How-To Tutorials

  Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Reporting Create and manage business reports with Dynamics GP   Pre-installation checklist Before proceeding with our installation of the Analysis Cubes, we need to review our Pre-installation checklist. Review system requirements for server components – This includes determining which of the deployment configurations we will be using in our environment. Review security requirements for installing and configuring the server components: To install and configure the server components, the Windows user account must be in the Windows groups in the following chart, as described in the latest Analysis Cubes for Excel manual: Server ComputerWindows GroupsMicrosoft Dynamics GP Server ComputerAdministratorsSQL Server Computer for Microsoft Dynamics GP Company DatabasesAll versions of SQL Server: Administrators SQL Server 2005: SQLServer2005MSSQLUser SQL Server 2008: SQLServerMSSQLUserData Warehouse Database Server Computer (with Integration Services Installed)All versions of SQL Server: Administrators SQL Server 2005: SqlServer2005MSSQLUser; SQLServer2005DTSUser SQL Server 2008: SQLServerMSSQLUser; SQLServerDTSUserSQL Server Analysis Services ComputerAll versions of SQL Server: Administrators SQL Server 2005: SQLServer2005MSOLAPUser SQL Server 2008: SQLServerMSOLAPUser Dynamics GP server must be given access to read and write data on the data warehouse database server if it is a different physical machine. Gather information required for configuring the server components: The Dynamics GP company databases that will be used to populate the data warehouse database The name that will be used for the data warehouse database The SQL server name or instance name that the data warehouse database will reside on The locations of the data and log files for the SQL server instance The SQL Server Integration Services packages to install Whether to populate the warehouse database with detailed General Ledger transaction information for various modules or to use summary information Determine whether to populate each cube with all transactions or to enter an earliest date to import from the company databases Determine whether to include multicurrency information and if so, which reporting currency and exchange rate table to use for each company Define a password for the Dynamics User SQL Server login account that will be used by the company databases to access the data warehouse database using SQL Server Authentication Installing the Server Configuration Wizard Now that we have ensured we have met all system requirements and obtained the necessary security permissions to perform the installation, we can proceed with installing the Server Configuration Wizard. The installation can be started from the Dynamics GP 2010 Installation Media or by downloading the Analysis Cubes Installer package from either the PartnerSource or CustomerSource portals. Be sure that when downloading the package from these sites, you download the correct file whether you are on Dynamics GP 2010 RTM or Service Pack 1. To install the Server Configuration Wizard, follow these steps: Locate the Microsoft_DynamicsGP11_AnalysisCubesServer_x86.msi file you downloaded and double-click the file to open the Dynamics GP Server Setup Wizard. Click Next to proceed. On the License Agreement window, select the I Agree radio button and click Next. Enter the path for the destination folder to install the server configuration wizard program to. The default path is C:Program FilesMicrosoft DynamicsAnalysis Cubes for Microsoft Dynamics GP Server. Click Next. Click Next to complete the installation. Click Close to close the wizard. Using the Server Configuration Wizard to deploy the cubes Once we have installed the Server Configuration Wizard, we need to run the wizard to actually deploy the cubes. During the configuration wizard installation process, two files, named Microsoft.Dynamics.GP.AnalysisCubes.ConfigurationWizard2005.exe and Microsoft.Dynamics.GP.AnalysisCubes.ConfigurationWizard2008.exe are extracted to the destination folder. Shortcuts to these files, named Analysis Cubes Configuration Wizard for SQL Server 2005 and Analysis Cubes Configuration Wizard for SQL Server 2008 also are created on the desktop. To use the Server Configuration Wizard to Deploy the Cubes, follow these steps: Browse to the folder location where the Server Configuration Wizard was installed, or run the Analysis Cubes Configuration Wizard from the desktop. (Move the mouse over the image to enlarge.) On the Data Warehouse Setup window, enter the values for the fields based on the information you gathered in the Pre-Installation checklist section. On the Microsoft Dynamics GP database selection window, enter your Dynamics GP server name and select each company database(s) that will be included in the Data Warehouse and click Next. On the Analysis Cubes Integration Setup window, select the modules to include in the data warehouse and whether to import transactions in detail or in summary. A cutoff date can also be selected to limit transactions that are loaded. Click Next.  

Zenoss Core 3.x Network and System Monitoring Implement Zenoss core and fit it into your security management environment using this easy-to-understand tutorial guide. Creating Custom Device Reports When you view the Reports page in Zenoss Core, you should notice an empty report class called Custom Device Reports. The custom device report provides an interface that lets us query Zenoss Core for devices. Each device that matches the query is listed as a row on the report. Let's get started with a simple report to show uptime values for all devices, and then we'll talk through the options. With the Custom Device Reports organizer selected: Select Add Custom Device Report from the Add Report button (at the bottom of the Report Classes sidebar. In the Create Custom Device Report dialog, type a name for your report in the ID field. I'm going to use Uptime. When you click on Submit, the edit screen is displayed. Enter the following values for the Uptime report, as seen in the following screenshot. Leave all other fields set to their default values. Title: Uptime Sort Column: Name Columns: uptimeStr, getId To view the report, click the Save button, and then click on the View Report link (in the sidebar). The following screenshot shows the edit screen of our report: The next screenshot shows what our report looks like when we view it: (Move the mouse over the image to enlarge it.) As you see, we created a simple report that lists each device along with its uptime value. In this report, we use the Column field to do the heavy lifting. We specified the device attributes of uptimeStr and getId, which give us a human readable value of the device's uptime and the name of the device, respectively. A good place to find device attributes is in Appendix B, Device Attributes which lists common attributes you can use with TALES expressions. Our report shows columns for Name and Uptime, which are the values we specified in the Column Names field. For each attribute specified in the Columns field, we can define a corresponding friendly Column Name. List the column names in the same sequence as the columns. Now that we've seen how easy it is to get started with a simple report, we'll preface our more involved examples by reviewing the available report fields. Custom Device Report fields The following table shows the available fields on the custom device reports:     Field Description Example Name Descriptive name for the report. The name doesn't display on the report. Uptime Title The title displays on the report. Uptime Report Path Specify the device class to query. The default is /, which will include all devices. /Server/Linux Query Use the query field to filter and select data. Accepts a python or TALES expression. Leave blank to select all devices. here.hw.cpus.countObjects() > 0 here.sysUpTime() > -1 here.comments != "" Sort Column Specify the column that the report is sorted on. Can either be the Column or Column Name value. Name getId Sort Sense   Apply the specific sort order to the value in Sort Column. Can either be ascending or descending. asc   desc   Columns   Specify the data to display for each device returned in the query. This can take a device attribute or a python expression. Python expressions must be prefaced with python:. Enter one value per line. UptimeStr python:dev.hw.totalMemoryString()   Column Names   Define the human-friendly names that correspond to each value you entered in Columns.   Enter one value per line. Uptime   Total Memory There is minimal error checking done on the data you enter. If you enter a query with an invalid syntax, the View Report option will tell you about the error. If you enter more column names than you specify columns, the interface will turn all the column names red when you save the report. Let's refine our uptime report a bit more, so we can figure out exactly how we can build meaningful queries.

  Moodle JavaScript Cookbook Over 50 recipes for making your Moodle system more dynamic and responsive with JavaScript Introduction The Yahoo! UI Library (YUI) offers a range of widgets and utilities to bring modern enhancements to your traditional page elements. In this chapter, we will look at a selection of these enhancements, including features often seen on modern interactive interfaces, such as: Auto-complete: This feature suggests possible values to the user by searching against a list of suggestions as they start typing. We will look at two different ways of using this. First, by providing suggestions as the user types into a text box, and second, by providing a list of possible values for them to select from a combo list box. Auto-update: This technique will allow us to update an area of the page based on a timed interval, which has many uses as we'll see. In this example, we will look at how to create a clock by updating the time on the page at one second intervals. This technique could also be used, for example, to update a news feed every minute, or update stock information every hour. Resizable elements: A simple enhancement which allows users to dynamically resize elements to suit their needs. This could be applied to elements containing a significant amount of text which would allow the user to control the width of the text to suit their personal preference for ideal readability. Custom tooltips: Tooltips appear when an element is hovered, displaying the associated title or alternative text (that is, a description of an image or the title of a hyperlink). This enhancement allows us to have more control over the look of the tooltips making them more visually appealing and more consistent with the overall look and feel of our page. Custom buttons: This enhancement allows us to completely restyle button elements, modifying their look and feel to be consistent with the rest of our page. This also allows us to have a consistent button style across different platforms and web browsers. We will once again be using mostly YUI Version 2 widgets and utilities within the YUI Version 3 framework. At the time of writing, few YUI2 widgets have been ported to YUI3. This method allows us the convenience of the improvements afforded by the YUI3 environment combined with the features of the widgets from YUI2. Adding a text box with auto-complete A common feature of many web forms is the ability to provide suggestions as the user types, based on a list of possible values. In this example, we enhance a standard HTML input text element with this feature. This technique is useful in situations where we simply wish to offer suggestions to the user that they may or may not choose to select, that is, suggesting existing tags to be applied to a new blog post. They can either select a suggested value that matches one they have started typing, or simply continue typing a new, unused tag. How to do it... First, set up a basic Moodle page in the usual way. In this example, we create autocomplete.php with the following content: <?php require_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../config.php'); $PAGE->set_context(get_context_instance(CONTEXT_SYSTEM)); $PAGE->set_url('/cook/autocomplete.php'); $PAGE->requires->js('/cook/autocomplete.js', true); ?> <?php echo $OUTPUT->header(); ?> <div style="width:15em;height:10em;"> <input id="txtInput" type="text"> <div id="txtInput_container"></div> </div> <?php echo $OUTPUT->footer(); ?> Secondly, we need to create our associated JavaScript file, autocomplete.js, with the following code: YUI().use("yui2-autocomplete", "yui2-datasource", function(Y) { var YAHOO = Y.YUI2; var dataSource = new YAHOO.util.LocalDataSource ( ["Alpha","Bravo","Beta","Gamma","Golf"] ); var autoCompleteText = new YAHOO.widget.AutoComplete("txtInput", "txtInput_container", dataSource); }); How it works... Our HTML consists of three elements, a parent div element, and the other two elements contained within it: an input text box, and a placeholder div element to use to display the auto-complete suggestions. Our JavaScript file then defines a DataSource to be used to provide suggestions, and then creates a new AutoComplete widget based on the HTML elements we have already defined. In this example, we used a LocalDataSource for simplicity, but this may be substituted for any valid DataSource object. Once we have a DataSource object available, we instantiate a new YUI2 AutoComplete widget, passing the following arguments: The name of the HTML input text element for which to provide auto-complete suggestions The name of the container element to use to display suggestions A valid data source object to use to find suggestions Now when the user starts typing into the text box, any matching auto-complete suggestions are displayed and can be selected, as shown in the following screenshot: Adding a combo box with auto-complete In this example, we will use auto-complete in conjunction with a combo box (drop-down list). This differs from the previous example in one significant way—it includes a drop-down arrow button that allows the user to see the complete list of values without typing first. This is useful in situations where the user may be unsure of a suitable value. In this case, they can click the drop-down button to see suggestions without having to start guessing as they type. Additionally, this method also supports the same match-as-you-type style auto-complete as that of the previous recipe. How to do it... Open the autocomplete.php file from the previous recipe for editing, and add the following HTML below the text box based auto-complete control: <div style="width:15em;height:10em;"> <input id="txtCombo" type="text" style="vertical-align:top; position:static;width:11em;"><span id="toggle"></span> <div id="txtCombo_container"></div> </div> Next, open the JavaScript file autocomplete.js, and modify it to match the following code: YUI().use("yui2-autocomplete", "yui2-datasource", "yui2-element", "yui2-button", "yui2-yahoo-dom-event", function(Y) { var YAHOO = Y.YUI2; var dataSource = new YAHOO.util.LocalDataSource ( ["Alpha","Bravo","Beta","Gamma","Golf"] ); var autoCompleteText = new YAHOO.widget.AutoComplete("txtInput", "txtInput_container", dataSource); var autoCompleteCombo = new YAHOO.widget.AutoComplete("txtCombo", "txtCombo_container", dataSource, {minQueryLength: 0, queryDelay: 0}); var toggler = YAHOO.util.Dom.get("toggle"); var tButton = new YAHOO.widget.Button({container:toggler, label:"↓"}); var toggle = function(e) { if(autoCompleteCombo.isContainerOpen()) { autoCompleteCombo.collapseContainer(); } else { autoCompleteCombo.getInputEl().focus(); setTimeout(function() { autoCompleteCombo.sendQuery(""); },0); } } tButton.on("click", toggle); }); You will notice that the HTML we added in this recipe is very similar to the last, with the exception that we included a span element just after the text box. This is used as a placeholder to insert a YUI2 button control. This recipe is somewhat more complicated than the previous one, so we included some extra YUI2 modules: element, button, and yahoo-dom-event. We define the AutoComplete widget in the same way as before, except we need to add two configuration options in an object passed as the fourth argument. Next, we retrieve a reference to the button placeholder, and instantiate a new Button widget to use as the combo box 'drop-down' button. Finally, we define a click handler for the button, and register it. We now see the list of suggestions, which can be displayed by clicking on the drop-down button, as shown in the following screenshot: How it works... The user can type into the box to receive auto-complete suggestions as before, but may now use the combo box style drop-down button instead to see a list of suggestions. When the user clicks the drop-down button, the click event is fired. This click event does the following: Hides the drop-down menu if it is displayed, which allows the user to toggle this list display on/off. If it is not displayed, it sets the focus to the text box (to allow the user to continue typing), and execute a blank query on the auto-complete widget, which will display the list of suggestions. Note that we explicitly enabled this blank query earlier when we defined the AutoComplete widget with the "minQueryLength: 0" option, which allowed queries of length 0 and above.  

