Developing RIA Web Applications with Oracle ADF

Purpose

This tutorial shows you how to build a rich Internet application that interacts with a database. You'll be using Oracle JDeveloper 11g Version 11.1.1.2.0 and the ADF framework to build the application, and in the process you'll work with Oracle ADF Business Components, Oracle ADF Faces Rich Client Components and Oracle ADF Task Flows.

Time to Complete

Approximately 2 hours

Topics

The tutorial covers the following topics:

	Overview
	Scenario
	Prerequisites
	Create a New Fusion Application and Business Components
	Refine your Business Components
	Create JSF Web Pages
	Bind Data Controls to your JSF Page
	Enhance your JSF Page
	Add More Complex Business Services
	Create a Page Flow
	Use ADF Faces Framework Features
	Create Read Only Business Services, Page Fragments and Regions
	Summary

Viewing Screenshots

Place the cursor over this icon to load and view all the screenshots for this tutorial. (Caution: This action loads all screenshots simultaneously, so response time may be slow depending on your Internet connection.)

Note: Alternatively, you can place the cursor over an individual icon in the following steps to load and view only the screenshot associated with that step. You can hide an individual screenshot by clicking it.

Overview

This tutorial takes you through a simple scenario of building a rich internet application that provides a user interface to access database tables. You'll be using Oracle JDeveloper 11g Version 11.1.1.2.0 and Oracle ADF 11g to create a complete application including business services, user interface and page flows.

The focus of this tutorial is to illustrate the visual and declarative approach that Oracle ADF provides for Java EE application development. While working through the tutorial notice how ADF saves you from writing low level and speeds up your development process.

Back to Topic List

Scenario

The application that you create in this tutorial displays information on department and employees. You will create several JSF pages that enable you to query and update the data in the database.

Back to Topic List

Prerequisites

Back to Topic List

Creating a New Fusion Application and Business Components

When you work in JDeveloper, you organize your work in projects within an application. JDeveloper provides several templates that you can use to create an Application and projects. The templates are pre configured with a basic set of technologies that are needed for developing various types of applications, and you create your working environment by selecting the template that fits your needs. You can then configure it to add any other technologies you plan to use.

In the first section you are going to create a new Application using the Fusion technology and build reusable business components that will access the database.
You'll be using the Oracle ADF Business Components technology to map Java objects to existing tables in your database.

Back to Topic List

Refining your Business Components

In this topic you refine your business services by adding validation rules, formatting and default values. To add validation rules, perform the following steps:

1.	In the Application Navigator locate the Employees entity object and double click it to open it for editing.
2.	In the Employees1.xml window, click the Attributes node and locate the Salary attribute, and click it. Scroll down in the page to the validation section and click the Add icon to add a new Validation rule.
3.	In the Add Validation Rule dialog choose Range from the Rule Type drop down list. Note the various other types of rules you can define here. In the Operator drop down keep the Between value, and type 0 for the minimum value and 99000 for the maximum value fields.
4.	Click the Failure Handling tab to define an error message that will appear when the validation fails. In the Message Text field type an error message like "Salary out of range 0 to 99,000". Click OK.
5.	Next we'll add a default value to the hired date field - so when we create a new employee we'll have today's date as the default value. Back in the Employees.xml window, locate the HireDate attribute, and click it. If not already there, bring up the properties window using CTRL+Shift+I. In the Value section locate the Default Value Type property and choose Expression, then set the Default Value property to adf.currentDate. This will make sure the default value for a new record is set to today's date.
6.	You can also specify UI Hints for attribute to control how they will display by default in the forms and pages that will use them. In our case we'll add a default format mask for the Hired date field you can also specify labels and tooltip helps here. In the UI Hints section of the property inspector locate the Format Type property and select Simple Date. Locate the Format property and type MM/dd/yyyy.
7.	You can now run the Application Module Tester again (right click Run on the AppModule) to check the new validation, default value for new record and UI hint you added. Click on any of the EmployeesView in the tester.
8.	Enter an out of range value as salary to check validation and the error message.
9.	Click the Insert Record button and see the default value you defined appear for the HireDate field. Close the Tester.
10.	Click the Save All icon on the JDeveloper menu bar, or select File | Save All from the menu.

