Eclipse Scout (re-)activate Form in SWT Client - java

yet a new Eclipse Scout question from me:
In my Scout Application which is roughly based on the template "Outline Tree and Table Form" I managed to add new instances of a (search)form with a click on a node. My form's display properties are configured like this:
#Override
protected int getConfiguredDisplayHint() { return DISPLAY_HINT_VIEW; }
#Override
protected String getConfiguredDisplayViewId() { return VIEW_ID_PAGE_DETAIL; }
I'm not adding the forms to pages with the built-in methods(e.g. setDetailForm(IForm form)), but I set them as a new attribute to the pages and start them via their FormHandler. In this way I achieve that the Scout renderer tabs the forms next to each other and this is exactly what I want. Adding them as forms to the page causes the renderer to close the other forms whenever a page is activated, so only one form is displayed at one time.
My problems with this implementation are:
Reactivation of the tabs is only possible in the RAP client. For the RAP client it is enough to call the activate() method of the form to reactivate and focus the corresponding tab.
On the other hand the SWT client (which I depend on) doesn't seem to care at all about the activate() call and therefore does not reactivate the page.
So I'm searching for a safe and easy way to persuade the SWT renderer of
tabbing the forms next to each other preferably without the use of a Scout TabField. As described above, this is already working, but I'm not sure if this is the recommended way.
reactivate the tabs on a NodeClick as the RAP client already does
Receive events when clicking on the tab closing the tab (X-button in SWT, no button in RAP -.-), or whatever. I think this question is bit broader as it is a general problem in Scout to step into product-specific processes which are not part of the abstract programming model of Scout. Nevertheless, it would be nice to process those event and others out of the global client without tweaking the specific rendering products.
A screenshot of my program's UI to make things easier to follow:
In the screenshot the fifth form is activated as a view and the corresponding node in the outline tree on the left is also marked. As you see, there are multiple forms added which all belong to a node in the outline tree. When I click a node in the tree, I want the corresponding form to be activated and focuse if it hasn't been openend before. Apart from that the tabs should stay the same. I don't want to reinitialize the forms that already exist.
I'm using Scout Version 5.0

The RAP UI is nearer to the SWING UI than to the SWT. This is why, out of the box, the views can not be closed with the x in RAP (similar to Swing).
For SWT we rely on the workbench provided by the Eclipse Platform. This defines how views are opened and tabbed in a View Stack.
For me it is Ok to use scout (SWT renderer) that way. Here an example:
The ComplexForm is opened as a SWT View next to the already opened Form.
I am surpised to hear that activate() on the scout Form doesn't work for you. I had a similar problem, raised Bug 433010 and we decided to close it, exactly because the activate() method was the solution.
ComplexForm form = new ComplexForm();
form.startNew();
form.activate();
I guess that on any event (a click somewhere on a Menu or on a Node) you can get call activate() on the form instance.
Which version of Scout are you using?
Maybe you could add a Screenshot in your question, because I am missing your point.

Related

ADF Web Application: how to add and modify UI components on page loading (before it's displayed)?

I would like to know which are the different available approaches to add, modify and delete UI components before a page loaded.
A practical example that I should handle is the following:
In my ADF Fusion Web Application (developed with JDev12.1.3) there are the pages login.jspx and main.jspx: if the user logs in correctly navigation to main.jspx happens.
In main.jspx there is an empty menu bar that at runtime I would like to fill with menus and menu items when the page loads, in function of the logged in user.
In the same page, in function of the logged in user, I also would like to add at runtime some UI components (output texts, buttons, ...) whith the chance to set their properties.
Could you kindly advice me which approaches I can follow to accomplish these duties?
Thanks,
Federico
Why not using the rendered attribute? Based on the condition the components will be rendered or not.
Personally the two approaches i've used on my works where:
1. Using the beforePhaseListener on the f:view component. Example: Before Phase on JSF page. But it might cause you some problems when taking account of adf lifecycle, especially if you have integrated parts (or even some simple jQuery components...).
2. And i think this would just do fine in your case, use a f:event component of type "preRenderComponent". Example: How to use prerendercomponent. I suggest this second option
Note: It's true that these aren't ADF Faces components, but since it's built on top of JSF, they work as they should. I can assure you they do work on 11g and don't expect any problems on 12c.
I see two approaches. Use addChild() and related methods to physically add/remove menu items, or have the menu pre-built and use the visible property to show hide items.
As far as making this happen in custom code, you can use a Backing Bean (Managed Bean) that contains the code to determine what items to add/remove or make visible based on whatever criteria you choose. To call this code, you can 1) use the Invoke action in the rebinding layer - have it call the desired backing bean method - make sure to drag the Invoke action the TOP of the executables list. This is the older, less preferred method. The newer, more preferred method is to add the backing bean method to the Task flow and have it navigate to the deserted page. This method can be part of the navigation form another page. Ex: After successful Login, navigate to your method an chav sit navigate to the Main page. The method will execute before the page loads and will set values to have the items added or visible or not.
RichSelectOneChoice choiceList;
List child = choiceList.getChildren();
child.clear();
for (int i = 0; i < child.size(); i++){
child.remove(i);
}
if ("1..1".equalsIgnoreCase(ccCode)){
UISelectItem addChild = new UISelectItem();
addChild.setItemLabel("1..1");
addChild.setItemValue("1..1");
child.add(addChild);
} else if ("0..1".equalsIgnoreCase(ccCode)){
UISelectItem addChild1 = new UISelectItem();
addChild1.setItemLabel("0..1");
addChild1.setItemValue("0..1");
child.add(addChild1);
UISelectItem addChild2 = new UISelectItem();
addChild2.setItemLabel("1..1");
addChild2.setItemValue("1..1");
child.add(addChild2);
}
Have you posted this question to he ADF forum, here?

