Shay Shmeltzer's Weblog

JDeveloper 11.1.1.2 is out

2009-11-11T02:03:42Z

A new version of JDeveloper is out on OTN - looking at the version number you might think this is just a patch release with some bug fixes, but in reality it is quite a major release for us.

The new features document should be here shortly.

In the meantime, some of the features you might want to explore are:

New Maven extension

More functionality in the data control for EJBs (query and range fetching support)

New skin for ADF Faces (Fusion skin) which also adds a bunch of animation to things

New ADF Faces components - carousel, sparkel graph, autosuggest behavior, emailable pages and more

Improvement in the JSF visual editor

Better debugger and logging for ADF

Bugzilla integration in TPC

New features in the database designer

UML 2.0 support

And much more.

Download today and start playing...

Getting the Value from a SelectOneChoice List Using Code

2009-11-03T23:45:57Z

I got asked this today, and this seems to be a question that pops up every now and again, so I thought I'll document this little piece of code.

The scenario is that you have a drop down list using a selectOneChoice component on your page - and you want to find out the selected value in a backing bean.
For example the departmentId field in this page:

The first thing everyone try and do is to access the list component in a backing bean and invoke the getValue method on it. But then they realize that this only returns the actual index of the row that was selected and not the value.

The following little piece of code will get you that value.
What it does is access the bindings object, get the list binding, and then invoke the getSelectedValue method on it.

public void buttonPressed(ActionEvent actionEvent) {

// Get the binding
BindingContainer bindings =
BindingContext.getCurrent().getCurrentBindingsEntry();
// Get the sepecific list binding
JUCtrlListBinding listBinding =
(JUCtrlListBinding)bindings.get("DepartmentId");
// Get the value which is currently selected
Object selectedValue = listBinding.getSelectedValue();
System.out.println(selectedValue);
}

Note that the binding name I'm getting (DepartmentId) is the last one in this picture - see the list binding icon next to it.

JDeveloper Twitter Feed Has Moved

2009-10-26T16:42:46Z

If you are wondering what you haven't seen updates on your twitter JDeveloper feed, it might be that you missed the fact that we moved it to a new user.
Update your bookmarks/tracking service:
http://twitter.com/jdeveloper

Or update your RSS feedreader:
http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/29300975.rss

ADF Faces UIs Popping Up All Around at OOW 09

2009-10-23T19:55:23Z

One comment I heard at OOW from a couple of people was that it seems that ADF has a much bigger presence at this year conference.
I guess that one reason for this is that a bunch of products/applications that have been in the works last year are now in production and were show cased at OOW this year.

Things like the new SOA Suite BPM Worklist:

Or the new Enterprise Manager:

Or WebCenter Spaces:

Add to this the UIs we built for the Thomas Kurian's keynote:

The UI's some of our customers showed.

And of course the UI's of the Oracle Fusion Applications that Larry showed in his keynote:

Check out more of those screen shots here.

New JDeveloper/ADF Bloggers

2009-10-22T20:50:02Z

It's always nice to see new people join the JDeveloper/ADF community - especially when these people are willing to contribute and share their knowledge.
So here is a quick shout out to a few bloggers who started to blog about JDeveloper and ADF in the recent months.
Make sure to add them to your feed:

Jobinesh - http://jobinesh.blogspot.com/
Maiko Rocha - http://adfgarage.blogspot.com/
Ed Eaglehouse - http://suncat-jsf.blogspot.com/
Eric Schott - http://blogs.oracle.com/jdev11g/
George Maggessy - http://georgemaggessy.blogspot.com/
Michael Lee - http://blogs.oracle.com/michaellee/
Vikram Kohli - http://kohlivikram.blogspot.com/
Mohammed Tanveer - http://tanveeroracle.blogspot.com/
Avrom Roy Faderman - http://www.avromroyfaderman.com/
Steve Muench - not a new blogger but a new location - http://blogs.oracle.com/smuenchadf/

You can get an RSS feed of the latest technical entries we know about here: http://www.connotea.org/rss/user/jdeveloper

ADF Applications Show Case at OOW 09

2009-10-16T15:59:16Z

One cool session at OOW 09 unconference was the Oracle ADF Enterprise Methodology group - show me yours session.

It was basically a bunch of ADF customers showcasing a bit of the applications that they have running in production and talking about the special features that their system implements.
It was an interesting mix of both 10.1.3 and 11g versions.

A quick recap and some pictures:

Bashir from Innowave showed off the 11g UI they built to help users understand their business flows inside the Oracle SOA suite.

Wes from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center showed parts of their 10.1.3 applications that has been in production for 2 years now with about 200 users - managing medical info.

Andrejus from Red Samurai showed the 11g system that they built for MedNet to replace an Oracle Forms application.

John from the substance abuse 7 mental health service administration (SAMHSA) showed the 10.1.3 application they are about to put on the Web to help people locate centers near them where they can get help.

Greg from ECS showed the 11g system currently running at Collect America helping them collect debts.

