Apache OFBiz Development: The Beginner

Table of Contents

• Preface

• Chapter 1: Getting Started with OFBiz
• Getting the OFBiz Code
• Downloading and Installing SVN
• Downloading TortoiseSVN
• Using SVN to Get OFBiz
• Our OFBiz Workspace—First Look
• Installing the Java Development Kit (JDK)
• Downloading JDK 5.0
• Installing JDK 5.0

• Downloading OFBiz Ready to Launch
• Setting Up an Eclipse Project
• Using Derby—the OFBiz Stock Database
• Compiling OFBiz and Loading the Data
• Verifying the Installation Process
• The Compilation Portion
• The Data Loading Portion
• Some Pre-Ignition Processes we won't do Twice
• Backing Up the Derby Data Files

• Running OFBiz
• Allocating Memory for OFBiz
• Starting OFBiz and Verifying the Start-Up Process
• Seeing the Logs in Real Time
• Possible Problems with Start-Up

• Switching Off OFBiz
• Our First Tour of OFBiz
• Accessing OFBiz
• Exploring the Webapp "ecommerce"
• Let's Buy Something
• Exploring the Webapp "order"
• Receiving Payment
• Fulfilling the Order
• Invoice Automatically Generated with Payment Applied
• End-to-End Tour Completed

• Summary

• Chapter 2: Working with OFBiz
• Adding Our First Field
• Changing the Data
• Editing the Entity Definition
• Updating the Database
• Changing the Looks
• Editing the User-Interface
• Checking Our Changes
• Changing the Flow
• Rewiring the "Save" (Update Postal Address) Button
• Creating the New Widget Screen
• Creating the FTL File
• More to the Flow
• Some Changes Possible with Engines Running
• Resetting Our Play Area Quickly
• Skipping Some Pre-Ignition Processes
• Restoring Derby Data Files
• Removing the Web Server (Catalina) Work Files
• Updating the Database with Our Data Entity Changes
• Showing Off Our Spanking New OFBiz Installation
• Tripping Up Our Plan
• Storing a Save-Point to Dramatically Ease Testing
• Archiving Derby Data Files and Web Server Work Files
• Restoring a Save-Point
• Restoring the Derby Data Files
• Restoring the Web Server Work Files
• Computer, Run Scenario A from Last Save-Point
• The Structure of OFBiz in General
• Components in OFBiz
• Referencing Components in OFBiz
• Creating Our Own OFBiz Component
• Creating the Component
• Using Our Component
• Cleaning Up Our Mess in the "party" Component
• Converting the BeanShell to a Java Event
• Clean Extension Strategies Employed
• Checking that Our Move was Successful
• A Bit More Mess Remains
• Webapps in OFBiz
• Creating Our First Webapp
• Webapp URIs in this Book
• Testing Our First Webapp
• The Model-View-Controller Architectural Pattern
• The MVC in Plain English
• The Model in OFBiz
• The View in OFBiz
• The Controller in OFBiz
• Other Files in an OFBiz Component
• Summary