The process of creating the building blocks can be fully automated using features known as Live Path Effects (LPEs). They are very useful, easy to use, and ubiquitous. In a nutshell, LPEs twist, replicate, transform, and apply many other modifications to shapes in a sequential and repeatable way. There are many different types of LPEs available for Inkscape 0.48, and even more are being developed. In this article we will cover some of the most interesting ones available for this release. Bending paths In this recipe we will go through the basic Live Path Effect options using the Bend path effect. We will create a simple rectangle and morph it into a waving flag. We will also bend some letter shapes directly and through linking to objects to use as bending paths. How to do it... The following steps show how to use bending paths: Create a rectangle using the Rectangle tool (F4 or R), set its fill to #D5D5FF, stroke to 60% Gray, and stroke width to 1. Open the Path Effect Editor by using Shift + Ctrl + 7 or by going to Path | Path Effect Editor.... Under the Apply new effect, choose Bend and press Add, this will apply the Bend LPE to the rectangle but the rectangle won't change as a result of it. We now have several options available under Current effect. Select the Edit on-canvas option , and notice the bending line on the rectangle that appeared. Click on the green line (the Bezier segment) and drag slightly to bend the rectangle. Adjust more precisely using handles on the end nodes, and click on a node to show the handles. Here is what we have so far: Duplicate the rectangle (Ctrl + D) and move it away. Notice that the duplicated object will keep the LPE applied. Switch to the Node tool (F2 or N) and notice the four corner nodes of the original rectangle appear. The rectangle was automatically converted to a path when applying the LPE. Turn on the Show path outline (without path effects) and Show Bezier handles of selected nodes to see the original shape and its node handles. Move the nodes with the Node tool and notice how the bent shape updates accordingly: Press the 7 key to switch to the edit LPE bending path mode; if more adjustments are necessary, switch back to the Node tool using F2 or N. Select the other rectangle (the one we got in Step 6), click on the Copy path button in the Path Effect Editor and paste somewhere on canvas (Ctrl + V or right-click and choose Paste from the pop-up menu). Remove the fill and add a stroke to the pasted path for more clarity. This is a copy of the rectangle bending path but it is in no way connected to the rectangle or its LPE. Create an "S" using the normal mode of the Pencil tool (F6 or P) with Smoothing: set to 50. Switch to the Selector tool (Space or F1 or S) and copy the "S" (Ctrl + C). Select the rectangle with Bend applied to it and press the Paste path button in the Path Effect Editor to bend our rectangle in the form of the "S". The shape might look a bit weird if our rectangle length and width are similar; this can be corrected in the Bend LPE by changing the Width value. In this case, reducing the width from 1 to 0.2 produces the desired results: Create a "C" using the normal mode of the Pencil tool (F6 or P) with Smoothing: set to 50 and copy it (Ctrl + C). Select one of the objects with Bend applied to it and press the Link to path button in the Path Effect Editor in order to bend our rectangle in the form of the "C". The LPE object will be positioned over the "C" and the "C" shape will still be available for editing. Change the Width value if necessary. In our case, a value of 0.2 proved adequate. Select the "C" shape and edit it using the Path tool (F2 or N). Notice how editing the "C" shape automatically updates the LPE linked to it: There's more... Unexpected results can happen if the shape we're trying to bend is vertical (taller than wide); the Inkscape developers, in their wisdom, have provided a special Original path is vertical option that will adapt the bending effect accordingly. Bending groups We bent only one object in this recipe but bending groups is also possible. Just make sure the objects within the group are converted to paths before the bending is applied. Stacking LPEs It's possible to apply more than one LPE to a single object. You can preview what the shape looks like with or without a particular LPE applied by toggling the "eye" icon in the Effect list. Removing Path Effects Live Path Effects change the shape of an object while keeping the original shape information intact (these changes are made "Live", as in real time). This means that LPEs can be undone, and the Remove Path Effect option under the Path menu does exactly that. You have to remove the object from the selection and then select it again to update the Path Effect Editor display. Using Pattern Along Path We have already used the Pattern Along Path effect without even knowing it by choosing a shape in the Shape: option of the Pen and Pencil tools (we told you LPEs are ubiqitous!). This LPE takes a path and applies it along another one, like a reverse Bend LPE. In this recipe we will learn another method to widen the outline of a tree trunk created using Spiro Spline and explore some other options of this LPE. How to do it... The following steps will show how to widen an outline using Pattern Along Path: Create a tree trunk using the Spiro spline mode with the Pencil (F6 or P) tool. Set the Smoothing: to 34 and the Shape: to Triangle in. Open the Path Effect Editor by using Shift + Ctrl + 7 or by going to Path | Path Effect Editor.... You will see two LPEs listed: Spiro spline and Pattern Along Path. Select the Pattern Along Path by clicking on it to get to its options. Use the arrow handles to widen the shape. Notice how this affects only the skeleton path and the "tree trunk" remains the same width because it's governed by the LPE shape. To make the "tree trunk" appear wider change the original triangle using the Edit on-canvas option of the Pattern source. It will appear as a green path near the top-left corner of the page. Move the top triangle corner upwards and the bottom one downwards. Notice how the "tree trunk" appears wider. There is also another way to achieve the same result—using the Width option. Change it to 5 and see how the "tree trunk" gets even wider. This time the original triangle shape isn't modified. Tick the Pattern is vertical option. Notice how the shape changes depending on what base triangle orientation is taken as the pattern. Change the Pattern copies from Single, stretched to Single. Notice we only see a small triangle at the beginning of the skeleton path because the original triangle shape is much smaller than the skeleton path, and we're only using a single one without stretching it. Change the Pattern copies to Repeated, stretched. The triangles are "copied" along the skeleton and positioned one next to the other. If there is a small part of the skeleton path not covered using the original triangle size they are stretched a bit to compensate for it. Since they are so small compared to the skeleton path there isn't much difference between using the Repeated, stretched and Repeated option. Notice the Pattern is vertical is still enabled. Untick the Pattern is vertical option. Notice the change in triangles. Change the Spacing option to 25. Notice how the triangles are now spaced out. Tick the Pattern is vertical option. The triangles change shape again based on the orientation but now the spacing between them is noticeable. How it works... The Pattern Along Path LPE uses one path as a pattern that is to be stretched and/or repeated along a skeleton path. Other than using the Shape: option of the Pen and Pencil tools we can create separate patterns and skeletons to be combined through the Path Effect Editor just like with any other LPE. The usual options to edit, copy, paste, and link are available, and both the pattern and the skeleton can be edited live. Pattern Along Path also has some specific options to determine how the pattern is applied along the skeleton. We can choose to stretch it or repeat it, therefore increasing the separation between the repeated items. There's more... Normal and Tangential offsets are also specific options that influence the positions of the patterns in relation to the skeleton path. Normal offset moves the patterns away from the skeleton, and the tangential offset moves them along its tangent. The difference between Pattern along Path and the other LPEs is that we can't use groups as patterns or skeletons. Pattern along Path extension Another (and older) way to achieve the same effect is by using the Pattern along Path extension found under the Extensions | Generate from Path menu. The extension also offers to choose between Snake and Ribbon as the Deformation type. Groups can be used as patterns, but the changes made to the pattern cannot be undone. The z-order determines which object is used as the pattern—the top-most one. The extension doesn't always give the same results as the LPE; the straight segments stay straight when the extension is used, but the LPE bends them.