(For bigger versions of the images look here).

One hour after the session ended there was another showcase of ADF based application - this time by Larry Ellison showing of the new Oracle Fusion Applications - but more on this in a separate entry.

Oracle Develop Day 4? - Yes, it's in the unconference

2009-10-13T22:05:55Z

Oracle Develop only lasts 3 days, but if you are still thirsty for more ADF knowledge, don't miss the un-official ADF track running tomorrow at the Oracle OpenWorld Un-Conference.

We'll have ADF presentations from 9 till 5 including:

9:00 a.m. Rich Client Interfaces via Functional UI Patterns & Best Practices from
10:00 a.m. Extreme Faces Makeover - Inject ADF Faces Rich Client Components into your applications
11:00 a.m. The Secrets of ADF Region Interaction
1:00 p.m. ADF Methodology Group Meeting
2:00 p.m. ADF Methodology Group Meeting - Show me Yours session
3:00 p.m. Tips for JDeveloper Users - The Small things that make the difference
4:00 p.m. Data Visualization Components in a nutshell

The other advantage of coming to this set of sessions is that you won't need to go outside of Moscone south the whole day - and you'll stay dry.

See you tomorrow.

Did OpenWorld Start Already?

2009-10-12T04:52:19Z

It's the first time in many years that I didn't need to be in the San Francisco for the Sunday part of OOW. Somehow all the stars aligned, and none of my sessions/labs at Oracle develop got assigned to Sunday. So I took advantage of this to spend a day with the family before I disappear for the next 5 days.

To compensate my day tomorrow is probably my busiest at OOW with an Oracle Develop session, another OOW session and a demoground shift at the ADF Faces pod.

To tell the truth, I still did OOW related stuff today - I tracked the blog posts on www.OraNA.info to keep up to speed with what people are doing there.
I also spent another hour putting the finishing touches on the demo for my 10:15 session at Oracle Develop tomorrow (Developing with JSF/EJB 3.0 and JPA: A More Productive Way).
This session is aimed at Java developers (and WebLogic customers) who are currently working on Java EE applications, and it shows them how JDeveloper and ADF can take them to the next level of productivity when building applications using the JPA/EJB and JSF stack.

If you never took a look at ADF before for your Java development - this will be a good introduction.
If you never took a look at Java before for your development - come to my 5:00pm session (The Oracle Fusion Development Experience: An Overview) and get a bit of a higher level picture with less acronyms :-)

My JDeveloper and ADF Sessions at OOW

2009-10-06T16:47:22Z

It's that crazy time of the year again - Oracle Develop and Oracle OpenWorld are starting next week, and we are finalizing slides, demos and the rest of the activities.

Some tips for JDeveloper/ADF users
Here is a list of all the activities that cover JDeveloper and ADF - note that this has been updated last week so grab a fresh copy.

Make sure to book the hands-on labs and sessions you are interested in through the schedule builder application - this will guarantee your spot.

Don't miss the ADF Track at the Unconference area on Wed - this includes a special meeting of the ADF Methodology Group and various other technical sessions all in the Overlook I room from 9 to 5

While at Oracle Develop make sure to visit the JDeveloper Usability folks at their develop demo ground booth - you will get a chance to win a Wii as well as influence how the tool will look.

Don't miss the Oracle demoground - this is where you can get a chance to talk directly to us product managers. Look us up at the Moscone West demoground.

Here is where you can catch me at the conference:
(Click here to read the abstracts for the sessions)

Monday

10:15 Developing with JSF/EJB 3.0 and JPA: A More Productive Way - Hilton Golden Gate 4/5

12:30-2:30 ADF Faces Demo Booth - Moscone West

5:30 The Oracle Fusion Development Experience: An Overview - Marriott Hotel Salon 7

Tuesday

10:30 Navteq Booth showing of our Map component

2:30 Hands-on Lab Adding Dynamic Data Visualization to Web Applications - Hilton Hotel Continental Ballroom 6

Wednesday

11:15-1:15 ADF Faces Demo Booth - Moscone West
1:15-3:00 ADF Enterprise Methodology Group - Moscone West Unconference
3:00 Tips for JDeveloper Users - The Small things that make the difference - Moscone West Unconference

Thursday

1:30 Web 2.0 Front Ends for PeopleSoft, Oracle E-Business Suite, and Siebel Apps - Moscone West L3 Room 3020

Changing the Aggregation of an ADF Pivot Table

2009-10-02T22:27:39Z

A quick tip for people using the ADF Pivot Table component.

When you are using a pivot table with ADF binding by default the table aggregates the data using the SUM function for each intersection of axises.
However - you can actually change the aggregation to be something else like Avg, Count and more.

To do this you'll need to go into the binding tab of your page, choose the pivotTable binding you added and navigate to the data in the structure pane. Then in the property inspector you'll see other options for the aggregation like this (right click -> view image for the full size version):

Oracle ADF at Silicon Valley Code Camp - This Weekend

2009-09-29T16:02:35Z

I'm going to present two sessions at the upcoming Silicon Valley Code Camp this weekend (Oct 3th and 4th). One will be an overview of the whole ADF framework and the other is a deeper dive into the ADF Faces part and how it enables the creation of Ajax UIs with JSF.
You can find the sessions info here.