Back to Topic List

Creating JSF Web pages

JavaServer Faces or JSF for short is a standard Java EE technology that simplifies Web development.
In this section you create a JSF page to access the business components that you created in the previous section. You learn how to create a form that can be used to displays and modify data. You'll also use a master-detail relationship to display the information about employees in each department. To build the page you'll be using the Oracle ADF Faces Rich Client Components - these components allow you to build Ajax-based rich Web UI without writing low level HTML and Javascript code.
The Web part of the application is developed in a separate project called the viewcontroller project. This separation between the Model layer and the user interface makes the business services more reusable.

1.	We'll start by creating a new Web page. Right-click the ViewController project node in the Application Navigator, and select New....
2.	In the New Gallery window, navigate to the Web Tier and JSF node, and choose the JSF Page option. Click OK.
3.	In the Create JSF Page dialog box, rename the page to DeptEmpPage.jspx, in the Page Template drop down box select Oracle Three Column Layout, and make sure the Create as XML Document is checked. Click OK.
4.	Your page will be opened in the visual design view. The template has three columns in it, since we only need two in our page, we'll delete the third one. Place your cursor in the right-most section called end and right click to choose Delete.
5.	Now we are going to add some layout components to our page. In the component palette window expand the Layout accordion and click and drag the Panel Accordion component into the Start area of your page.
6.	Click the ShowDetails1 accordion that was created and in the Property Inspector change its Text property to Departments.
7.	Right click the new Departments accordion and choose Insert After Show Details Item - Departments -> Show Detail Item. This adds one more accordion to your page. Change its Text property to More Info. This was another way to add components to a page using context menus directly inside the Design view.
8.	From the Layout components, click and drag a Panel Splitter component onto the Center area of your page.
9.	In the Property Inspector change the Orientation property of the new splitter to be Vertical.
10.	From the Layout components, click and drag a Panel Collection component into the first area at the top of your splitter on your page.
11.	From the Layout components, click and drag a Panel Tab component into the second area at the bottom of your splitter on your page.
12.	Your page should look like the image below. Click the Save All icon on the JDeveloper menu bar to save your work.

Back to Topic List

Binding Data Controls to your JSF page

1.	In Page design pane, click the Departments accordion to expand it.
2.	In the Application Navigator expand the Data Controls accordion, and in it expand the AppModuleDataControl to expose the business services you defined in the first part of this lab.
3.	Drag the DepartmentsView1 data control into the Departments accordion in your JSF page. When prompted to choose a component to Create choose Forms->ADF Read-Only Form.
4.	In the Edit Form fields dialog, check the Include Navigation Controls check box. Click OK.
5.	In the Data Controls accordion expand the DepartmentsView1 control to expose the fields it contains as well as the related EmployeesView3 control for the employees in each department. Note that these are the detail employees for the master departments - they are linked and therefore the employees you'll see in this view object will be the ones working in a specific department you are looking at.
6.	Drag the EmployeesView3 data control into the Panel Collection on the top right side of your JSF page. When prompted to choose a component to Create choose Tables->ADF Read-Only Table.
7.	In the Edit Table Columns dialog, check the three check boxes for Row Selection, Sorting, and Filtering. Click OK.
8.	Drag the EmployeesView3 data control again but this time into the Tab on the bottom right side of your JSF page. When prompted to choose a component to Create choose Form->ADF Form.
9.	In the Edit Form Fields dialog, check the check boxes for Include Submit Button. Using your mouse and the Shift key select the bottom three fields from the list CommissionPCT, ManagerId, DepartmentID and delete them by pressing the Delete button at the top right. Click OK.
10.	Your JSP should look like this:
10.	Click the Save All icon on the JDeveloper menu bar to save your work. Right click in your page and choose Run. This will compile your project, build it, and launch the integrated WebLogic Server to run it. Then a Web browser will open up and will display your page. You can follow the progress of these steps in the log window in JDeveloper.
11.	Once your page appears in your browser, using the splitter resize the page area to display the data of the department. Then use the Next button to scroll through the departments. Notice that the data for the employees changes accordingly in the table and the Form beneath it.
12.	Try to update the HireDate field for one of the employees with an invalid date such as 11/11/123 and notice the error message when you try to leave the field. Use the Clock Icon next to the field to bring up a pop-up Calendar and choose a valid date.
13.	Update the Salary field to a value that will break the validation you created before such as -9 and click the Submit button to get the error message you created.
14.	Browse to department 50 and notice that you can now scroll the data in the employees table. Click on one of the column header in the table to sort the data in the table.
15.	Click a column heading in the table and drag it to reposition the column in the table. The new column order looks like the following:
16.	In the Filter field above the First Name column type B% and hit Enter to filter the table to show only employees whose name begins with B.
17.	Play with the other menu and buttons of the table to see additional functionality. Once you are done, close the browser and return to JDeveloper.