  ASP.NET jQuery Cookbook Over 60 practical recipes for integrating jQuery with ASP.NET   Introduction Some useful inbuilt functions in jQuery that we will explore in this article for achieving animation effects are: animate ( properties, [ duration ], [ easing ], [ complete ] ): This method allows us to create custom animation effects on any numeric css property. The parameters supported by this method are: properties: This is the map of css properties to animate, for e.g. width, height, fontSize, borderWidth, opacity, etc. duration: This is the duration of the animation in milliseconds. The constants slow and fast can be used to specify the durations, and they represent 600 ms and 200 ms respectively. easing: This is the easing function to use. Easing indicates the speed of the animation at different points during the animation. jQuery provides inbuilt swing and linear easing functions. Various plugins can be interfaced if other easing functions are required. complete: This indicates the callback function on completion of the animation. fadeIn ( [ duration ], [ callback ] ): This method animates the opacity of the matched elements from 0 to 1 i.e. transparent to opaque. The parameters accepted are: duration: This is the duration of the animation callback: This is the callback function on completion of the animation fadeOut( [ duration ], [ callback ] ): This method animates the opacity of the matched elements from 1 to 0 i.e. opaque to transparent. The parameters accepted are: duration: This is the duration of the animation callback: This is the callback function on completion of the animation slideUp( [ duration ], [ callback ] ): This method animates the height of the matched elements with an upward sliding motion. When the height of the element reaches 0, the css property display of the element is updated to none so that the element is hidden on the page. The parameters accepted are: duration: This is the duration of the animation callback: This is the callback function on completion of the animation slideDown( [ duration ], [ callback ] ): This method animates the height of the matched elements from 0 to the specified maximum height. Thus, the element appears to slide down on the page. The parameters accepted are: duration: This is the duration of the animation callback: This is the callback function on completion of the animation slideToggle( [ duration ], [ callback ] ): This method animates the height of the matched elements. If the element is initially hidden, it will slide down and become completely visible. If the element is initially visible, it will slide up and become hidden on the page. The parameters accepted are: duration: This is the duration of the animation callback: This is the callback function on completion of the animation jQuery.fx.off: If there is a need to disable animations because of a resource constraint or due to difficulties in viewing the animations, then this utility can be used to turn off the animation completely. This is achieved by setting all animated controls to their final state. stop ( [ clearQueue ], [ jumpToEnd ] ): This method stops the currently running animations on the page. The parameters accepted are: clearQueue: This indicates whether any queued up animations are required to be cleared. The default value is false. jumpToEnd: This indicates if the current animation is to be cleared immediately. The default value is false. In this article, we will cover some of the animation effects that can be achieved in ASP.NET using the capabilities of jQuery. Getting started Let's start by creating a new ASP.NET website in Visual Studio and name it Chapter5. Save the jQuery library in a script folder js in the project. To enable jQuery on any web form, drag-and-drop to add the following to the page: <scriptsrc="js/jquery-1.4.1.js" type="text/javascript"></script> Now let's move on to the recipes where we will see different animation techniques using jQuery. Enlarging text on hover In this recipe, we will animate the font size of text content on hover. Getting ready Add a new web form Recipe1.aspx to the current project. Create a Css class for the text content that we want to animate. The font size specified in the css Class is the original font size of the text before animation is applied to it: .enlarge { font-size:12.5px; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; } Add an ASP.NET Label control on the form and set its Css Class to the preceding style: <asp:LabelCssClass="enlarge"runat="server">Lorem ipsum dolor sit ...............</asp:Label> Thus, the ASPX markup of the form is as follows: <form id="form1" runat="server"> <div align="center"> Mouseover to enlarge text:<br /> <fieldset id="content" style="width:500px;height:300px;"> <asp:LabelCssClass="enlarge" runat="server">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.</ asp:Label> </fieldset> </div> </form> Thus, initially, the page will display the Label control as follows: We will now animate the font size of the Label on hover on the containing fieldset element. How to do it… In the document.ready() function of the jQuery script block, retrieve the original font size of the Label: var origFontSize = parseFloat($(".enlarge").css('font-size')); The parseFloat() function takes in an input string and returns the first floating point value in the string. It discards any content after the floating point value. For example, if the css property returns 12.5 px, then the function will discard the px. Define the hover event of the containing fieldset element: $("#content").hover( In the mouseenter event handler of the hover method, update the cursor style to pointer: function() { $(".enlarge").css("cursor", "pointer"); Calculate the maximum font size that we want to animate to. In this example, we will set the maximum size to thrice the original: var newFontSize = origFontSize * 3; Animate the fontSize css property of the Label in 300 ms: $(".enlarge").animate({ fontSize: newFontSize }, 300); }, In the mouseleave event handler of the hover method, animate the fontSize to the original value in 300 ms as shown: function() { $(".enlarge").animate({ fontSize: origFontSize }, 300); } ); Thus, the complete jQuery solution is as follows: <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function() { var origFontSize = parseFloat($(".enlarge").css('fontsize')); $("#content").hover( function() { $(".enlarge").css("cursor", "pointer"); var newFontSize = origFontSize * 3; $(".enlarge").animate({ fontSize: newFontSize }, 300); }, function() { $(".enlarge").animate({ fontSize: origFontSize }, 300); } ); }); </script> How it works… Run the web form. Mouseover on the fieldset area. The text size will animate over the stated duration and change to the maximum specified font size as displayed in the following screenshot: On removing the mouse from the fieldset area, the text size will return back to the original. Creating a fade effect on hover In this recipe, we will create a fade effect on an ASP.NET Image control on hover. We will use the fadeIn and fadeOut methods to achieve the same. Getting ready Add a new web form Recipe2.aspx to the current project. Add an image control to the form: <asp:Image src="images/Image1.jpg" ID="Image1" runat="server" /> Define the properties of the image in the css: #Image1 { width:438px; height:336px; } Thus, the complete ASPX markup of the web form is as follows: <form id="form1" runat="server"> <div align="center"> Mouseover on the image to view fade effect: <fieldset id="content" style="width:480px;height:370px;"> <br /> <asp:Image src="images/Image1.jpg" ID="Image1" runat="server" /> </fieldset> </div> </form> On page load, the image is displayed as follows: We will now create a fade effect on the image on hover on the containing fieldset area. How to do it… In the document.ready() function of the jQuery script block, define the hover event on the containing fieldset area: $("#content").hover( In the mouseenter event handler of the hover method, update the cursor to pointer: function() { $("#Image1").css("cursor", "pointer"); Apply the fadeOut method on the Image control with an animation duration of 1000 ms: $("#Image1").fadeOut(1000); }, In the mouseleave event handler of the hover method, apply the fadeIn method on the Image control with an animation duration of 1000 ms: function() { $("#Image1").fadeIn(1000); } ); Thus, the complete jQuery solution is as follows: <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function() { $("#content").hover( function() { $("#Image1").css("cursor", "pointer"); $("#Image1").fadeOut(1000); }, function() { $("#Image1").fadeIn(1000); } ); }); </script> How it works... Run the web page. Mouseover on the Image control on the web page. The image will slowly fade away as shown in the following screenshot: On mouseout from the containing fieldset area, the image reappears. Sliding elements on a page In this recipe, we will use the slideUp and slideDown methods for achieving sliding effects on an ASP.NET panel. Getting ready Add a new web form Recipe3.aspx in the current project. Add an ASP.NET panel to the page as follows: <asp:Panel class="slide" runat="server"> Sliding Panel </asp:Panel> The css class for the panel is defined as follows: .slide { font-size:12px; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; display:none; height:100px; background-color:#9999FF; } Add a button control to trigger the sliding effect on the panel: <asp:Button ID="btnSubmit" runat="server" Text="Trigger Slide" /> Thus, the complete ASPX markup of the web form is as follows: <form id="form1" runat="server"> <div align="center"> <fieldset style="width:400px;height:150px;"> <asp:Button ID="btnSubmit" runat="server" Text="Trigger Slide" /> <br /><br/> <asp:Panel class="slide" runat="server"> Sliding Panel </asp:Panel> </fieldset> </div> </form> On page load, the page appears as shown in the following screenshot: We will now use jQuery to slide up and slide down the panel. How to do it… In the document.ready() function of the jQuery script block, define the click event of the button control: $("#btnSubmit").click(function(e) { Prevent default form submission: e.preventDefault(); Check if the ASP.NET panel control is hidden: if ($(".slide").is(":hidden")) The jQuery selector :hidden selects matched elements that are hidden on the page. If yes, then slide down the panel until its height reaches the maximum (100 px) defined in the css property. $(".slide").slideDown("slow"); If the panel is initially visible then slide up so that its height slowly reduces until it becomes 0 and the panel disappears from the page: else $(".slide").slideUp("slow"); }); Thus, the complete jQuery solution is as follows: <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function() { $("#btnSubmit").click(function(e) { e.preventDefault(); if ($(".slide").is(":hidden")) $(".slide").slideDown("slow"); else $(".slide").slideUp("slow"); }); }); </script>  

Getting started with the basics of SageMath You don't have to install Sage to try it out! In this article, we will use the notebook interface to showcase some of the basics of Sage so that you can follow along using a public notebook server. These examples can also be run from an interactive session if you have installed Sage. Go to http://www.sagenb.org and sign up for a free account. You can also browse worksheets created and shared by others. The notebook interface should look like this: Create a new worksheet by clicking on the link called New Worksheet: Type in a name when prompted, and click Rename. The new worksheet will look like this: Enter an expression by clicking in an input cell and typing or pasting in an expression: Click the evaluate link or press Shift-Enter to evaluate the contents of the cell. A new input cell will automatically open below the results of the calculation. You can also create a new input cell by clicking in the blank space just above an existing input cell. Using Sage as a powerful calculator Sage has all the features of a scientific calculator—and more. If you have been trying to perform mathematical calculations with a spreadsheet or the built-in calculator in your operating system, it's time to upgrade. Sage offers all the built-in functions you would expect. Here are a few examples: If you have to make a calculation repeatedly, you can define a function and variables to make your life easier. For example, let's say that you need to calculate the Reynolds number, which is used in fluid mechanics: You can define a function and variables like this: Re(velocity, length, kinematic_viscosity) = velocity * length / kinematic_viscosity v = 0.01 L = 1e-3 nu = 1e-6 Re(v, L, nu) When you type the code into an input cell and evaluate the cell, your screen will look like this: Now, you can change the value of one or more variables and re-run the calculation: Sage can also perform exact calculations with integers and rational numbers. Using the pre-defined constant pi will result in exact values from trigonometric operations. Sage will even utilize complex numbers when needed. Here are some examples: Symbolic mathematics Much of the difficulty of higher mathematics actually lies in the extensive algebraic manipulations that are required to obtain a result. Sage can save you many hours, and many sheets of paper, by automating some tedious tasks in mathematics. We'll start with basic calculus. For example, let's compute the derivative of the following equation: The following code defines the equation and computes the derivative: var('x') f(x) = (x^2 - 1) / (x^4 + 1) show(f) show(derivative(f, x)) The results will look like this: The first line defines a symbolic variable x (Sage automatically assumes that x is always a symbolic variable, but we will define it in each example for clarity). We then defined a function as a quotient of polynomials. Taking the derivative of f(x) would normally require the use of the quotient rule, which can be very tedious to calculate. Sage computes the derivative effortlessly. Now, we'll move on to integration, which can be one of the most daunting tasks in calculus. Let's compute the following indefinite integral symbolically: The code to compute the integral is very simple: f(x) = e^x * cos(x) f_int(x) = integrate(f, x) show(f_int) The result is as follows: To perform this integration by hand, integration by parts would have to be done twice, which could be quite time consuming. If we want to better understand the function we just defined, we can graph it with the following code: f(x) = e^x * cos(x) plot(f, (x, -2, 8)) Sage will produce the following plot: Sage can also compute definite integrals symbolically: To compute a definite integral, we simply have to tell Sage the limits of integration: f(x) = sqrt(1 - x^2) f_integral = integrate(f, (x, 0, 1)) show(f_integral) The result is: This would have required the use of a substitution if computed by hand. Have a go hero There is actually a clever way to evaluate the integral from the previous problem without doing any calculus. If it isn't immediately apparent, plot the function f(x) from 0 to 1 and see if you recognize it. Note that the aspect ratio of the plot may not be square. The partial fraction decomposition is another technique that Sage can do a lot faster than you. The solution to the following example covers two full pages in a calculus textbook —assuming that you don't make any mistakes in the algebra! f(x) = (3 * x^4 + 4 * x^3 + 16 * x^2 + 20 * x + 9) / ((x + 2) * (x^2 + 3)^2) g(x) = f.partial_fraction(x) show(g) The result is as follows: We'll use partial fractions again when we talk about solving ordinary differential equations symbolically. Linear algebra   Linear algebra is one of the most fundamental tasks in numerical computing. Sage has many facilities for performing linear algebra, both numerical and symbolic. One fundamental operation is solving a system of linear equations:   Although this is a tedious problem to solve by hand, it only requires a few lines of code in Sage: A = Matrix(QQ, [[0, -1, -1, 1], [1, 1, 1, 1], [2, 4, 1, -2], [3, 1, -2, 2]]) B = vector([0, 6, -1, 3]) A.solve_right(B) The answer is as follows: Notice that Sage provided an exact answer with integer values. When we created matrix A, the argument QQ specified that the matrix was to contain rational values. Therefore, the result contains only rational values (which all happen to be integers for this problem).  

