributevalue from the ADF page definitions
                    AttributeBinding attr = (AttributeBinding)bindings.getControlBinding("SelectedLabel1");
                    // and store the label there
                    attr.setInputValue(csi.getLabel());
                }
            }
        }
        //show the popup
        RichPopup.PopupHints hint = new RichPopup.PopupHints();
        getRadioPopup().show(hint);
    }

The images below showing the changes application

: Start changed Application

: Select Active: Caption shows value and label

: Show Text and selected Label

: Select Inactive: Caption shows value and label

: Show Text and selected Label

You can download the workspace from the ADF EMG Sample Project BlogTestRadiobutton.zip. The sample uses the HR DB schema (even as this is not really needed for the sample).

Handling images/files in ADF (Part 4)

Posted on 16. May 2013 by Timo Hahn

This is a continuation of my already three part series about handling files and images in JDeveloper. The first three parts guided through the hole process:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

implements two techniques to show the data (image) on the user interface

Part 4 backport of the sample to JDeveloper 11gR1

Part 5

There is one missing part, which is that the whole sample was built using JDeveloper 11.1.2.1.0 using JSF2.0 components. Running the sample in newer JDeveloper 11.1.2.x versions in no problem (tested up to 11.1.2.4.0). However I got a couple of questions asking hoe to run it using JDeveloper 11.1.1.x version.
The shown techniques are all version independent, so that you can used them in your own application, but have to build your own UI.

I decided to backport the sample to run under 11.1.1.x too.

Part 4 Sample build to run with JDeveloper 11.1.1.x.

The sample can be downloaded from the ADF EMG Sample side BlogUploadDownload._R1V3.zip.

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