Implementing custom search form in ADF programmatically (Without using af:query)

Sometimes we need to implement custom search instead of using adf query component.
To implement custom search form , i have used a quite beautiful way to handle search and reset functionality for a View Object.
In this post i am taking Employees Table (Default HR Schema) to search and reset af:table.

• First create a Fusion Web Application and create model (EO,VO and AM) using Employees table

• Now suppose we have to search on 4 fields (EmployeeId, FirstName, Email, Salary) , so for this i have created a new read only ViewObject from dual

•  This VO from dual is created to be used as Search form on page

•  Now to make search effective on Employees VO , i have created 4 bind variable for corresponding fields in Employees ViewObject

•  Now i have created a ViewCriteria using these 4 bind variables to re-query ViewObject  data

•  This ViewCriteria will be executed each time when value of bind variable is changed, now this is the time to set value of bind variables, so i have dragged dual vo as a form on page, and added 2 button for Search and Reset

•  To View Search Result , Employees Table is there on page

•  Now to get value from Form Field to bean , i have created binding for all 4 fields in bean

•  Now i have created ActionListener for Search button- in this code i have get value from page using component bindings and passed in Employees ViewObject's bind variable in order to execute viewCriteria.



    public void searchButton(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
        searchAMImpl am = (searchAMImpl)resolvElDC("searchAMDataControl");
        ViewObject empVo = am.getEmployees1();
        empVo.setNamedWhereClauseParam("EmpIdBind", empIdPgBind.getValue());
        empVo.setNamedWhereClauseParam("FirstNmBind", firstNmPgBind.getValue());
        empVo.setNamedWhereClauseParam("EmailBind", emailPgBind.getValue());
        empVo.setNamedWhereClauseParam("SalaryBind", salaryPgBind.getValue());
        empVo.executeQuery();
    }



• Once value is set in bind variable , view criteria is executed and Search result will be shown in resultant table- Run your application and see

• To reset values in table and search form, see the managed bean code of Reset button



    public void resetButton(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
        searchAMImpl am = (searchAMImpl)resolvElDC("searchAMDataControl");
        ViewObject empVo = am.getEmployees1();
        ViewObject attrVo=am.getattr1();
        empVo.setNamedWhereClauseParam("EmpIdBind", null);
        empVo.setNamedWhereClauseParam("FirstNmBind", null);
        empVo.setNamedWhereClauseParam("EmailBind", null);
        empVo.setNamedWhereClauseParam("SalaryBind", null);
        empVo.executeQuery();
        attrVo.executeQuery();
      
    }



• Click on reset button and page value are set to default

• This is how we can implement custom search using ADF components, you can apply validations, auto suggest feature etc while using this custom search

          Cheers :-)  Download Sample App

Create new look up data using List of Values (LOVs) in Oracle ADF

While working on project , I have seen such type of LOV that have a option of create Lov Value at selection time, this is quite good, as if desired value is not available in list then user can create on that time.

This type of list looks like this

It means if there is no company available in list you need not to go on Company form, user can create it directly from here.
Doing this in ADF is quite simple , in this tutorial i am taking example of Oracle default HR schema (Employees and Departments) table-
Implementation Steps-

• Create business components from Department and Employees table 





•  Now create LOV on DepartmentId of employees ViewObject from Department VO

• Go to UI Hints tab of LOV and select Combo Box with List of Values

•  Now drag fields of Employee from DataControl to page as form

•  Select Department Id Lov and go to structure window, and drop a link in customActions facet of  af:inputComboboxListOfValues

• Now drag a popup on page and drag Department VO on af:dialog as form to create new department. and other things are same as normal form
  