SilverStripe 2.4 Module Extension, Themes, and Widgets: Beginner's Guide: RAW Create smashing SilverStripe applications by extending modules, creating themes, and adding widgets Why can't we simply use templates and $Content to accomplish the task? Widgets and short codes generally don't display their information directly like a placeholder does They can be used to fetch external information for you—we'll use Google and Facebook services in our examples Additionally they can aggregate internal information—for example displaying a tag cloud based on the key words you've added to pages or articles Widget or short code? Both can add more dynamic and/or complex content to the page than the regular fields. What’s the difference? Widgets are specialized content areas that can be dynamically dragged and dropped in a predefined area on a page in the CMS. You can't insert a widget into a rich-text editor field, it needs to be inserted elsewhere to a template. Additionally widgets can be customised from within the CMS. Short codes are self-defined tags in squared brackets that are entered anywhere in a content or rich-text area. Configuration is done through parameters, which are much like attributes in HTML. So the main difference is where you want to use the advanced content. Creating our own widget Let's create our first widget to see how it works. The result of this section should look like this: Time for action – embracing Facebook Facebook is probably the most important communication and publicity medium in the world at the moment. Our website is no exception and we want to publish the latest news on both our site and Facebook, but we definitely don't want to do that manually. You can either transmit information from your website to Facebook or you can grab information off Facebook and put it into your website. We'll use the latter approach, so let's hack away: In the Page class add a relation to the WidgetArea class and make it available in the CMS: public static $has_one = array( 'SideBar' => 'WidgetArea', ); public function getCMSFields(){ $fields = parent::getCMSFields(); $fields->addFieldToTab( 'Root.Content.Widgets', new WidgetAreaEditor('SideBar') ); return $fields; } Add $SideBar to templates/Layout/Page.ss in the theme directory, wrapping it inside another element for styling later on (the first and third line are already in the template, they are simply there for context): $Form <aside id="sidebar">$SideBar</aside> </section> <aside> is one of the new HTML5 tags. It's intended for content that is only "tangentially" related to the page's main content. For a detailed description see the official documentation at http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/aside.html. Create the widget folder in the base directory. We'll simply call it widget_facebookfeed/. Inside that folder, create an empty _config.php file. Additionally, create the folders code/ and templates/. Add the following PHP class—you'll know the filename and where to store it by now. The Controller's comments haven't been stripped this time, but are included to encourage best practice and provide a meaningful example: <?php class FacebookFeedWidget extends Widget { public static $db = array( 'Identifier' => 'Varchar(64)', 'Limit' => 'Int', ); public static $defaults = array( 'Limit' => 1, ); public static $cmsTitle = 'Facebook Messages'; public static $description = 'A list of the most recent Facebook messages'; public function getCMSFields(){ return new FieldSet( new TextField( 'Identifier', 'Identifier of the Facebook account to display' ), new NumericField( 'Limit', 'Maximum number of messages to display' ) ); } public function Feeds(){ /** * URL for fetching the information, * convert the returned JSON into an array. */ $url = 'http://graph.facebook.com/' . $this->Identifier . '/feed?limit=' . ($this->Limit + 5); $facebook = json_decode(file_get_contents($url), true); /** * Make sure we received some content, * create a warning in case of an error. */ if(empty($facebook) || !isset($facebook['data'])){ user_error( 'Facebook message error or API changed', E_USER_WARNING ); return; } /** * Iterate over all messages and only fetch as many as needed. */ $feeds = new DataObjectSet(); $count = 0; foreach($facebook['data'] as $post){ if($count >= $this->Limit){ break; } /** * If no such messages exists, log a warning and exit. */ if(!isset($post['from']['id']) || !isset($post['id'] || !isset($post['message'])){ user_error( 'Facebook detail error or API changed', E_USER_WARNING ); return; } /** * If the post is from the user itself and not someone * else, add the message and date to our feeds array. */ if(strpos($post['id'], $post['from']['id']) === 0){ $posted = date_parse($post['created_time']); $feeds->push(new ArrayData(array( 'Message' => DBField::create( 'HTMLText', nl2br($post['message']) ), 'Posted' => DBField::create( 'SS_Datetime', $posted['year'] . '-' . $posted['month'] . '-' . $posted['day'] . ' ' . $posted['hour'] . ':' . $posted['minute'] . ':' . $posted['second'] ), ))); $count++; } } return $feeds; } Define the template, use the same filename as for the previous file, but make sure that you use the correct extension. So the file widget_facebookfeed/templates/FacebookFeedWidget.ss should look like this: <% if Limit == 0 %> <% else %> <div id="facebookfeed" class="rounded"> <h2>Latest Facebook Update<% if Limit == 1 %> <% else %>s<% end_if %></h2> <% control Feeds %> <p> $Message <small>$Posted.Nice</small> </p> <% if Last %><% else %><hr/><% end_if %> <% end_control %> </div> <% end_if %> Also create a file widget_facebookfeed/templates/WidgetHolder.ss with just this single line of content: $Content We won't cover the CSS as it's not relevant to our goal. You can either copy it from the final code provided or simply roll your own. Rebuild the database with /dev/build?flush=all. Log into /admin. On each page you should now have a Widgets tab that looks similar to the next screenshot. In this example, the widget has already been activated by clicking next to the title in the left-hand menu. If you have more than one widget installed, you can simply add and reorder all of them on each page by drag-and-drop. So even novice content editors can add useful and interesting features to the pages very easily. Enter the Facebook ID and change the number of messages to display, if you want to. Save and Publish the page. Reload the page in the frontend and you should see something similar to the screenshot at the beginning of this section. allow_url_fopen must be enabled for this to work, otherwise you're not allowed to use remote objects such as local files. Due to security concerns it may be disabled, and you'll get error messages if there's a problem with this setting. For more details see http://www.php.net/manual/en/filesystem.configuration.php#ini.allow-url-fopen. What just happened? Quite a lot happened, so let's break it down into digestible pieces. Widgets in general Every widget is actually a module, although a small one, and limited in scope. The basic structure is the same: residing in the root folder, having a _config.php file (even if it's empty) and containing folders for code, templates, and possibly also JavaScript or images. Nevertheless, a widget is limited to the sidebar, so it's probably best described as an add-on. We'll take a good look at its bigger brother, the module, a little later. You're not required to name the folder widget_*, but it's a common practice and you should have a good reason for not sticking to it. Common use cases for widgets include tag clouds, Twitter integration, showing a countdown, and so forth. If you want to see what others have been doing with widgets or you need some of that functionality, visit http://www.silverstripe.org/widgets/. Keeping widgets simple In general widgets should work with default settings and if there are additional settings they should be both simple and few in number. While we'll be able to stick to the second part, we can't provide meaningful default settings for a Facebook account. Still, keep this idea in mind and try to adhere to it where possible. Facebook graph API We won't go into details of the Facebook Graph API, but it's a powerful tool—we've just scratched the surface with our example. Looking at the URL http://graph.facebook.com/<username>/feed?limit=5 you only need to know that it fetches the last five items from the user's feed, which consists of the wall posts (both by the user himself and others). <username> must obviously be replaced by the unique Facebook ID—either a number or an alias name the user selected. If you go to the user's profile, you should be able to see it in the URL. For example, SilverStripe Inc's Facebook profile is located at https://www.facebook.com/pages/silverstripe/44641219945?ref=ts&v=wall—so the ID is 44641219945. That's also what we've used for the example in the previous screenshot. For more details on the Graph API see http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api. Connecting pages and widgets First we need to connect our pages and widgets in general. You'll need to do this step whenever you want to use widgets. You'll need to do two things to make this connection: Reference the WidgetArea class in the base page's Model and make it available in the CMS through getCMSFields(). Secondly, we need to place the widget in our page. $SideBar You're not required to call the widget placeholder $SideBar, but it's a convention as widgets are normally displayed on a website's sidebar. If you don't have a good reason to do it otherwise, stick to it. You're not limited to a single sidebar As we define the widget ourselves, we can also create more than one for some or all pages. Simply add and rename the $SideBar in both the View and Model with something else and you're good to go. You can use multiple sidebars in the same region or totally different ones—for example creating header widgets and footer widgets. Also, take the name "sidebar" with a grain of salt, it can really have any shape you want. What about the intro page? Right. We've only added $SideBar to the standard templates/Layout/Page.ss. Shouldn't we proceed and put the PHP code into ContentPage.php? We could, but if we wanted to add the widget to another page type, which we'll create later, we'd have to copy the code. Not DRY, so let's keep it in the general Page.php. The intro page is a bit confusing right now. While you can add widgets in the backend, they can’t be displayed as the placeholder is missing in the template. To clean this up, let's simply remove the Widget tab from the intro page. It's not strictly required, but it prevents content authors from having a field in the CMS that does nothing visible on the website. To do this, simply extend the getCMSFields() in the IntroPage.php file, like this: function getCMSFields() { $fields = parent::getCMSFields(); $fields->removeFieldFromTab('Root.Content.Main', 'Content'); $fields->removeFieldFromTab('Root.Content', 'Widgets'); return $fields; }

  jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques: Beginners Guide Quickly master all of jQuery’s animation methods and build a toolkit of ready-to-use animations using jQuery 1.4 Fading animations Tip: The fadeIn() and fadeOut() methods perform the least complex animations available via jQuery. They simply adjust the opacity of selected elements to either show or hide the element, and can be used with no additional configuration. The fadeToggle() method is almost as simple, but does provide some basic logic to check the selected element's current state. In their simplest forms, these methods can be used without any additional configuration. We can simply call the methods on any collection of selected elements without using any arguments: jQuery(elements).fadeIn(); jQuery(elements).fadeOut(); jquery(elements).fadeToggle(); When no arguments are provided, the animations will have the default duration of 400 milliseconds and the default easing of swing. With arguments, the fading methods may take the following form, (square brackets denote optional arguments): jQuery(elements).fadeIn([duration], [easing], [callback]); jQuery(elements).fadeOut([duration], [easing], [callback]); jQuery(elements).fadeToggle([duration], [easing], [callback); Viewing the queue Tip: To view the queue we simply call the queue() method; no arguments are required but we can optionally supply the queue name if it differs from the default fx. When the method is called, it returns an array containing the remaining functions in the queue. The queue() method may be used in the following form: jQuery(elements).queue([queue name], [new queue], [callback]); Ensuring custom queues iterate correctly Tip: When we create custom queues, the chained methods are not automatically called for us. This is something we need to do manually and is handled using the dequeue() method. When called, it will remove the next function in the queue and execute it. It's a simple method, with few arguments, and is used in a very specific manner. The method may take a single optional argument which is the name of the queue to execute the next function from: jQuery(elements).dequeue([queue name]); Stopping an animation Tip: The stop() method can be used to stop an effect that is currently running on the selected element. In its simplest form, we may call the method without supplying any additional arguments, but if necessary we can supply up to two Boolean arguments. The method takes the following format: jQuery(elements).stop([clear queue], [jump to end]); Globally disabling animations Tip: One property of fx that we can set is the off property. This property contains a Boolean that is set to false by default, but which we can set to true to globally disable all animations on a page. The property is set using the following syntax: jQuery.fx.off = true; That's all we do need to do. If this is set at any point in our script, all elements that have animation methods attached to them will be set to their final state, as if the animation had already completed. Quoting the class property Tip: We need to use quotes around the property name class so that it works correctly in Internet Explorer. If we fail to quote it, IE will throw a script error stating that it expected an identifier, string, or number. Using the effect API Tip: jQuery UI introduces the effect() method which can be used to trigger any of the effects like blind (The target element is shown or hidden by rolling it down or up like a window blind.), bounce (The target element is bounced horizontally or vertically for a specified number of times.), explode (The explode effect causes the target element to separate into a specified number of pieces before fading away, or to fade into view in several pieces before coming together to form the complete element.) and so on. The effect() method's usage pattern is as follows: jQuery(elements).effect(effect name, [configuration], [duration], [callback]); The name of the effect that we would like to use is always the first argument of the effect() method. It is supplied in string format. Marquee text Tip: The use of the <marquee> element is an effective and attractive way to present potentially relevant content to the visitor without taking up too much content space. It won't suit all sites of course, but used sparingly, and in as non-intrusive a way as possible, it can be a great effect. jQuery and transforms Tip: We can use jQuery's css() method in setter mode to set CSS3 transforms on selected elements, and we can use it in getter mode to retrieve any transform functions set on an element. We just need to ensure that we use the correct vendor prefix, such as –moz-transform for Firefox, or -webkit-transform for Webkit-based browsers. Opera also has its own vendor prefix, as do newer versions of IE. One thing to be aware of is that while we can set a specific transform function, such as rotate(), on a selected element, we can only get the value of the style property in its matrix format. Look at the following code: $("#get").css("-moz-transform", "rotate(30deg)"); $("#get").text($("#get").css("-moz-transform")); This would result in the following: In the previous screenshot, we see that the rotation we applied in the first line of code using the rotate() transform function is returned with the second line of code as a matrix function. Summary This article took a look at some tips and tricks for creating web page animations using jQuery. Further resources on this subject: Getting Started with jQuery [article] jQuery 1.4: Skinning the Widget [article] jQuery 1.4: Managing Animations [article] The Basics of WordPress and jQuery Plugin [article] jQuery 1.4: Animating an Element's Position [article] Tips and Tricks for Working with jQuery and WordPress [article]