Back to Topic List

Enhancing your JSF page

In the next few steps you are going to change the table of employees on our page to add the ability to do column selection and bind the business components to a graph representation to your user interface. You'll do this with simple drag and drop operations - behind the scene the ADF Model layer takes care of this binding for you.

Back to Topic List

Adding More Complex Business Services

1.	In the Application Navigator right click the demo.model package and choose New View Object.
2.	In the Name dialog update the Name field to be EmpDetails and keep the default type of Updateable Access Through Entity Objects. Click the Next button.
3.	In the Entity Objects dialog first select Employees and shuttle it to the right, and then select the Departments entity and add it to the right hand selection. Note that only the Employees entity has the updateable checkbox checked - the departments entity is used to read data only. Click Next.
4.	In the Attributes dialog shuttle the following Employees attributes to the right: EmployeeId FirstName LastName Salary HireDate JobId And from the Departments entity shuttle the following attributes to the right: DepartmentID DepartmentName At this stage you can click the Finish button to complete the view object creation.
5.	Next we are going to see how to add a calculated attribute to our object - we'll add an attribute that will show the yearly salary. In the EmpDetails.xml editor switch to the Attributes section and click the Add button to add a new attribute.
6.	In the New View Object Attribute dialog update the following fields: Field Value Name YearlySalary Type Number Value Type Expression Value Salary * 12 Click the OK button.
7.	In the next couple of steps we'll show how to add a list of values to a field based on a set of values stored in another table. In this case we'll add a list of values for possible job titles from the jobs table. In the EmpDetails.xml editor switch to the View Accessors section click the Add button to add a new view accessor.
8.	In the View Accessors dialog shuttle the JobViews to the right. Click the OK button.
9.	In the EmpDetails.xml editor switch to the Attributes section, select the JobId attribute and in the List Of Values section click the Add button .
10.	In the List of Values dialog select JobsView1 for the List Data Source field, and JobId as the List Attribute.
11.	Still in the List of Values dialog Click the UI Hints tab and choose Input Text with List of Values as the Default List Type and then shuttle the Job Title attribute to the right. Click the OK button.
12.	Now we need to add the new object that we created to the data model we exposed to the user interface developers. In the Application Navigator double click the AppModule to open it for editing and choose the Data Model section of the editor.
13.	Click the EmpDetails view object and shuttle it to the right.
14.	In the Application Navigator Right-click AppModel and select Run to invoke the application module tester. This is a small Swing based application that allows you to test the ADF Business Components you have just created.
15.	Double click the EmpDetails view object to test the functionality you defined.
16.	Try setting the Salary to -3 and note the error message once you leave the field. Note the date format for HireDate and the fact that the department name and the yearly salary are displayed. Now invoke the list of values for the JobId to choose a new job.
17.	The selected job gets populated.
18.	Close the Business Components Tester window without committing the changes and back in JDeveloper, click the Save All icon on the JDeveloper menu bar to save your work.