• Bind this popup to bean and create a ActionListener on the link inside facet to invoke createInsert of department table



package lookup.view.bean;

import java.io.Serializable;

import javax.faces.context.FacesContext;
import javax.faces.event.ActionEvent;

import oracle.adf.model.BindingContext;

import oracle.adf.view.rich.component.rich.RichPopup;

import oracle.adf.view.rich.event.DialogEvent;

import oracle.binding.BindingContainer;
import oracle.binding.OperationBinding;

import org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.render.ExtendedRenderKitService;
import org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.util.Service;

public class LookupDataBean implements Serializable {
    private RichPopup deptPopUpBind;

    public LookupDataBean() {
    }

    public BindingContainer getBindings() {
        return BindingContext.getCurrent().getCurrentBindingsEntry();
    }

    private void showPopup(RichPopup pop, boolean visible) {
        try {
            FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
            if (context != null && pop != null) {
                String popupId = pop.getClientId(context);
                if (popupId != null) {
                    StringBuilder script = new StringBuilder();
                    script.append("var popup = AdfPage.PAGE.findComponent('").append(popupId).append("'); ");
                    if (visible) {
                        script.append("if (!popup.isPopupVisible()) { ").append("popup.show();}");
                    } else {
                        script.append("if (popup.isPopupVisible()) { ").append("popup.hide();}");
                    }
                    ExtendedRenderKitService erks =
                        Service.getService(context.getRenderKit(), ExtendedRenderKitService.class);
                    erks.addScript(context, script.toString());
                }
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    }

    public void createDept(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
        BindingContainer bindings = getBindings();
        OperationBinding ob = bindings.getOperationBinding("CreateInsert");
        ob.execute();
        showPopup(deptPopUpBind, true);
    }

    public void DeptDialogListener(DialogEvent dialogEvent) {
        FacesContext fct = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
        if (dialogEvent.getOutcome().name().equals("ok")) {
            BindingContainer bindings = getBindings();
            OperationBinding ob = bindings.getOperationBinding("Commit");
            ob.execute();

        }
    }

    public void setDeptPopUpBind(RichPopup deptPopUpBind) {
        this.deptPopUpBind = deptPopUpBind;
    }

    public RichPopup getDeptPopUpBind() {
        return deptPopUpBind;
    }
}



• Now run this application and click on Lov of DepartmentId, you will see your link there to create Department

• Now see that how many departments are listed currently in LOV

• Now click on Add Department link and add a department

•  Again see the listed departments- Oracle ADF Tutorial is added in now list

 this is how you can use this beautiful feature in your LOV-
Sample ADF Application- Download

Creating Dynamic View Object at Runtime programmatically - Oracle ADF

Dynamic ViewObject refers to creating ViewObject at Runtime using SQL statement,
ApplicationModuleImpl has a method to create ViewObject using Sql statement i;e createViewObjectFromQueryStmt .

this method creates a readonly viewObject at runtime when query is processed in the method

Follow these simple steps-

• First create a dummy ViewObject using dual  






• Now add this ViewObject to Application Module
  
  

• I am doing this in managed bean, get application module and call method to create dynamic ViewObject
         get Application Module-






    public Object resolvElDC(String data) {
        FacesContext fc = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
        Application app = fc.getApplication();
        ExpressionFactory elFactory = app.getExpressionFactory();
        ELContext elContext = fc.getELContext();
        ValueExpression valueExp =
            elFactory.createValueExpression(elContext, "#{data." + data + ".dataProvider}", Object.class);
        return valueExp.getValue(elContext);
    }

    public dynamicAMImpl getAm() {
        dynamicAMImpl am = (dynamicAMImpl)resolvElDC("dynamicAMDataControl");
        return am;
    }


        create dynamic ViewObject-




        ViewObject dynVo = getAm().getdynamic1();
        dynVo.remove();
        getAm().createViewObjectFromQueryStmt("dynamic1", query);



• Now Run your application and see-
  
  
  
  
  

Download -Sample ADF Application

Update Model Values while Validation (Exception) occurs on page on Value Change event- Oracle ADF (processUpdates)

In ADF when we have some validation on page and we try to submit any value, but normally after validation (Exception) values are not updated in Model until exception is handled.
This tutorial is about how to update values in Model while exception on page.
For a scenario, i have used department (default HR Schema) table and form in a JSP XML fragment inside bounded taskflow.
In form Department Id and Department Name is mandatory field, ManagerId and Location Id has auto submit true.