Alice 3 provides an extensive gallery with hundreds of customizable 3D models that you can easily incorporate as actors. This article provides many tasks that will allow us to start making simple animations with many actors in the 3D environment provided by Alice. We will search for models of specific animals in the diverse galleries. We will locate and orient the actors in the 3D space. We will give some simple orders to the actors to create simple animations. Browsing galleries to search for a specific class In this recipe, we will create a new project and set a simple scene. Then we will browse the different packages included in Alice to search for a specific class. We will visualize the thumbnail icons that represent each package and class. Getting ready We have to be working on a project in order to be able to browse the galleries. Therefore, we will create a new project and set a simple scene. Follow these steps: Select File New...| in the main menu to start a new project. A dialog box will display the six predefined templates with their thumbnail previews in the Templates tab. Select GrassyProject.a3p as the desired template for the new project and click on OK. Alice will display a grassy ground with a light blue sky. Click on Edit Scene, at the lower-right corner of the scene preview. Alice will show a bigger preview of the scene and will display the Model Gallery at the bottom. Go to the Model Gallery and select Generic Alice Models Environments | Skies|. Use the horizontal scroll bar to find the ForestSky class. Click on the ForestSky thumbnail. Leave the default name, forestSky, for the new instance and click OK to add it to the existing scene. The scene preview will replace the light blue sky with a violet one. Many trees will appear at the horizon, as shown in the next screenshot: (Move the mouse over the image to enlarge it.) How to do it... Follow these steps to browse the different packages included in Alice to search for a specific class: Make sure that Alice is displaying the scene editor. If you see the Edit Code label at the lower-right corner of the big preview of the scene, it means that Alice is displaying the scene editor. If you see the Edit Scene label at the lower-right corner of a small scene preview, you should click on this label to switch to the scene editor. You will see the Model Gallery displayed at the bottom of the window. The initial view of the Model Gallery shows the following three packages located in the gallery root folder, as shown in the following screenshot: Looking Glass Characters: This package includes many characters that perform realistic animations for the characters. For example, you can make a person walk with a simple call to a procedure. Looking Glass Scenery: This package includes different kinds of scenery elements. Generic Alice Models: This package includes models that provide the basic and generic procedures. For example, you can move a person with a simple procedure call, but there isn't a procedure to make the person walk. If you don't see the previously shown screenshot with the three packages, it means that you are browsing a subfolder of gallery and you need to go back to the gallery root folder. Click on the gallery button and Alice will display the thumbnails for the three packages. If you don't see the three packages, you should check your Alice installation. Click on the search entire gallery textbox, located at the right-hand side of the gallery button. Enter rab in the search entire gallery textbox. Alice will query for the classes and packages that contain the rab string and will display the thumbnails for the following classes, as shown in the next screenshot: Rabbit Scarab WhiteRabbit Parabola Now you know that you have two different rabbits, Rabbit and WhiteRabbit. You can select your favorite rabbit and then add it as an actor in the scene. Select File Save as...| and give a name to the project, for example, MyForest. Then, you can use this new scene as a template for your next Alice project. How it works... Alice organizes its gallery in packages with hierarchical folders. The previously mentioned three packages are located in the gallery root folder. We can browse each package by clicking on its thumbnail. Each time we click on a thumbnail, the related sub-folder will open and Alice will display the thumbnails for the new sub-folders and the classes. The thumbnail that represents a folder, known as a package, displays a folder icon at the upper-left corner and includes the preview of some of the classes that it includes. The next screenshot shows the thumbnails for three packages, amusementpark, animals, and beach. These packages are sub-folders of the Generic Alice Models package: The thumbnails for classes don't include the previously mentioned folder icon and they show a different background color. The next screenshot shows the thumbnails for three classes, Bird1, BirdBaby, and BlueBird: The names for packages included within one of the three main packages use lowercase names, such as, aquarium, bedroom, and circus. The names for classes always start with an uppercase letter, such as, Monitor and Room. When a class name needs more than one word, it doesn't use spaces to separate them but it mixes lowercase with uppercase to mark the difference between words, such as, CatClock and OldBed. The main packages contain hundreds of classes organized in dozens of folders. Therefore, we might spend hours browsing the galleries to find an appropriate rabbit for our scene. We took advantage of Alice query features to search the entire gallery for all the classes that contain a string. This way, we could find a simple rabbit, Rabbit, and a dressed rabbit, WhiteRabbit. There's more... While you type characters in the search entire gallery textbox, Alice will query all the packages and will display the results in real-time. You will notice that Alice changes the results displayed as you are editing the textbox. The results for your search will include both packages and classes that contain the entered string. For example, follow these steps: Click on the search entire gallery textbox, located at the right-hand side of the gallery button. Enter bug in the search entire gallery text box. Alice will query for the classes and packages that contain the bug string and will display two thumbnails. One thumbnail is the bugs package and the other thumbnail is the Ladybug class, as shown in the following screenshot: If you think that Ladybug isn't the appropriate bug you want as an actor, you can click on the thumbnail for the bugs package and you will find many other bugs. When you click on the thumbnail, the text you entered in the search entire gallery textbox will disappear because there is no filter being applied to the gallery and you are browsing the contents of the gallery Generic Alice Models | animals | bugs| package. You can add a Beetle or a Catepillar, as shown in the following screenshot: Creating a new instance from a class in a gallery In this task, we will add a new actor to an existing scene. We will drag and drop a thumbnail of a class from the gallery and then we will learn how Alice adds a new instance to the scene. Getting ready We want to add a new actor to an existing scene. Therefore, we will use an existing project that has a simple scene. Open an existing project based on one of the six predefined Alice templates. You can open the MyForest project saved in the Browsing galleries to search for a specific class recipe in this article. Select Starting Camera View in the drop-down list located at the top of the big scene preview. How to do it... Follow these steps to add a new instance of the WhiteRabbit class: Search for the WhiteRabbit class in the gallery. You can browse gallery Generic Alice Models | animals| or enter rab in the search entire gallery textbox to visualize the WhiteRabbit thumbnail. Drag the WhiteRabbit thumbnail from the gallery to the big scene preview. A bounding box that represents the 3D model in the 3D space will appear, as shown in the next screenshot: Keep the mouse button down and move the mouse to locate the bounding box in the desired initial position for the new element. Once you have located the element in the desired position, release the mouse button and the Declare Property dialog box will appear. Leave the default name, whiteRabbit, for the new instance and click on OK to add it to the existing scene. The scene preview will perform an animation when Alice adds the new instance and then it will go back to the starting camera view to show how the new element appears on the scene. The next screenshot shows the new dressed white rabbit added to the scene, as seen by the starting camera: Select File Save as...| from Alice's main menu and give a new name to the project. Then, you can make changes to the project according to your needs. How it works... When we dropped the thumbnail for the WhiteRabbit class, the Declare Property dialog box provided information about what Alice was going to do, as shown in the following screenshot: Alice defines a new class, MyWhiteRabbit, that extends WhiteRabbit. MyWhiteRabbit is a new value type for the project, a subclass of WhiteRabbit. The name for the new property that represents the new instance of MyWhiteRabbit is whiteRabbit. This means that you can access this new actor with the whiteRabbit name and that this property is available for scene. Because the starting camera view is looking at the horizon, we see the rabbit looking at the camera in the scene preview. If you select TOP in the in the drop-down list located at the top of the big scene preview, you will see the rabbit on the grassy ground and how the camera is looking at the rabbit. The next screenshot shows the scene seen from the top and you can see the camera with a circle around it: There's more... When you run the project, Alice shows a new window with the rendered scene, as seen by the previously shown camera, the starting camera. The default window size is very small. You can resize the Run window and Alice will use the new size to render the scene with a higher resolution. The next time you run the project, Alice will use the new size, as shown in the next screenshot that displays the dressed white rabbit with a forest in the background:

  Moodle 2.0 for Business Beginner's Guide Implement Moodle in your business to streamline your interview, training, and internal communication processes. The Repository integration allows admins to set up external content management systems and use them to complement Moodle's own file management system. Using this integration you can now manage content outside of Moodle and publish it to the system once the document or other content is ready. The Portfolio integration enables users to store their Moodle content in an external e-portfolio system to share with evaluators, peers, and others. Managing content in repositories The repository system of Moodle 2 allows you to store and manipulate content outside of Moodle and easily add it to courses. By managing content outside of Moodle, you can provide users with a more robust editing experience. Many organizations utilize workflows and approval processes to ensure the accuracy of the content used in the LMS. A content repository can help you manage that process, and then make the content available on Moodle when it is ready for final publication. Using Alfresco to manage content Alfresco is an open source, enterprise content management system, similar in many ways to Microsoft Sharepoint or EMC's Documentum. Alfresco has seen widespread adoption over the last few years as more people begin to recognize the advantages of open source software. We will start by installing Alfresco, then look at how to link it to Moodle and add content to a Moodle site. At the end of this section, we'll take a look at Alfresco's content conversion services as a tool to ensure content is reliably converted to web friendly formats. Time for action - installing Alfresco on your test site To get us started, we'll install Alfresco on our test system to experiment with the integration. Alfresco runs on a different architecture than Moodle. Alfresco requires a Java application server instead of PHP. Fortunately, there are installers available on the Alfresco site that include everything we will need to develop a test system on your local computer. To install Alfresco, run through the following steps: Open your browser and go to http:www.alfresco.com. Go to the Downloads tab and select the Download Now button for Alfresco Document Management in the Community Edition column. Select the installer for your operating system and download it to your computer. Double-click on the installer (it may take a moment to get started). Select your language for the installer. Choose the database option you want to use. Use the included database, unless you have a good reason not to. When prompted, enter a database password. Be sure to write it down somewhere. The next screen will prompt you for an Alfresco admin password. Definitely write this down. The final screen will prompt you to choose the packages you want to install. Choose the defaults and click on Next. For the examples below, you will need to make sure that you have the OpenOffice component installed. The installer will begin to run. This will probably take a while, so it may be time to go and get a cup of tea. Once the installer is complete, select Launch. This will take a while as well, so a second cup of tea might be in order. Once Alfresco has launched, you can configure the interface with Moodle. What just happened You now have a full-functioning open source enterprise content management system installed on your personal computer. Alfresco has a lot of power for manipulating and sharing documents, but we will only focus on a few features for now. There are a lot of books available to help you learn how to use the more advanced features in Alfresco (a few of them from this publisher as well). Time for action - add a repository plugin to Moodle To allow users to access your new Alfresco repository, you will need to configure Moodle to allow access to the repository. The new repository architecture of Moodle 2 enables developers to create plugins to connect Moodle with other systems. Each system will have its own type of plugin to allow a direct connection between Moodle and the system. To enable Moodle to talk to an external repository, we need to enable the plugin and any associated options. To enable the Alfresco repository plug-in, go through the following steps: Login to Moodle as a Moodle admin. From the Site administration menu, select Plugins and then Repositories. The Manage repositories screen allows you to select from all of the available plugin repositories. For now, we will focus on the Alfresco repository. From the menu in the Active column, select Enabled and visible.The Alfresco plugin allows users in Moodle to add multiple instances of the repository. Most of the time, you will not want to allow users to add additional instances of the repository. As the admin, you can create a single site-wide instance of the repository plugin to allow users to link to Alfresco files. However, if you have more than one Alfresco instance, you can allow multiple users to create additional repositories at either the course level or the user level. Click the Save button to save the initial settings. This will return you to the Manage repositories page. Click on Settings under the Settings column to the right of the Alfresco repository row. This will take you back to the Alfresco settings page, but will provide an additional ability to add a repository instance at the site level. Click the Create a repository instance button at the bottom of the page. Give the name of your Alfresco instance. If this is an institutional repository, give it the same name as you commonly use. For example, if you commonly refer to your Alfresco instance as the "ECM" (for Enterprise Content Management), name the Alfresco instance ECM. Add the URL of your Alfresco site. Be sure to point to the Alfresco Explorer, not the Share application. You will also need to add the API pointer at the end of the string. For example, if you are pointing to the locally installed Alfresco which we described in the preceding case, the URL should be http://127.0.0.1:8080/alfresco/api. Click on Save. You will now have an instance of Alfresco available for users to add content to their courses. If you get the following error: Notice SOAP extension must be enabled for Alfresco plugin, then make sure that the SOAP library is enabled in your php.ini file. The location of the file will vary depending on the system you are using. Find the php.ini file and un-comment the extension=php_soap.dll line. Then restart Moodle and this should solve the error. What just happened You have just configured the Alfresco repository plugin to enable Moodle to talk to Alfresco. When you bring up the file picker in a course or at the site level, you should now see the Alfresco repository as an option. Have a go hero In the next article, we will configure the Google Docs plugin for Moodle, but there are a number of other plugins. Picasa and Flickr are two photo repositories on the web where many people share their photos. Wikimedia and YouTube are two very popular sources of media as well. Enable one or two of these additional plugins to practice configuring Moodle on your own. Time for action - adding content to Alfresco In Moodle 2, repository integrations are read-only. The Moodle design team decided the repository integration should only read from repositories, and the portfolio integration should save content to portfolio repositories. So you can't add content directly to Alfresco with the default plugin. To add content to the repository, we need to use the repository's own interface, then we can add it to Moodle. With Alfresco, that interface is either the Alfresco Explorer or Alfresco Share. To add content to the repository using Share, run through the following steps: Go to your Alfresco share interface, found at http://<your Alfresco server>/share. If your Alfresco is on your local machine with the default install, go to http://127.0.0.1:8080/share. Login with your username and password. Select the Repository link from the top of the page. This will display the folder structure for the default Alfresco repository. Select User Homes and then select your user space. From the menu above the file browser, select Upload. Click on the Select file(s) to upload button at the top of the Upload Files screen. Browse to find your file and then click on the Upload File(s) button. The file you selected should now appear in the file browser. What just happened You have now added a file to your Alfresco repository. We've explored a very simple example of adding a single file with no workflow or approval needed. You can use Share to create content, share it with colleagues, and use versioning and other features to manage the content creation process. Have a go hero Now that you've added a simple file to Alfresco Share, try some of the other features. Check out a file for editing, change it and check it back in for others to use, or create some content directly in Share.