• Chapter 3: Screen Widgets
• Equipping Our Webapp with a Screen Widget View Handler
• Using the Screen Widget View Handler
• Files and Locations
• Creating Our First Screen Widget
• Defining a Screen Widget
• Informing the Control Servlet about the Screen Widget
• Referencing Screen Widgets
• Uniform Pattern of Flow in OFBiz
• Seeing Our First Screen Widget
• The Anatomy of the <section> Element
• Our First Conditional Screen Widget
• Element Order in the controller.xml
• Inform the Control Servlet about the Screen Widget
• If-Then-Else Structure
• The <if-condition> Element
• The Then—<actions> and <widgets> Elements
• The Else—<fail-widgets> Element
• The Minimum <section>
• Sending Parameters with Requests
• Seeing Our Conditional Screen Widget
• Screen Widget Context and Variables
• Utility Objects in Context
• Nested Sections for Nested Conditions
• Organizing a Large Screen into Smaller Screens
• The Global Context Revisited
• Outer Contexts Visible to Nested Ones
• Screen Widget's Integration with FreeMarker
• Cleaning Up in the "party" Component
• Commenting Changes to the Core Code
• Screen Widgets as Templates
• A Candidate for Templating
• Creating the Header
• Creating the Footer
• Using Our Header and Footer
• Seeing Our First Well-Formed XHTML Document
• Using Decorator Screen Widgets for Templating
• Creating a XHTML Decorator Screen
• Using the XHTML Decorator Screen
• Seeing Our First Decorator in Action
• Multiple Content Slots
• Creating the First Half of the Header
• Creating the Second Half of the Header
• Adding a Content Slot to a Decorator
• Using Our Multi-Slot Decorator
• Seeing Our First Multi-Slot Decorator
• Nesting Decorators
• Top-Down Approach (delegation)
• The Bottom-Up Approach (Vertical Stack)
• Using Both Approaches
• Summary

• Chapter 4: Form Widgets
• Files and Locations
• Creating Our First Form Widget
• Creating the Containing Screen Widget
• Referencing Form Widgets
• Create the Form Widget
• Seeing Our First Form
• Understanding the Form Attributes
• Minimum Requirements to Use Form Widgets
• Including the Minimal Requirements
• Form Processing via Request Event
• Java Events
• Submitting and Processing Our First Form
• The "list" Type Form Widget
• Creating the Containing Screen
• Adding Form Processing Code
• Publishing the Form
• Seeing Our First "list" Type Form
• The "multi" Type Form Widget
• Creating the Containing Screen
• Loading Data for the Form
• Publishing the Form
• Creating the Form-Processing Logic
• Seeing Our First "multi" Type Form
• Alternative Targets in Two-Target Forms
• Creating the Form
• Creating the Containing Screen
• Publishing the Two-Target Form
• Seeing Our First Two-Target Form
• Row-Level Actions
• Creating the Form
• Creating the Containing Screen
• Publishing the Form
• Seeing the Form in Action
• Summary

• Chapter 5: Other View Element Types in Screen Widgets
• Menu Widgets
• Creating Our First Menu Widget
• Including Our Menu Widget in Our Screen Widgets
• Understanding the Menu Item Attributes
• Including the Menu Widget via a Decorator Screen Widget
• Add Screen Widget "ConditionalScreen" to the Menu
• Sub-Menus and Conditional-Menu Items
• Pre-processing Actions for Menu Widgets
• FreeMarker
• As Decorator Templates
• Displaying Dynamically Created List Variables
• Iterating Through the List
• Bringing it All Together
• The User-Interface Labels
• Adding the appheader
• Summary

• Chapter 6: The Controller
• How OFBiz Hears Our Requests—The Control Servlet
• Defining a Control Servlet for a Webapp
• Using the Control Servlet
• Funnelling All Requests to the Single Control Servlet
• Defining Needed Utility Objects for the Control Servlet
• GenericDelegator Object
• The GenericDispatcher Object
• Some Background on Servlets
• Programming a Control Servlet
• Logging into Our Learning Application
• Specifying Handlers
• Request Maps
• Knocking on the Right Doors
• Security—Before Answering the Door
• The https Attribute
• The auth Attribute
• The direct-request Attribute
• Event—Determining a Response
• Java Events
• Response—Defining Various Responses
• View Maps
• Summary