Back to Topic List

Creating a Page Flow

Web applications usually have more than one page in them. In the next section you are going to add another page to your application and use the ADF Task Flow to define the navigation rules between the two pages. To add a page flow and navigate between pages, perform the following steps:

1.	In the Application Navigator under the ViewController project locate the file adf-config under the page flows node. Double click it to open it in the editor. This is where we define navigation in our application.
2.	Drag and drop the DeptEmpPage.jspx file from the application navigator into the empty adf-config diagram.
3.	From the Component Palette drag and drop a View component into the adf-config diagram, and rename it to query. This is going to be a new JSF page that we'll create in a minute.
4.	From the Component Palette choose a Control Flow Case and then click on the DeptEmpPage and drag a line to the query page. Name this line goQuery.
5.	From the Component Palette choose another Control Flow Case and then create an opposite flow from the query page to the DeptEmpPage. Name this flow back. Save your work by pressing the save all button on the JDeveloper toolbar.
6.	Double click the query view in the diagram to create the new page. Using the Page Template option, select the Oracle Three Column Layout one in the Create JSF page dialog. Click OK.
7.	Expand the Data Controls accordion in the Application Navigator. Locate the EmpDetails1 data control expand it and expand the Named Criteria node under it. Select the All Queriable Attributes and drag it into the center area of the new query.jspx page. When prompted to choose a component to Create choose Query -> ADF Query Panel.
8.	In the Data Controls accordion select the EmpDetails1 data control and drag it into the center area of the page below the query component. When prompted to choose a component to Create choose Form->ADF Form. In the Edit Forms Details, check both the Include Navigation Controls and the Include Submit Button. Click OK.
9.	In the structure pane locate the Submit button, right click it and choose Insert after af:command:Button - Submit -> Button. Using the property inspector change the Text of the new button to be Back and for the Action property select back from the drop down list. This will cause the button to perform the navigation you defined in the page flow.
10.	Next we'll add transaction operations to the page to allow you to commit and rollback changes. In the Data Controls Palette expand the application module level Operations node to locate the commit and rollback operations. Drag the Commit operation into the structure pane before the First Button. When prompted for a drop target choose ADF Button
11.	Repeat the same steps for the Rollback operation.
12.	If you'll maximize the design editor at this stage by double clicking the Query.jspx tab, your page should look like this:
13.	Switch back to editing the DeptEmpPage.jspx by clicking on its tab or opening the file from the Application Navigator. A quick way to navigate to this or any other file is using the global find box at the top right of JDeveloper and typing the file name there, t hen just click the file name to open it in the editor.
14.	In the page design, expand the Departments accordion. From the Component Palette, choose a Button component and drag it into the Departments accordion between the First and Previous buttons. Alternatively you can right click the First button and choose insert after->button to add the new button. Using the property inspector change the Text of the button to be Query and for the Action property type goQuery or select it from the drop down list if available. This will cause the button to perform the navigation you defined in the page flow.
15.	Click the Save All icon on the JDeveloper menu bar to save your work, and then right click the DeptEmpPage.jspx page and choose Run.
16.	When the page appears in your browser click the Query button to navigate to your new page.
17.	In the new Query page, click the magnifying glass icon next to the JobID field to bring up a search form.
18.	Search for Jobs whose jobTitle begins with A%. Choose the Accountant title and click OK. Now click the Search button in the Query page to return the results in the form below.
19.	You can continue playing with the form saving your query criteria, creating more complex queries and updating data for employees. Note how this form displays a view of the data that matches the definition in the view object you created - including information for Department name as well as a list of values for the Job id. You can also make changes to the data and commit and rollback your transaction as needed. Close your browser window.

Back to Topic List

Using ADF Faces Framework Features

In the next section we'll enhance our pages with additional Ajax functionality leveraging the declarative development offered by the ADF Faces components.

	Using Partial Page Refresh
	Using Drop Down Menus and Operation Components

Using Partial Page Refresh

First we'll add an automatic update of the yearlySalary field based on changes in the Salary field. Since we don't want to refresh the whole page, we'll use the partial page refresh capability offered by ADF Faces
To do this we'll define the Salary field to autosubmit, and the yearlySalary field to depend on the Salary field.