Moodle 2.0 for Business Beginner's Guide Implement Moodle in your business to streamline your interview, training, and internal communication processes         The Repository integration allows admins to set up external content management systems and use them to complement Moodle's own file management system. Using this integration you can now manage content outside of Moodle and publish it to the system once the document or other content is ready. The Portfolio integration enables users to store their Moodle content in an external e-portfolio system to share with evaluators, peers, and others. Using Google Docs as a repository for Moodle A growing number of organizations are using Google Docs as their primary office suite. Moodle allows you to add Google Docs as a repository so your course authors can link to word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation and form documents on Google Docs. Time for action - configuring the Google Docs plugin To use Google Docs as a repository for Moodle, we first need to configure the plugin like we did with Alfresco. Login to Moodle as a site administrator. From the Site Administration menu, select Plugins and then Repositories. Select Manage Repositories from the Repositories menu. Next to the Google Docs plugin, select Enabled and Visible from the Active menu. On the Configure Google Docs plugin page, give the plugin a different name if you refer to Google Docs as something different in your organization. Click on Save. What just happened You have now set up the Google Docs repository plugin. Each user will have access to their Google Docs account when they add content to Moodle. Time for action - adding a Google Doc to your Moodle course After you have configured the Google Docs plugin, you can add Google Docs to your course. Login to Moodle as a user with course editing privileges. Turn on the editing mode and select File from the Add a resource.. menu in the course section where you want the link to appear. Give the file a name. Remember the name will be the link the user selects to get the file, so be descriptive. Add a description of the file. In the Content section, click the Add.. button to bring up the file browser. Click the Google Docs plugin in the File Picker pop-up window. The first time you access Google Docs from Moodle, you will see a login button on the screen. Click the button and Moodle will take you to the Google Docs login page. Login to Google Docs. Docs will now display a security warning, letting you know an external application (Moodle) is trying to access your file repository. Click on the Grant Access button at the bottom of the screen. Now you will be taken back to the File Picker. Select the file you want to link to your course. If you want to rename the document when it is linked to Moodle, rename it in the Save As text box. Then edit the Author field if necessary and choose a copyright license. Click on Select this file. Select the other options for the file as described in Getting Started with Moodle 2.0 for Business. Click on Save and return to course. What just happened You have now added a Google Doc to your Moodle course. You can add any of the Google Doc types to your course and share them with Moodle users. Google Docs File Formats The Moodle Google Docs plugin makes a copy of the document in a standard office format (rtf, xls, or ppt). When you save the file, any edits to the document after you save it to Moodle will not be displayed. Have a go hero Try importing the other Google Docs file formats into your Moodle course and test the download. Time for reflection Using Google Docs effectively requires clear goals, planning, integration with organizational workflows, and training. If you want to link Moodle with an external content repository, how will you ensure the implementation is successful? What business processes could you automate by using one of these content services? Exporting content to e-portfolios Now that we've integrated Moodle with external content repositories it's time to turn our attention to exporting content from Moodle. The Moodle 2 portfolio system allows users to export Moodle content in standard formats, so they can share their work with other people outside of Moodle, or organize their work into portfolios aimed at a variety of audiences. In a corporate environment, portfolios can be used to demonstrate competency for promotion or performance measurement. They can also be used as a directory of expertise within a company, so others can find people they need for special projects. One of the more popular open source portfolio systems is called Mahara. Mahara is a dedicated e-portfolio system for creating collections of work and then creating multiple views on those collections for specific audiences. It also includes a blogging platform, resume builder, and social networking tools. In recent versions, Mahara has begun to incorporate social networking features to enable users to find others with similar interests or specific skill sets. To start, we'll briefly look at installing Mahara, then work through the integration of Moodle with Mahara. Once we've got the two systems talking to each other, we can look at how to export content from Moodle to Mahara and then display it in an e-portfolio. Time for action - installing Mahara Mahara is a PHP and MySQL application like Moodle. Mahara and Moodle share a very similar architecture, and are designed to be complementary in many respects. You can use the same server setup we've already created for Moodle in Getting Started with Moodle 2.0 for Business. However, we need to create a new database to house the Mahara data as well as ensure Mahara has its own space to operate. Go to http://mahara.org. There is a Download link on the right side of the screen. Download the latest stable version (version 1.3 as of this writing). You will need version 1.3 or later to fully integrate with Moodle 2. For the best results, follow the instructions on the Installing Mahara wiki page, http://wiki.mahara.org/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Installing_Mahara. If you are installing Mahara on the same personal machine as Moodle, be sure to put the Mahara folder at your web server's root level and keep it separate from Moodle. Your URL for Mahara should be similar to your URL for Moodle. What just happened You have now installed Mahara on your test system. Once you have Mahara up and running on your test server, you can begin to integrate Mahara with Moodle. Time for action - configuring the networking and SSO To begin the process of configuring Moodle and Mahara to work together, we need to enable Moodle Networking. You will need to make sure you have xmlrpc, curl, and openssl installed and configured in your PHP build. Networking allows Moodle to share users and authentication with another system. In this case, we are configuring Moodle to allow Moodle users to automatically login to Mahara when they login to Moodle. This will create a more seamless experience for the users and enable them to move back and forth between the systems. The steps to configure the Mahara portfolio plugin are as follows: From the Site administration menu, select Advanced features. Find the Networking option and set it to On. Select Save changes. The Networking option will then appear in the site admin menu. Select Networking, then Manage Peers. In the Add a new host form, copy the URL of your Mahara site into the hostname field and then select Mahara as the server type. Open a new window and login to your Mahara site as the site admin. Select the Site Admin tab. On your Mahara site, select Configure Site. Then select Networking. Copy the public key from the BEGIN tag to the END CERTIFICATE and paste it into the Public Key field in the Moodle networking form. On the resulting page, select the Services tab to set up the services necessary to integrate the portfolio. You will now need to configure the SSO services. Moodle and Mahara can make the following services available for the other system to consume. Moodle/Mahara Services Descriptions Remote enrollment service: Publish: If you Publish the Remote Enrollment Service, Mahara admins will be able to enroll students in Moodle courses. To enable this, you must also publish to the Single Sign On Service Provider service. Subscribe: Subscribe allows you to remotely enroll students in courses on the remote server. It doesn't apply in the context of Mahara. Portfolio Services: You must enable both Publish and Subscribe to allow users to send content to Mahara. SSO: (Identity Provider) If you Publish the SSO service, users can go from Moodle to Mahara without having to login again. If you Subscribe to this service, users can go from Mahara to Moodle without having to login again. SSO: (Service Provider) This is the converse of Identity Provider service. If you enabled Publish previously, you must enable Subscribe here. If you enabled Subscribe previously, you must enable Publish here. Click on Save changes. What just happened You have just enabled Single Sign-On between Moodle and Mahara. We are now halfway through the setup and now we can configure the Mahara to listen for Moodle users. Have a go hero Moodle Networking is also used to enable Moodle servers to communicate with each other. The Moodle Hub system is designed on top of Moodle networking to enable teachers to share courses with each other, and enable multiple Moodle servers to share users. How could you use this feature to spread Moodle within your organization? Could you create an internal and an external facing Moodle and have them talk to each other? Could different departments each use a Moodle and share access to courses using Moodle networking? For your "have a go hero" activity, design a plan to use Moodle networking within your organization.

ASP.NET jQuery Cookbook Over 60 practical recipes for integrating jQuery with ASP.NET      The reader can benefit from the previous article on ASP.NET: Creating Rich Content. Using the datepicker control The datepicker is a popular control for date fields in online submission forms. In this recipe, let's see how to use the jQuery UI to attach a datepicker to an ASP.NET TextBox control. Getting Ready Create a new web form Recipe5.aspx in the current project. Add controls to create a simple search form that accepts an input date field as follows: <form id="form1" runat="server"> <div align="center"> <asp:Label ID="lblDate" runat="server">Search by registration date: </asp:Label> <asp:TextBox ID="txtDate" runat="server"></asp:TextBox> <asp:Button ID="btnSubmit" Text="Search" runat="server" /> </div> </form> Thus, on page load, the web form appears as shown in the following screenshot: We will now use jQuery UI to attach a datepicker to the TextBox control. How to do it... In the document.ready() function of the jQuery script block, apply the datepicker() method to the TextBox control: $("#txtDate").datepicker(); Thus, the complete jQuery solution for the given problem is as follows: <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ $("#txtDate").datepicker(); }); </script> How it works... Run the web form. On mouseclick on the TextBox control, the datepicker is displayed as shown in the following screenshot: The desired date can be picked from the displayed calendar as required. There's more… For detailed documentation on the jQuery UI datepicker widget, please visit http://jqueryui.com/demos/datepicker/. Using the progress bar control jQuery UI provides a Progressbar widget to show the processing status during a wait time in an application. In this recipe, we will learn to create a Progressbar in ASP.NET. Getting Ready Include an animated gif file pbar-ani.gif in the images folder in the project. Add a new web form Recipe6.aspx to the current project. Add an ASP.NET panel control for the progressbar as follows: <asp:Panel id="progressbar" runat="server"></asp:Panel> Define some basic css style for the above as follows: #progressbar { width:300px; height:22px; } The jQuery UI progressbar uses the jQuery UI CSS Framework for styling. Hence, to set the background of the progressbar to the animated gif file, add the following css style: .ui-progressbar-value { background-image: url(images/pbar- ani.gif); } Create another content panel that is initially hidden and displayed only after the progressbar loads completely. <asp:Panel id="contentArea" runat="server">Page successfully loaded</asp:Panel> We will use the following css class to hide this panel: .hide 21 { display:none; } Thus, the complete aspx markup of the form is as follows: <form id="form1" runat="server"> <div align="center"> <asp:Panel id="progressbar" runat="server"></asp:Panel> <asp:Panel id="contentArea" runat="server">Page successfully loaded</asp:Panel> </div> </form> Now, we will look at the jQuery solution for applying the Progressbar widget to the ASP.NET panel. How to do it... In the document.ready() function of the jQuery script block, hide the display message: $("#contentArea").addClass("hide"); Initialise a counter: var cnt = 0; Define the maximum value of the counter: var maxCnt = 100; Use the JavaScript timer function setInterval() to define the timeout interval and the callback function after each interval: var id = setInterval(showprogress, 10); Now, define the previous callback function: function showprogress() { Check if the current value of the counter is less than or equal to the maximum allowable value: if (cnt <= maxCnt) { If yes, then apply the progressbar() function with the current counter value: $("#progressbar").progressbar({ value: cnt }); Increment the counter: cnt++; } If the current value of the counter is greater than the maximum value, clear the timer using the respective ID: lse { clearInterval(id); Show the display message: $("#contentArea").removeClass("hide"); Hide the progress bar: $("#progressbar").addClass("hide"); } } Thus, the complete jQuery solution is a follows: <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function() { $("#contentArea").addClass("hide"); var cnt = 0; var maxCnt = 100; var id = setInterval(showprogress, 10); function showprogress() { if (cnt <= maxCnt) { $("#progressbar").progressbar({ value: cnt }); cnt++; } else { clearInterval(id); $("#contentArea").removeClass("hide"); $("#progressbar").addClass("hide"); } } }); </script> In this solution, we have used the JavaScript timer setInterval(customFunction, timeout) to call a custom function after the timeout (in milliseconds). Important points to note are: The setInterval method returns a numeric number,id to track the timeout. This ID can be later used to clear the timer. The timer calls the custom function showprogress() repeatedly after every timeout interval until the clearInterval(id) is called. After every timeout, we will increment the variable cnt by 1 and apply it to the progressbar. When cnt reaches maxCnt, the progressbar loads completely. How it works... Run the web form. You will see that the progressbar loads in steps, as shown in the following screenshot: After the load is complete, the progressbar is hidden and the content panel is displayed instead, as follows: There's more… For detailed documentation on the jQuery UI progressbar widget, please visit http://jqueryui.com/demos/progressbar/.  