• Chapter 7: Entities, View Entities, and Extended Entities
• Entities
• The Structure of the Data Model
• Referencing Fields of an Entity
• OFBiz Uses Relational Database Management Systems
• Curious Trivia about the Relational Model
• Entity Engine Concepts
• Datasources
• Entity Delegators
• Entity Groups
• Defining Our First Entity
• Assigning Our Entity to an Entity Group
• Loading Our Entity into the Entity Engine
• Seeing Our First Entity
• Using Our First Entity
• Creating a Drop-Down
• Populating the Drop-Down
• Expiring a Value
• Un-Expiring a Value
• Anatomy of an &lt;entity&gt; Element
• The <field> Element
• The <prim-key> Element
• The <relation> Element
• The <index> Element
• Relation Types
• One-to-One Relations
• One-to-Many Relations
• One-to-One Relations with No Foreign Keys
• View Entities
• Anatomy of a <view-entity>
• The <member-entity> Element
• The <alias> and <alias-all> Elements
• The <view-link> Element
• The <relation> Element
• Applying Functions on Fields
• Counting the Number of Records
• Counting Distinct Records
• Arithmetic Aggregate Functions
• Uppercase and Lowercase Functions
• Grouping for Summary Views
• Complex Aliases
• Nested <complex-alias> Elements
• Extending Entities
• Summary

• Chapter 8: Accessing the Entities and View Entities
• Setting-Up Our Playground
• The Script Processor
• The Generic Screen
• Creating the Screen Widget
• Creating the Form Widget
• Creating the FreeMarker File
• Publishing Our Generic Screen
• Testing Our Playground
• GenericValue Objects
• Creating a Database Record
• Why a Map is Used?
• Updating Database Records
• Deleting Database Records
• Retrieving Database Records
• Find Records by Conditions
• Conditions
• Comparison Operators (EntityComparisonOperator)
• Condition Lists
• Condition Joiners (EntityJoinOperator)
• Tools for Common Styles of Conditions
• Conditions Joined by AND
• Conditions Joined by OR
• Counting the Number of Records Retrieved
• OFBiz Date Condition
• Getting Related Records
• One-to-One Relations
• One-to-Many Relations
• Utilities for Post-Query processing
• Post-Query Ordering
• Post-Query Filtering by Conditions
• Post-Query Filtering by Date
• Other Post-Query Filtering Methods
• Using the Entity Engine Cache
• Dynamic View Entities
• Left Outer Joins with the Dynamic View Entity
• Performing the Lookup
• EntityFindOptions
• Paginating Using the EntityListIterator
• Paginating through Party Records: A Working Example
• Functions and Dynamic View Entities
• Summary

• Chapter 9: The Events
• Java Events
• Security and Access Control
• User Logins are like Access Cards
• Security Groups are like Access Levels
• Security Permissions are like Individual Secured Areas
• Security Permissions are Contained within Security Groups
• User Logins are Assigned Security Groups
• Dealing with Security in Java
• Sending Feedback to the End-User
• Conventions for Message Placeholders
• Testing the Conventions
• Handling Parameters
• Accessing Localized Messages
• Parameterizing Messages
• Catering for Multiple Languages
• Working with the Database
• Summary

• Chapter 10: The Service Engine
• Defining a Service
• Creating the Java Code for the Service
• Testing Our First Service
• Service Parameters
• Input Parameters (IN)
• Output Parameters (OUT)
• Two Way Parameters (INOUT)
• Special Unchecked Parameters
• Optional and Compulsory Parameters
• The DispatchContext
• Service Security and Access Control
• Calling Services from Java Code
• Implementing Interfaces
• Overriding Implemented Attributes
• Synchronous and Asynchronous Services.
• Using the Job Scheduler
• Quickly Running a Service
• Naming a Service and the Service Reference
• Event Condition Actions (ECA)
• Service Event Condition Actions (SECAs)
• Entity Event Condition Actions (EECAs)
• Summary

• Chapter 11: Permissions and the Service Engine
• Simple Permissions
• Two-Part Permissions and Special "_ADMIN" Permissions
• Role Checks
• Combining Multiple Checks
• Nested Checks
• Complex Permissions
• Setting-Up Our Playground
• Creating the Request and View Maps
• Creating the Screen and Form Widgets
• Creating the Entity PlanetReview
• Defining Services that Require Complex Permission
• Implementing Services that Require Complex Permission
• Defining Permission Services
• Implementing Permission Services
• Playing with Complex Permissions
• Complex Permissions and Simple Permissions cannot be combined
• Summary