• I have dropped createInsert,Execute,Commit and Rollback as buttons on page

• Click on create button and first enter manager id, as this field has autosubmit true so on submission of value page is validated and then Required Fields throw exception, and after exception you can see that manager id & location id is not updated in Model, and not reflected in af:table also.

•  Normally what we do, set immediate true to skip validations, but in this case i have witten ValueChangeListener on manager Id and Location Id to process values in Model.- see code



    public void mangrIdVCE(ValueChangeEvent vce) {
        vce.getComponent().processUpdates(FacesContext.getCurrentInstance());
    }



• processUpdates() method of UIComponent class perform the coponent tree processing for all facet of this component by Update Model Values phase of request processing, and pushes data to Model


• Now after calling this method, run application- Now values are populated in af:table and validation is still there on page

• this approach can be used while using validators on page and want to process some values after validation (as conditional validation of some fields etc)
• Download sample application -Sample App

Conditional Execution of Model (EO) level Validation- Oracle ADF

You all know about ADF model level validation , we can apply variety of validation on model (Entity Object), as for length, compare, key, regular expression, script and unique key etc.

I am not going to describe whole process for model layer validation, for detailed tutorial on EO level validation see -Dynamic (parameterize) model level validation using message token
Now see how we can execute these validation conditionally -

• When we apply unique key validation on Entity Object- this window appears-

• Now go to Validation Execution and write your condition in given box for that you want to execute validation

• Now go to Failure Handling tab and write your failure handling message, and you are done





• Now run your application and see how validation executes for your condition
• this functionality is really helpful and sometimes avoids writing lot of managed bean code

Creating and Executing ViewCriteria Programmatically

Sometimes you need dynamic ViewCriteria that you can handle at runtime ,
here is the solution ,you can create and apply ViewCriteria Programmatically-



Sample UseCase-

• Suppose you have Department VO
• You want to filter this VO for DepartmentId 10
• Do this using this code snippet


/**Get ViewObject*/
ViewObject vo = getAm().getDepartments1();
/**Create ViewCriteria on ViewObject*/
ViewCriteria vc = vo.createViewCriteria();
/**Create ViewCriteriaRow for that Criteria*/
ViewCriteriaRow vcRow = vc.createViewCriteriaRow();
/**Set the values for ViewCriteriaRow*/
vcRow.setAttribute("DepartmentId", 10);
/**Add row to ViewCriteria*/
vc.addRow(vcRow);
/**Apply Criteria on ViewObject*/
vo.applyViewCriteria(vc);
/**Execute ViewObject*/
vo.executeQuery();

public pcAMImpl getAm() {
pcAMImpl am = (pcAMImpl)resolvElDC("pcAMDataControl");
return am;
}

Insert New Row in ADF ViewObject Programatically

Here I am showing how to insert new row in ADF view object programmatically.

For this create a method in managed bean for your button on that you want to insert row.
and call this AMImpl method that makes use of ViewObjectImpl createRow method to add new row in RowSet

Created a method in AMImpl class and it'll be called in managed bean using binding layer

This method creates a row in ViewObject , and you can set(Insert) this row with some values using this simple snippet of code 

//Get ViewObject Instance
    ViewObjectImpl demoVo = this.getEmployeesDemo1();


// Creates a row in ViewObject
    Row r = demoVo.createRow();  
      
// You can set attribute values in this new row
    r.setAttribute("EmployeeId", 001); 

//Insert that row in ViewObject
    demoVo.insertRow(r);   
             
//Commit the changes, If you need
    this.getDBTransaction().commit();     
    demoVo.executeQuery();

This is how you can create row in ViewObject