Dive into Oracle ADF

Community-Created Watch It ADF Series

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:59:44 GMT

Jan Vervecken wrote me to let me know of a new effort to create screencast movies of interesting ADF "how to" articles over at http://wiki.oracle.com/page/Watch+It+ADF

The first two screencasts produced follow along with a couple of recent Oracle Magazine Developer Frameworks articles I wrote.

Thanks for the tip, Jan.

July/August Frameworks Column Now Available

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:23:01 GMT

The July/August 2009 issue of Oracle Magazine is now live, and along with it the latest installment of my Developer Frameworks column:

Targets, Accessors, and Trees
Hierarchical data displays are simple with Oracle Application Development Framework.

Enjoy.

Grant's New ADF / Groovy Whitepaper

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:44:25 GMT

Grant blogs about a new whitepaper he's written on Groovy support in Oracle JDeveloper / ADF. I reviewed a draft of it and think it will be useful to everyone using Oracle ADF 11g.

May/June 2009 Frameworks Column: Add Custom Features to Improve Team Productivity

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:23:30 GMT

The May/June 2009 Oracle Magazine issue is now available, and along with it the next installment of my Frameworks column:

Extending a Helping Hand
Add custom features to improve team productivity.

Enjoy.

Frank's Oracle ADF Rich Client Auto-Suggest Example

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:42:09 GMT

Due to lack of bandwidth, I don't get much of a chance to experiment with the finer points of our ADF Rich Client framework, but I always wondered how you'd implement the kind of auto-suggest (reduce-the-choices-as-the-user-types) type of functionality. As usual, Frank takes the time not only to figure out the implementation but to write it up nicely. Check it out if you've been wondering how to achieve this type of functionality in ADF 11g.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/tips/fnimphius/suggest/autosuggest.html

It's just one of many great article's on Frank's Code Corner on OTN...

JDeveloper / ADF 11g Update 2 Release Available

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:52:13 GMT

We've released JDeveloper 11g Update 2 on OTN:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/jdev/htdocs/soft11.html

The release notes are here. List of bug fixes should follow shortly on the page above.

Customizing Application Error Handler to Support Informational Messages

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:06:06 GMT

I've added example #144 to illustrate how to customize the application-level error handler to support informational messages (in addition to the default support we provide for warnings and errors).

March/April 2009 Frameworks Column: Configure nested transactions using Oracle ADF task flows

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 08:56:54 GMT

The March/April 2009 Oracle Magazine issue is now available, and along with it the latest installment of my Developer Frameworks series:

A Ride at the OK (or Cancel) Corral
Configure nested transactions using Oracle ADF task flows.

Enjoy.

Going from a SQL Query in SQL Developer to a JSF Page Showing Its Results

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 09:27:05 GMT

In response to a question asked on the dBforums website, I created a little screencast to show the simple steps to go from a SQL query that you've got working in SQL Developer to a JSF page that display its results and allows the user to enter values for its bind variables.

Using a SQL Query with Bind Variables from SQL Developer to Create a JSF Page to Show its Results

ADF Patterns Documents

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:02:07 GMT

I wanted to call your attention to a fairly new section on OTN about ADF Patterns and Best Practices. Just yesterday I found David Giammona's January 2009 document there on:

Embedding Regions inside PopUp Windows

to be very helpful to something I was working on.

Stop JDeveloper 11g from Prompting to Save Your SQL Worksheets

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:00:15 GMT

I often find it handy to use JDeveloper 11g's SQL worksheet toolbar menu to quickly pop open a window where I can play with SQL statements. As shown in the screen shot below, the toolbar button pops down to show you all your IDE-level database connections, as well as application resources database connections for open workspaces. After you pick which connection you want to work with, a SQL Developer worksheet window opens for you to experiment with.

One frustrating thing, if you happen to use the SQL worksheet for quick SQL testing like I do, is that when you're done with your experiments and close the window JDeveloper prompts you to save the file. In my usage pattern, I almost never want to save the contents, so this always meant more clicks that I wished I didn't have to make.

I wanted to share a tip I learned recently about an IDE-level tools preference below that comes to the rescue if you happen to use the SQL worksheet this way. After choosing {Tools | Preferences...} select the Database > Worksheet Parameters section and uncheck the Prompt for Save file on Close checkbox. Voila! No more nagging when you close the worksheet.