  Oracle Warehouse Builder 11g R2: Getting Started 2011 Extract, Transform, and Load data to build a dynamic, operational data warehouse We will find the objects all under the Oracle node in the Projects tab. Let's launch Design Center now and have a look at it. But before we can see any objects, we have to have an Oracle module defined to contain the objects. Our Projects tab window will look similar to the following: Creating a target user and module We need a different module to create our target objects in. So before going any further, let's create a new module in the Projects tab for our target to hold our data warehouse design objects. However, before we can do that, we should have a target schema defined in the database that will hold our target objects when we deploy them. Every target module must be mapped to a target user schema. It's a good idea to create a separate user schema to become the target so that user roles in our database can be kept separate. Using the OWB repository owner schema would mean our target data warehouse would have to be on the same database server as our repository. In large installations, that will most likely not be the case. So for maximum flexibility, we're going to create a separate user schema. In our case, that user will be created in the same database as the repository; but it can be moved to another database easily if we expand and add more servers. Creating a target user There are a couple of ways we can go about creating our target user—create the user directly in the database and then add to OWB, or use OWB to physically create the user. If we have to create a new user, and if it's on the same database as our repository and workspaces, it's a good idea to use OWB to create the user, especially if we are not that familiar with the SQL command to create a user. However, if our target schema were to be in another database on another server, we would have to create the user there. It's a simple matter of adding that user to OWB as a target, which we'll see in a moment. Let's begin in the Design Center under the Globals tab. One of those object types is a Users object that exists under the Security node as shown here: Right-click on the Users node and select New User... to launch the Create User dialog box as shown here: With this wizard, we are creating a workspace user. We create a workspace user by selecting a database user that already exists or create a new one in the database. We'll just click the Next button to move on to step 1 as shown next: If we already had a target user created in the database, this is where we would select it. We're going to click on the Create DB User... button to create a new database user. We need to enter the system username and password as we need a user with DBA privileges in the database to be able to create a database user. We then enter a username and password for our new user. As we like to keep things basic, we'll call our new user ACME_DWH, for the ACME data warehouse. We can also specify the default and temporary tablespace for our new user, which we'll leave at the defaults. The dialog will appear like the following when completely filled in: The new user will be created when you click on the OK button, and will appear in the right hand window of the Create User dialog already selected for us. Click on the Next button and we'll be presented with the second step of the user creation process, whether to create a location using the user credentials or not as shown in the following image: Since we're going to use this new user we've just created as an eventual target for creating our data warehouse in then we will need to leave this checkbox checked so it creates a location based on this user. We could be just creating another authorized database user for accessing the workspace but not intending to use it as a target for any object creation in which case we wouldn't need a location defined for it. We'll leave the check box checked and click the Next button to proceed. The final screen is just the Summary screen indicating the user to be created and whether a location will be created or not. We'll just click the Finish button and the user will be registered with the workspace, and we'll see the new username if we expand the Users node under Security in the Globals tab. Since we had indicated that we wanted a location created also, a location for the user will be evident on the Locations tab under the Locations…Databases…Oracle node. We can continue with creating our target module now that we have a user defined in the database to map to. Notice that we could indicate whether we wanted a location created or not but had no way to specify the database location information. This is because it creates the user on the local database we were connected to when we logged into the Design Center, which is the location of our repository and workspaces. Due to this, this method can only be used to create the user if it is on the local database. In the next section where we create our target module, we'll get to specify the location and that dialog box will allow us to specify a remote database if needed. Create a target module Right-click on the Oracle object under Databases and select New Oracle Module... from the pop-up menu to launch the Create Module Wizard and step through the process. We'll name this module ACME_DWH for ACME Data Warehouse. The next step is for creating or selecting a location to use. Since we just created the user to use as the target user and had the Warehouse Builder create the location automatically for us there is a location available now on the local server we can use. We'll just click the drop down and select the location labeled ACME_DWH_LOCATION. If we're creating our own test system, the source location may very well be the same as our target. But in real-world situations, it will likely be in a different database on a different server. If we had created a target user schema on a different database, this is the point at which we would be able to enter the connection information for that user in order to associate our target module with that user and make it a target. We would just create a new location by clicking the Edit button on the default ACME_DWH_LOCATION1 to specify the connection details for that other database. We're not going to create a new location but will be selecting an existing one and for reference, the Step 2 screen should look like the following for selecting the location of the target module: The User Name is the user we just created for this very purpose in the previous section. There is no password set for that user in the location yet but it will prompt us for that the first time we attempt to use it. The Host setting of Win7VM will be whatever the name is of the computer its running on so will vary. The Warehouse Builder uses the actual local computer name when creating the location for us rather than localhost but either will do. If we had specified a user on a remote database the location information (Host, Port, and Service Name) would specify a user in another database if needed. If our user were not in this database, we would have just entered his or her appropriate host and port for the location and the service name of that remote database. Now that we have our target database schema and a target module defined, which is associated with a location pointing to that target schema, we will now have two Oracle modules under our Oracle object in the Projects tab. We can continue our discussion of the design objects available to us in the Warehouse Builder for designing our database. First, let's make sure we save our work so far by using the Ctrl+S key combination or by selecting Design | Save All from the main menu. OWB design objects Looking at our Projects tab window with our target Oracle module expanded, we can see a number of objects that are available to us as shown here: There are objects that are relational such as Tables, Views, Materialized Views, and Sequences. Also, there are dimensional objects such as Cubes and Dimensions. We have decided to model our database dimensionally and this will dictate the objects we create. From the standpoint of providing the best model of our business rules and representing what users want to see, the dimensional method is the way to go. Most data warehouse implementations we encounter will use a dimensional design. It just makes more sense for matching the business rules the users are familiar with and providing the types of information the user community will want to extract from the database. We are thinking dimensionally in our design, but what about the underlying physical implementation? We discussed the difference between the relational and multidimensional physical implementation of a database, and now it's time to see how we will handle that here. The Warehouse Builder can help us tremendously with that because it has the ability to design the objects logically using cubes and dimensions in a dimensional design. It also has the ability to implement them physically in the underlying database as either a relational structure or a dimensional structure simply by checking a box. In general, which option should be chosen? The relational implementation is best suited to large amounts of data that tend to change more frequently. For this reason, the relational implementation is usually chosen for the main data warehouse schema by most implementers of a data warehouse. It is much better suited to handling the large volumes of data that are imported frequently into the data warehouse. The multidimensional implementation is better suited to applications where heavy analytic processing is required, and so is a good candidate for the data marts that will be presented to users. To be able to implement the design physically as a dimensional implementation with cubes and dimensions, we need a database that is designed specifically to support OLAP as we discussed previously. If that is not available, then the decision is made for us. In our case, we installed the Enterprise Edition with default options, and that includes the OLAP feature in the database, so we have a choice to make. Since we're installing our main data warehouse target schema, we'll choose the relational implementation. For a relational implementation, the Warehouse Builder actually provides us two options for implementing the database: a pure relational option and the relational OLAP option. If we were to have the OLAP feature installed in our database, we could choose to still have the cubes and dimensions implemented physically in a relational format. We could have it store metadata in the database in the OLAP catalog, and so multidimensional features such as aggregations would be available to us. We could take advantage of the relational implementation of the database for handling large volumes of data, and still implement a query or reporting tool such as Oracle Discoverer or Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise or Standard Edition (OBIEE) to access the data that made use of the OLAP features. The pure relational option just depends on whether we choose to deploy only the data objects and not the OLAP metadata. In reality, most people choose either the pure relational or the multidimensional. If they want both, they implement separate data marts. In fact, the default when creating dimensional objects and selecting relational for the implementation is to only deploy data objects. This case would allow us to use the dimensional objects to load the data warehouse without needing to deploy OLAP catalog objects representing them. Tools like OBIEE or Discoverer can still derive Business Intelligence objects for dimensional oriented models in those tools using just these relational dimensional objects in the database. Just to be clear, does all this mean that if we haven't paid for the OLAP feature for our database, we can only design our data warehouse using the relational objects; and therefore must our decision to design dimensionally change? The answer to that would be an emphatic no, since we just mentioned how OWB will let us design dimensional objects, cubes and dimensions, and then implement them physically in the database as relational objects. The benefit is that the same dimensional design can be implemented at a later time in an OLAP database just by changing a single setting. There are features of the Warehouse Builder for handling dimensional features automatically for us, such as levels, surrogate keys, and slowly changing dimensions (all of which we'll talk about later) that designing dimensionally provides us. We would have to implement these manually if we designed our own tables. Most people who use the Warehouse Builder will use it in that way, so we'll definitely want to make use of that feature to maximize the usefulness of the tools to us. This provides us with flexibility and it is the way we are going to proceed with our design. We'll design dimensionally using a cube and dimensions, and then can implement it either relationally or dimensionally when we're ready. Summary This article introduced the Warehouse Builder for design and the creation of a target user and module. Further resources on this subject: Oracle WebCenter 11g: Portlets [Article] An Overview of Oracle Advanced Pricing [Article] An overview of Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting [Article] Oracle Business Intelligence: Drilling Data Up and Down [Article] Oracle Warehouse Builder: Designing the Target Structure [Article] Integrating Discussions, Wiki, and Blog with Oracle WebCenter [Article]