Programming with a Java MVC approach using NetBeans GUI builder

I've been tasked with making a GUI that essentially takes a bit of user input and does some folder/file manipulation on various drives accessible by the machine the program is being run on. While designing this GUI, I'm starting to realize that MVC will make my life much easier and anyone else who decides to modify code, but I can't really see how this can be done via NetBeans.
I've done a bit of reading up on this topic, and I can't really see any clear cut answers as to whether or not this can be done on NetBeans. Surely it can be done if I programmatically build the GUI, but that somewhat defeats the purpose of why I chose to use NetBeans.
Netbeans is fine to do this.
The key thing to realize is that while all of the basic Swing components are MVC, for the most part you don't interact with them that way. A simple text field has it internal model, but that model isn't your model, the text field is more a primitive.
Your model deals with higher level events (button actions and what not), rather than button presses and arrow moves and mouse clicks.
So, for high level MVC, the primary mechanism of communication is through PropertyChangeListeners. And the basic task of building your app up is wiring the PCLs of the assorted data elements along with their GUI components together.
For example, a simple case is you have a list of items. And that list is rendered on the screen via a JTable, and that table is on a JPanel.
Your list has it's own model, i.e. it's not simply a Java List. It's not a List because standard Java Lists don't support PCL notifications. But your Model would obviously wrap such a List.
Now, the next question is how do you wire up JTable to be associated with your List model.
One, you could subclass JTable and bind it to your Model. Or, more simply, you use the JTable as a primitive, and let the enclosing JPanel manage the interaction between your Model and the JTable.
That means having your JPanel implement PropertyChangeListener, and then, when wiring everything up, you do something like this:
ListModel myModel = new ListModel();
ListPanel myPanel = new ListPanel();
myModel.addPropertyChangeListener(myPanel);
Now, whenever your ListModel is changed, is will notify the ListPanel.
On your ListPanel you can having something like:
#Override
public void propertyChange(PropertyChangeEvent evt) {
if (evt.getPropertyName().equals(ListModel.CHANGED)) {
ListModel model = (ListModel) evt.getSource();
DefaultTableModel tm = (DefaultTableModel) listTable.getModel();
tm.setRowCount(0);
for (String s : model.getList()) {
tm.addRow(new Object[]{s});
}
}
}
Now, you can see this simply reloads the entire table model, but you can make your property changes as fine grained as you want. You can also see that if this was some other model (like a Person or something) you can populate individual text fields and whatnot on the panel.
This is a pretty simple GUI, but it shows the fundamentals of how this all wires together. I think a bit of this is lost in the Swing examples which are great for one panel screens but don't scale at all when you start adding other views.
Your JPanels basically become combined VC, as your GUI gains complexity you can factor those kinds of things out, but its works pretty well for reasonable amounts of screens and such.
There are two ways in which Netbeans can help you leverage its codebase: GUI Builder (1) and NB Platform (2).
(1) Netbeans had for a while one of the better drag-n-drop GUI builders in the Java world, codenamed Matisse.
That said, it's been a long time since I worked with it - and I never really liked the generated code, it wasn't very comprehensible (which of course is not the purpose of auto-generated code). For more complex UIs we hand-wrote the layout and the work was bearable, even if not the most pleasant. For simple UIs, I'd try GUI Builder again, for complex UIs with a lot of wired logic, I'd probably still would write it by hand.
To see how the GUI Builder works, take a look at one of the many tutorial videos, e.g. this one:
NetBeans GUI Builder: Adding Components
(2) Netbeans Platform is to Netbeans, what RCP is to Eclipse. A rich set of components developed for an IDE, that can be reused. I briefly looked into NB Platform and we would have used it, if the project didn't change course. Maybe this SO question can shed more light on this aspect: Which Rich Client Platform to use?.
Concerning MVC. There was JSR 296, a generic Swing Application Framework, that looked somewhat promising, but was withdrawn in 2011. That did not stop people to fork it and work on it, as this project shows: Better Swing Application Framework, with a release in mid 2012. Even if you do not use such a framework, please do not put all code in one class (as you mention in you comment), but create a simple model/controller and keep the UI components separate. It does not need to be fancy for a simple app, a minimal MVC-ish separation of concerns might suffice.
I also hit this problem and i found a link which gives a good example how to seperate the controller from the view using the NetBeans GUI builder.
Here is the link.