Referencing the UserData Map from the ADFBC Session in Groovy Bind Variable Expressions

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:52:55 GMT

I've added Example# 143 that illustrates a technique for simplifying the referencing the "UserData" map from the ADFBC session in Groovy bind variable expressions.

Passing RowIterator of Selected Tree Node to AM Method

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:08:11 GMT

I've added example# 142 that illustrates the correct way to pass the RowIterator of the selected tree node in order to programmatically manipulate the rows in it for that "branch" of the tree.

Chris Muir's Summary of Configuring a JDev 11g ADF Security app on standalone WLS against MS Active Directory

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:47:19 GMT

Chris Muir posts a summary of research he carried out (with assistance of some peers in the forum and other Oracle colleagues) about Configuring a JDev 11g ADF Security app on standalone WLS against MS Active Directory.

Using Custom View Row Hints to Expose Row and Attribute Status

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:50:04 GMT

Example #140 contains some interesting code that's not strictly related to the task flow transactions which are the primary focus of the workspace.

The list page displays modified rows in italics with each modified attribute value in a row in bold as well. This display is facilitated by the use of custom row-specific attribute hints named rowState and valueChanged that are enabled due to the use of the CustomViewRowImpl framework extension class in the FrameworkExtensions project.

The CustomViewObject in that project works around a couple of issues in the 11.1.1 release related to the quick query component (forcing the view criteria item operator to be "Starts With" instead of "Like", and working around bug# 7660871 which causes the quick query criteria to not be applied correctly in some situations).

The CustomEntityImpl in the project implements a generic solution for declarative control over the posting order of associated (but not composed) entities by allowing an entity to specify a custom PostAfterAccessors property whose value is a comma-separated list of association accessors which should be checked for a new referenced row that should be posted before the current entity. The Emp entity in the example is configured with that property in order to cause a new, referenced Dept entity instance to post first.

Might be worth your time to check out that example if you've ever wanted to accomplish any of the above "tricks"

Automatic Runtime Query/Join Pruning with Declarative SQL Mode View Objects

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 22:02:07 GMT

I've published example #141 that illustrates how a view object used in 'Declarative' SQL mode formulates its query at runtime, informed by the set of attributes referenced by the page definition of a given page so that it can avoid querying data that's not related to the job at hand (including dropping out tables that are joined where none of the attributes are referenced).

Implementing OK or Cancel with Task Flow Transaction and Savepoint Support

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:59:20 GMT

I've posted example # 140 that illustrates how you can easily implement complex units of work that assemble multiple, transactional task flows with full support for (OK) or (Cancel) without writing any code.

Jan/Feb 2009 Frameworks Column is Out

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 17:50:51 GMT

The January/February 2009 Oracle Magazine issue is out, and along with it the latest installment in my Frameworks series:

Easier Interactive Data Entry
Improving the User Experience with Declarative Popup LOVs and Auto-PPR

Enjoy.

Making String Attributes Use the 'StartsWith' Operator in QuickQuery

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:26:05 GMT

I've added example #139 illustrating how to make the quick query search form work more like end users would expect it to for String attributes and default to using the 'StartsWith' operator.

Auto-Enabling Commit / Rollback Buttons in a 10.1.3 Editable Table

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:55:27 GMT

I've posted example #138 that shows how to make and end-user's value change in an editable table in a 10.1.3 ADF Faces page cause the Commit / Rollback buttons to enable.

Implementing Custom View Row Hint Behavior

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:30:29 GMT

I've posted example# 137 that illustrates how to customize the view row hints mechanism in order to override the default handling of a default attribute hint like "label" or to add custom view row attribute specific hints (like a mindate and maxdate hint, in the example) which return dates three days before and three days after the value of the Hiredate in the current row.

David Giammona Blogs About the New ADF Declarative Debugger

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:18:08 GMT

Don't miss David Giammona's blog-opening post about the new ADF Declarative Debugger that we added to JDeveloper/ADF 11g just in time for the production release.

Adding a Checkbox to an LOV Search Form to Toggle a Custom SQL Predicate

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:36:34 GMT

I've added example #136 that illustrates a technique for adding a custom item (checkbox, in this case) to a declaratively-defined LOV search form. The checkbox toggles whether or not a custom SQL predicate gets applied to the view object's query which is providing the list of valid values to pick in the LOV.

Using the QueryPerformed Property for User Feedback in Search Pages

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:27:57 GMT

I added example #135 to illustrate a simple example of using the queryPerformed property of the search binding to conditionally provide user feedback in a search page.