For those not familiar with the Code Camp concept - the idea is to have a conference organized by the community and for the community, and as such it is FREE for all.
You can come and hear sessions about a variety of development topics - just register online and show-up. This year there is a complete Oracle Track in the conference.
So if you are in the Silicon Valley area and you want to expand your horizons a bit - here is a free, easy way to do it.

Web Services with Complex Data Types in ADF 11g

2009-09-11T21:31:43Z

A guest post by Srikant Subramaniam from our Fusion Middleware for Apps product management group.

The Web Service Data Control

The Web Service Data Control in ADF 11g provides an easy and convenient interface to incorporate web services in an ADF application. The data control abstracts the implementation of a business service (such as a web service) thus providing a consistent mechanism for the ADF pages to access the data.

While most of the simple samples out there will show you how to invoke a Web service that returns a simple string, there are some specific things you need to know when you are working with complex data types.

Complex Data Types

A complex data type wraps a number of attributes, such as an array of objects. For instance, the request object for the "getObject" operation contains an array of individual attributes as shown below:

Similarly, the response object can also contain several individual attributes:

In JDeveloper 10.1.3 there was no out-of-the-box support for complex data types, hence the inability to drag and drop only the relevant input/output attributes onto the JSF page when designing the ADF UI.
As a result, we had the following workarounds:
1. For complex input parameters, create an instance of the complex input type in a managed bean and add it to the parameter map of an Oracle ADF operation binding that invoked the web service, as described here.
2. For complex return types, either via the use of web service data control; or a web service proxy, as described here.
While these workarounds were fully functional, they introduced the need for custom Java coding/development.

This has changed with JDeveloper and ADF 11g, and complex data types are now supported out-of-the-box, creating an ADF client does not require any custom Java coding and is accomplished via drag/drop style data binding of the complex data types.

This tutorial shows how to build an ADF 11g client using complex data types.

A Guide to JDeveloper and ADF at Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop

2009-09-10T23:03:45Z

If I'm not mistaken there are over 2000 sessions running at Oracle Open World this year - so reading the agenda and planning what to see when can be quite a long task for anyone to take.

One thing we are trying to do to simplify your task is to provide "Focus On" documents that lists all the sessions for a specific topic.

I'm assuming that if you are reading this blog you are interested in JDeveloper and ADF - so the document for you is here.

As you'll see a lot of our sessions are in the first three days at Oracle Develop - the main event for developers held in the Hilton SF this year.
Note that is you have a regular OOW pass, you'll need to extend it to get access to these sessions - do this before you arrive.

Once the three first days are over you still get to hear JDev/ADF content at OOW - and new this year - in the unofficial ADF track at the OOW unconference.
On Wed in Moscone West, we lined up a full day of technical sessions about ADF and JDeveloper along with a meeting of the ADF Methodology Group - Note that these sessions won't appear in your online scheduling tool - so make a mental note about them and make sure to attend.

Beyond all of the sessions and labs, don't miss your chance to interact directly with JDeveloper experts at the OOW demoground - we'll have 3 booths dedicated to JDeveloper, ADF Faces and ADF Mobile there - so come and say hello.

Now you have the basic details - and you can spend the next 4 weeks planning your schedule.

What Would You Like To See In The Next JDeveloper?

2009-08-20T00:03:29Z

We are in the process of collecting requirements for one of the next versions of JDeveloper.
And we figured we'll give you a chance to tell us what you would like to see.
To make it interesting try and prioritize your request (since we probably won't be able to implement every little one of them).
Then post your list on this OTN thread.

Also please try and be specific - for example, instead of saying better documentation - tell us what type of docs you would like to see and what specific topics do you want us to cover.

Thanks for helping us create a better tool.

P.S. - if you are still on version 10.1.3.* you might be interested in the newly released 10.1.3.5 version of JDeveloper now on OTN.
Here is the Fix list.

Removing Applications from your Integrated WebLogic Server in JDeveloper

2009-08-06T22:54:03Z

JDeveloper has an integrated WebLogic Server now - and when you deploy the applications to it, it behaves a little different then in the old days of OC4J. For example you can have multiple applications deployed and running at the same time on the server.
However, sometimes one of those application might still be around when you don't need it anymore. This can happen for example if you had your WLS running and killed it with the task manager.

This might cause an error when you try and run the application again - saying that the application is already up there.

The nice thing in JDeveloper is that you can actually undeploy that application directly from inside JDeveloper. Here is how:

From the View menu choose Application Server Navigator
Expend the IntegratedWLSConnection to look at the applications that are available.
(By the way, you should see there all the ADF libraries, DO NOT UNDEPLOY THEM)

Next you can locate your application, right click it and undeploy it.

That's it.
You should now be able to redploy it.