Multiple Page Development in Java with Eclipse and GWT

I have been writing some basic code for an application I am designing. I have learned the basics and gotten some simple database connection working with RPC calls etc. What I need to do now and am completely lost (as I am traditionally a c# developer with windows forms).
In c# if I wanted a new form I would just create it, and then call the show method.
How does one create multiple pages in GWT, and switch between them?
Thanks in advance,
Chris
The simplest way would be to
Make a new java class (GwtHome.java, GwtHelp.java etc)
Extend these classes by using the Composite class
Make the equivalent of a Master Page and add it to the rootPanel as a class with the appropriate headers, menu, footer and Content Placeholder (Could be any of the AbsolutePanel, VerticalPanel, HorizontalPanel objects provided by the GWT Framework)
By clicking on the menu clear the Placeholder and add the appropriate object of GwtHome, GwtHelp etc.
After getting aquanted with the above procedure, you might want to break up the code in many files using a design pattern as suggested by Andrei.
Simply clear the root panel (RootPanel.get().clear()) and add the widget for your new "page", the same way you added your first one.
If you're using LayoutPanels, do RootLayoutPanel.get().clear() instead.
Look at Activities and Places design pattern: https://developers.google.com/web-toolkit/doc/latest/DevGuideMvpActivitiesAndPlaces
I highly recommend it for a multipage GWT app. It explains pretty well how you create different "views", that are driven by their "activities", and tied to specific "places" (pages) that users can navigate.
Typically you use a LayoutPanel as your "page" container that occupies the entire available browser window. You split this LayoutPanel into 2-3 layers (zones), like top menu, side menu, main area. Each area contains one widget, usually a ScrollPanel, FlowPanel, or HtmlPanel. Then you use different widgets or HTML inside each of these widgets to display whatever you need. You may also create your own composite widgets that you can reuse in different pages.

Scene inside a Scene or Custom Control with JavaFX

After having used Swing for the past 3 years for School and such, I decided to give JavaFX a try and play around with it. With the new Scene Builder and NetBeans 7.2, it's been a blast so far.
The next step I'd like to do is convert a small project of mine into JavaFX. One of the issue however is that project uses a MVC Architecture. Basically I have a JFrame with a Toolbar, a JMenuBar, plus an empty JPanel.
The JPanel is used to display a View which is a JPanel built the using GUI Builder of NetBeans. This allows me to navigate to different view and each view is an independent component.
My question is as followed: Is there any ways to display a Scene inside a Scene? Or achieve similar result as a JPanel inside a JPanel, or a User Control inside a User Control (for the .Net folks)
Basically, I'd like to display another scene in the Gray area of the picture.
I had the same reaction when I came in: you want a Node (which feels wrong on a first glance). The Node is basically the root component that can contain itself (much like a JPanel) and though you can change out scenes on your stage if you're looking for the "root component" it will extend Node for the MVC basics.
http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/2/api/javafx/scene/Node.html
I'm sure you could get fancy and swap out scenes on your stage (which is totally viable) but from my Swing background the Node behaved more naturally. Caviat: I find I write a bit more framework and abstractions to make it work for me (wrapped classes with Groups etc...) but it definitely does the trick.
I hope to find a better way, for my "Module" based project I initially used Scenes, but found it completely restricting. The Nodes allow for much more dynamic content.
Best of luck.
edit: reading the doc after answering I really should say "Parent" but the direct subclasses of Node are all useful as containers)

UI for an intended XSL-FO designer in Java

I intend to write a XSL-FO designer in java for which i need to write an UI. The basic idea is to give the user a work pane wherein he/she can draw rectangles and these rectangles would in turn be associated to field containers in the underlying XSL-FO generator. Once the field container are done, the user should also be able to select any of the rectangles(field containers) created and add components into it. These will in turn be translated into field blocks that fall under the chosen field container.
Till now I have created a simple UI using JFames with mouseListeners hooked to them so that i can have users draw the rectangles on the work area.
Im stuck at the point on how to implement the part where the user selects one of the rectangles created in the previous steps.
Given the intent of the designer, is it possible to accomplish this using Jframes ?
Any pointers/suggestions on how i can achieve the motive of this designer would be of great help !
Please excuse me if any part of this post is noobish. I am one when it comes to UI.
JInternalFrame might be a starting point. You can connect them, as shown here, and add arbitrary components as required.

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