• Chapter 12: Minilang
• What is Minilang?
• Tools to Code XML
• Defining a Simple Service
• Defining the Simple Service
• Writing the Simple Method
• Simple Events
• Validating and Converting Fields
• Validating a Simple Event Example
• Checking Security in Minilang
• Invoking from Minilang
• Calling Services from Minilang
• Calling Simple Methods
• Calling Java Methods
• Calling BeanShell
• Minilang in Screen Widgets
• Summary

• Chapter 13: Tying Up the Loose Ends
• The OFBiz Look and Feel
• Changing the Customer Facing Site
• Changing the Back Office Screens
• The Header
• The Applications Bar (appbar)
• The Central Area
• The Footer
• Using FreeMarker
• OFBiz Transform Tags
• <@ofbizUrl>
• <@ofbizContentUrl>
• <@ofbizCurrency>
• Calling Java from FreeMarker
• OFBiz Utilities
• UtilMisc
• UtilValidate
• UtilDateTime
• Debug

• Outputting Different Formats
• Outputting a PDF

• Summary

• Chapter 14: Tips and Techniques
• Debugging Techniques
• Logging
• console.log
• ofbiz.log
• Configuring the Logs
• Viewing the Logs through Webtools
• Writing Information to the Logs
• Logging Minilang
• Debugging Java Code
• Passing in the VM Parameters
• Configuring the Remote Debugger

• Managing a Project Using Subversion
• Preparing the Repository and Creating the Project
• Step 1: Checking Out the Latest OFBiz Code
• Step 2: Making a Copy
• Step 3: Importing Our Copy
• Step 4: Branching ofbiz\current to Create the Trunk
• Getting the Latest Features and Bug Fixes
• Step 5: Updating OFBiz Current
• Step 6: Merging Changes between Revisions of OFBiz Current into Our Project

• Apache HTTP Server and OFBiz using mod_proxy_ajp
• Installing the Apache HTTP Server
• What is mod_proxy_ajp?
• Configuring Apache HTTP Server to Use mod_proxy_ajp
• Configuring OFBiz to Use the AJP Connector
• Getting the Secure Pages to Work
• Configuring SSL in Apache
• Creating a Self-Signed SSL Certificate
• Going into Production

• Development Tips
• Summary

• Appendix A: Simple Method User's Guide
• <simple-methods>
• <simple-method>

• Call Operations
• <call-map-processor>
• <call-service> / <call-service-asynch>
• <set-service-fields>

• Handling the Results of Service Calls
• <results-to-map>
• <result-to-field>
• <result-to-request>
• <result-to-result>
• <call-bsh>
• <call-simple-method>
• <call-object-method>
• <call-class-method>

• Service Operations
• <field-to-result>

• Event Operations
• <session-to-field>

• Environment Operations
• <set>
• <clear-field>
• first-from-list>

• Miscellaneous Entity Operations
• <sequenced-id-to-env>
• <make-next-seq-id>

• Entity Find Operations
• <entity-one>
• <entity-and>
• <entity-condition>
• Sub-Elements
• <condition-list>
• having-condition-list>
• <select-fields>
• <order-by>
• <entity-condition> complete example:
• <entity-count>
• <get-related-one>
• <get-related>
• <order-value-list>
• <filter-list-by-and>
• <filter-list-by-date>

• Entity Value Operations
• <make-value>
• <clone-value>
• <create-value>
• <store-value>
• <refresh-value>
• <remove-value>
• <remove-related>
• <remove-by-and>
• <set-pk-fields> / <set-nonpk-fields>
• <store-list>

• Control Operations
• <iterate>
• <iterate-map>
• <check-errors>
• <add-error>
• <return>

• If Conditions
• <if-validate-method>
• <if-instance-of>
• <if-compare>
• <if-compare-field>

• Conditions:
• Other Operations
• <log>
• <now-timestamp-to-env>
• <now-date-to-env>
• <set-current-user-login>
• <calculate>

• Index