  Oracle Warehouse Builder 11g R2: Getting Started 2011 Extract, Transform, and Load data to build a dynamic, operational data warehouse         Read more about this book       (For more resources on Oracle, see here.) When it comes to the design of a data warehouse, there is basically one option that makes the most sense for how we will structure our database and that is the dimensional model. This is a way of looking at the data from a business perspective that makes the data simple, understandable, and easy to query for the business end user. It doesn't require a database administrator to be able to retrieve data from it. A normalized model removes redundancies in data by storing information in discrete tables, and then referencing those tables when needed. This has an advantage for a transactional system because information needs to be entered at only one place in the database, without duplicating any information already entered. For example, in the ACME Toys and Gizmos transactional database, each time a transaction is recorded for the sale of an item at a register, a record needs to be added only to the transactions table. In the table, all details regarding the information to identify the register, the item information, and the employee who processed the transaction do not need to be entered because that information is already stored in separate tables. The main transaction record just needs to be entered with references to all that other information. This works extremely well for a transactional type of system concerned with daily operational processing where the focus is on getting data into the system. However, it does not work well for a data warehouse whose focus is on getting data out of the system. Users do not want to navigate through the spider web of tables that compose a normalized database model to extract the information they need. Therefore, dimensional models were introduced to provide the end user with a flattened structure of easily queried tables that he or she can understand from a business perspective. Dimensional design A dimensional model takes the business rules of our organization and represents them in the database in a more understandable way. A business manager looking at sales data is naturally going to think more along the lines of "How many gizmos did I sell last month in all stores in the south and how does that compare to how many I sold in the same month last year?" Managers just want to know what the result is, and don't want to worry about how many tables need to be joined in a complex query to get that result. A dimensional model removes the complexity and represents the data in a way that end users can relate to it more easily from a business perspective. Users can intuitively think of the data for the above question as a cube, and the edges (or dimensions) of the cube labeled as stores, products, and time frame. So let's take a look at this concept of a cube with dimensions, and how we can use that to represent our data. Cube and dimensions The dimensions become the business characteristics about the sales, for example: A time dimension—users can look back in time and perform time series analysis, such as how a quarter compares to the same quarter last year A store dimension—information can be retrieved by store and location A product dimension—various products for sale can be broken out Think of the dimensions as the edges of a cube, and the intersection of the dimensions as the measure we are interested in for that particular combination of time, store, and product. A picture is worth a thousand words, so let's look at what we're talking about in the following image: Notice what this cube looks like. How about a Rubik's Cube? We're doing a data warehouse for a toy store company, so we ought to know what a Rubik's cube is! If you have one, maybe you should go get it now because that will exactly model what we're talking about. Think of the width of the cube, or a row going across, as the product dimension. Every piece of information or measure in the same row refers to the same product, so there are as many rows in the cube as there are products. Think of the height of the cube, or a column going up and down, as the store dimension. Every piece of information in a column represents one single store, so there are as many columns as there are stores. Finally, think of the depth of the cube as the time dimension, so any piece of information in the rows and columns at the same depth represent the same point in time. The intersection of each of these three dimensions locates a single individual cube in the big cube, and that represents the measure amount we're interested in. In this case, it's dollar sales for a single product in a single store at a single point in time. But one might wonder if we are restricted to just three dimensions with this model. After all, a cube has only three dimensions—length, width, and depth. Well, the answer is no. We can have many more dimensions than just three. In our ACME example, we might want to know the sales each employee has accomplished for the day. This would mean we would need a fourth dimension for employees. But what about our visualization above using a cube? How is this fourth dimension going to be modeled? And no, the answer is not that we're entering the Twilight Zone here with that "dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind..." We can think of additional dimensions as being cubes within a cube. If we think of an individual intersection of the three dimensions of the cube as being another cube, we can see that we've just opened up another three dimensions to use—the three for that inner cube. The Rubik's Cube example used above is good because it is literally a cube of cubes and illustrates exactly what we're talking about. We do not need to model additional cubes. The concept of cubes within cubes was just to provide a way to visualize further dimensions. We just model our main cube, add as many dimensions as we need to describe the measures, and leave it for the implementation to handle. This is a very intuitive way for users to look at the design of the data warehouse. When it's implemented in a database, it becomes easy for users to query the information from it. Implementation of a dimensional model in a database We have seen how a dimensional model is preferred over a normalized model for designing a data warehouse. Now before we finalize our model for the ACME Toys and Gizmos data warehouse, let's look at the implementation of the model to see how it gets physically represented in the database. There are two options: a relational implementation and a multidimensional implementation. The relational implementation, which is the most common for a data warehouse structure, is implemented in the database with tables and foreign keys. The multidimensional implementation requires a special feature in a database that allows defining cubes directly as objects in the database. Let's discuss a few more details of these two implementations. Relational implementation (star schema) The term relational is used because the tables in it relate to each other in some way. We can't have a POS transaction without the corresponding register it was processed on, so those two relate to each other when represented in the database as tables. For a relational data warehouse design, the relational characteristics are retained between tables. But a design principle is followed to keep the number of levels of foreign key relationships to a minimum. It's much faster and easier to understand if we don't have to include multiple levels of referenced tables. For this reason, a data warehouse dimensional design that is represented relationally in the database will have one main table to hold the primary facts, or measures we want to store, such as count of items sold or dollar amount of sales. It will also hold descriptive information about those measures that places them in context, contained in tables that are accessed by the main table using foreign keys. The important principle here is that these tables that are referenced by the main table contain all the information they need and do not need to go down any more levels to further reference any other tables. The ER diagram of such an implementation would be shaped somewhat like a star, and thus the term star schema is used to refer to this kind of an implementation. The main table in the middle is referred to as the fact table because it holds the facts, or measures that we are interested in about our organization. This represents the cube that we discussed earlier. The tables surrounding the fact table are known as dimension tables. These are the dimensions of our cube. These tables contain descriptive information, which places the facts in a context that makes them understandable. We can't have a dollar amount of sales that means much to us unless we know what item it was for, or what store made the sale, or any of a number of other pieces of descriptive information that we might want to know about it. It is the job of data warehouse design to determine what pieces of information need to be included. We'll then design dimension tables to hold the information. Using the dimensions we referred to above in our cube discussion as our dimension tables, we have the following diagram that illustrates a star schema: Of course our star only has three points, but with a much larger data warehouse of many more dimensions, it would be even more star-like. Keep in mind the principle that we want to follow here of not using any more than one level of foreign key referencing. As a result, we are going to end up with a de-normalized database structure. For a data warehouse, the query time and simplicity is of paramount importance over the duplication of data. As for the data accuracy, it's a read-only database so we can take care of that up front when we load the data. For these reasons, we will want to include all the information we need right in the dimension tables, rather than create further levels of foreign key references. This is the opposite of normalization, and thus the term de-normalized is used. Let's look at an example of this for ACME Toys and Gizmos to get a better idea of what we're talking about with this concept of de-normalization. Every product in our stores is associated with a department. If we have a dimension for product information, one of the pieces of information about the product would be the department it is in. In a normalized database, we would consider creating a department table to store department descriptions with one row for each department, and would use a short key code to refer to the department record in the product table. However, in our data warehouse, we would include that department information, description and all, right in the product dimension. This will result in the same information being duplicated for each product in the department. What that buys us is a simpler structure that is easier to query and more efficient for retrieving information from, which is key to data warehouse usability. The extra space we consume in repeating the information is more than paid for in the improvement in speed and ease of querying the information. That will result in a greater acceptance of the data warehouse by the user community who now find it more intuitive and easier to retrieve their data. In general, we will want to de-normalize our data warehouse implementation in all cases, but there is the possibility that we might want to include another level—basically a dimension table referenced by another dimension table. In most cases, we will not need nor want to do this and instances should be kept to an absolute minimum; but there are some cases where it might make sense. This is a variation of the star schema referred to as a snowflake schema because with this type of implementation, dimension tables are partially normalized to pull common data out into secondary dimension tables. The resulting schema diagram looks somewhat like a snowflake. The secondary dimension tables are the tips of the snowflake hanging off the main dimension tables in a star schema. In reality, we'd want at the most only one or two of the secondary dimension tables; but it serves to illustrate the point. A snowflake dimension table is really not recommended in most cases because of ease-of-use and performance considerations, but can be used in very limited circumstances. Let's now talk a little bit about the multidimensional implementation of a dimensional model in the database, and then we'll design our cube and dimensions specifically for the ACME Toys and Gizmos Company data warehouse.  

Understanding user properties User properties are child object types which are available for the following object types in the Siebel Repository: Applet, Control, List Column Application Business Service Business Component, Field Integration Object, Integration Component, Integration Component Field View To view the User Property (or User Prop as it is sometimes abbreviated) object type we typically have to modify the list of displayed types for the Object Explorer window. This can be achieved by selecting the Options command in the View menu. In the Object Explorer tab of the Development Tools Options dialog, we can select the object types for display as shown in the following screenshot: In the preceding example, the Business Component User Prop type is enabled for display. After confirming the changes in the Development Tools Options dialog by clicking the OK button, we can for example navigate to the Account business component and review its existing user properties by selecting the Business Component User Prop type in the Object Explorer. The following screenshot shows the list of user properties for the Account business component: The screenshot also shows the standard Properties window on the right. This is to illustrate that a list of user properties, which mainly define a Name/Value pair, can be simply understood as an extension to an object type's usual properties which are accessible by means of the Properties window and represent Name/Value pairs as well.Because an additional user property is just a new record in the Siebel Repository, the list of user properties for a given parent record is theoretically infinite. This allows developers to define a rich set of business logic as a simple list of Name/Value pairs instead of having to write program code.The Name property of a user property definition must use a reserved name - and optional sequence number - as defined by Oracle engineering. The Value property must also follow the syntax defined for the special purpose of the user property. Because an additional user property is just a new record in the Siebel Repository, the list of user properties for a given parent record is theoretically infinite. This allows developers to define a rich set of business logic as a simple list of Name/Value pairs instead of having to write program code. The Name property of a user property definition must use a reserved name—and optional sequence number—as defined by Oracle engineering. The Value property must also follow the syntax defined for the special purpose of the user property. Did you know? The list of available names for a user property depends on the object type (for example Business Component) and the C++ class associated with the object definition. For example, the business component Account is associated with the CSSBCAccountSIS class which defines a different range of available user property names than other classes. Many user property names are officially documented in the Siebel Developer's Reference guide in the Siebel Bookshelf. We can find the guide online at the following URL: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14004_01/books/ToolsDevRef/ToolsDevRef_UserProps.html The user property names described in this guide are intended for use by custom developers. Any other user property which we may find in the Siebel Repository but which is not officially documented should be considered an internal user property of Oracle engineering. Because the internal user properties could change in a future version of Siebel CRM in both syntax and behavior without prior notice, it is highly recommended to use only user properties which are documented by Oracle. Another way to find out which user property names are made available by Oracle to customers is to click the dropdown icon in the Name property of a user property record. This opens the user property pick list which displays a wide range of officially documented user properties along with a description text. Multi-instance user properties Some user properties can be instantiated more than once. If this is the case a sequence number is used to generate a distinguished name. For example, the On Field Update Set user property used on business components uses a naming convention as displayed in the following screenshot: In the previous example, we can see four instances of the On Field Update Set user property distinguished by a sequential numeric suffix (1 to 4). Because it is very likely that Oracle engineers and custom developers add additional instances of the same user property while working on the next release, Oracle provides a customer allowance gap of nine instances for the next sequence number. In the previous example, a custom developer could continue the set of On Field Update Set user properties with a suffix of 13. By doing so, the custom developer will most likely avoid conflicts during an upgrade to a newer version of Siebel CRM. The Oracle engineer would continue with a suffix of five and upgrade conflicts will only occur when Oracle defines more than eight additional instances. The gap of nine also ensures that the sequence of multi-instance user properties is still functional when one or more of the user property records are marked as inactive. In the following sections, we will describe the most important user properties for the business and user interface layer. In addition, we will examine case study scenarios to identify best practices for using user properties to define specialized behavior of Siebel CRM applications. Business component and field user properties On the business layer of the Siebel Repository, user properties are widely used to control specialized behavior of business components and fields. The following table describes the most important user properties on the business component level. The Multiple Instances column contains Yes for all user properties which can be instantiated more than once per parent object: Source: Siebel Developer's Reference, Version 8.1: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14004_01/books/ToolsDevRef/booktitle.html