1.	Open the query.jspx file in the design editor and locate the Salary field and click it. In the property inspector window set the value of the Id property to sal.
2.	Still in the Property Inspector under the Behavior section set the AutoSubmit property to True .
3.	Using the Structure Panel locate the YearlySalary field. Another option to get to this field is to double click the query.jspx tab to maximize the window and then locate the field in the design editor. Locate the PartialTriggers property under the Behavior section and click the arrow to its right to choose Edit.
4.	In the Edit Property dialog locate the Salary field and shuttle it to the right using the blue arrow. Click the OK button.
5.	Click the Save All icon on the JDeveloper menu bar to save your work, and Run your page. When the page comes up use the query section to locate employees whose name begin with A%, then update the Salary field for one of them. Notice the immediate change in the YearlySalary field once you leave the Salary field. Close your browser window.

Back to Topic

Back to Topic List

Using Drop Down Menus and Operation Components

In this section we'll add a drop down menu to a page and use a couple of ADF Faces operation components to add Javascript based operations to our page that will export table data into an Excel spreadsheet and to a printable page.

1.	Open the DeptEmpPage.jspx file in the design editor and click inside the menus place holder space in the panel collection surrounding the Employees table. Right click to bring up the context menu and choose Insert Inside Facet - menus and then Menu.
2.	In the Property Inspector set the Text property to My Options.
3.	In the Property Inspector under the Behavior section set the Detachable property to true.
4.	Using the Structure Pane right click the menu component and choose Insert inside af:menu - My Options and then Menu Item. Using the property inspector set the Text property of the new menu item to Export to Excel.
5.	With the new Export to Excel menu item still selected in the structure pane, expand the Operations section of the the ADF Faces components in the component Palette. Locate the Export Collection Action Listener component and click it - or drag it onto the Export to Excel menu option in the structure pane.
6.	In the dialog that pops up click the down arrow next to ExportedId field and choose Edit.
7.	In the Edit Property dialog navigate the page's structure to locate the table -t1 in the PanelCollection and click it. Click OK.
8.	From the Type drop down list select excelHTML. Click the OK button.
9.	Let's add another menu option to our menu. In the structure pane right click the Export to Excel menu component and from the context menu choose Insert After af:commandMenuItem - Export to Excel and then Menu Item.
10.	Set the Text property of this new menu option to Printable Page.
11.	From the Operations section of the component palette click the Show Printable Page Behavior to add it to your new menu item. You can also drag and drop it onto the new menu option you created.
12.	Click the Save All icon on the JDeveloper menu bar to save your work, and choose Run.
13.	When the page comes up bring up your menu and detach it.
14.	Then invoke each one of the menu options you created. For example Export to Excel. You may need to accept the download of the file in the browser window to be able to access the Excel file.
15.	Try the Printable Page option. The page is ready for printing.
	Close the browser window.

Back to Topic

Back to Topic List

Create Read Only Business Services, Page Fragments and Regions

In the next two sections we'll create a reusable page fragment that will allow us to search for employees by their email. We'll then use this page fragment inside another JSF page.

	Query Only Business Service Based on Parameters
	Reusable Task Flows, Page Fragments and Regions

Query Only Business Service Based on Parameters

First we'll create a new ADF Business Components View Object to provide us with the right query based on a parameter.

Back to Topic

Back to Topic List

Reusable Task Flows, Page Fragments and Regions

In this section we'll create a reusable page fragment that will allow us to search for employees by their email. We'll then use this page fragment inside another JSF page. The same page fragment can be used in multiple other pages in our application.

Back to Topic

Back to Topic List

Congratulations you have just finished a complete ADF application. You've used ADF Business Components to create both simple and complex business services that map to the database. You've used ADF Faces components to create a rich user interface with built-in Ajax capabilities. And you used the ADF Task Flows to create page flows and reusable page regions. Notice how little code you had to write while working with JDeveloper and ADF. This is only the first step in your road to mastering Oracle ADF, you can get much more information at http://oracle.com/technology/jdev

Back to Topic List

Summary

In this tutorial, you've seen how to create ADF Rich Client JSF Pages and use some advanced features like:

	Create a New Fusion Application and Business Component
	Refine your Business Components
	Create JSF Web Pages
	Bind Data Controls to your JSF Page
	Add More Complex Business Services
	Create a Page Flow
	Use ADF Faces Framework Features
	Create Read Only Business Services, Page Fragments and Regions

Back to Topic List

Place the cursor over this icon to hide all screenshots.