Create shortcut of page on a button click in Oracle ADF using JShortcut library (For windows)

This post is about a small trick to create shortcut file from ADF application
Actually this type of requirement doesn't come in picture when you are working in web application , for web application bookmarks replaces desktop shortcut
Still if you want to do this then you can follow approach mentioned in this post

Creating shortcut programmatically requires access of operating system but you need not to worry about that
There is a java library to do this for you - JShortcut
Download jar files from here..

1. Now first step is to create a fusion web application and add this jar to viewController project

2. Create a page (independent runnable like jspx or jsf not fragments) and drop a button in that
3. Create a managed bean to handle button's action
    Here we will make use of JShellLink class of this library

See what docs says about this -

Provide access to shortcuts (shell links) from Java. The native library (jshortcut.dll) is loaded when JShellLink is first loaded. By default, JShellLink first looks for the native library in the PATH, using System.loadLibrary. If the native library is not found in the PATH, JShellLink then looks through each directory in the CLASSPATH (as determined by the value of the system property java.class.path). If an entry in the CLASSPATH is a jar file, then JShellLink looks for the native library in the directory containing that jar file. The application can override this behavior and force JShellLink to look for the native library in a specific directory by setting the system property JSHORTCUT_HOME to point to that directory. This property must be set before the JShellLink class is loaded. This makes it possible to use this library from a self-extracting jar file. 



4. Get the url of current page
 How to get url of current page in ADF Application?
 (See button action listener code for this )
5. Check code written in managed bean-

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

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;

import net.jimmc.jshortcut.JShellLink;

import oracle.adf.controller.ControllerContext;

    JShellLink link;
    String filePath;

    /**Button action listener to create shortcurt of current page on desktop
     * @param actionEvent
     */
    public void createSortcutonDpAction(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
        try {
            //Get url of current ViewPort
            String viewId = ControllerContext.getInstance().getCurrentViewPort().getViewId();
            String viewUrl = ControllerContext.getInstance().getGlobalViewActivityURL(viewId);

            //Get Server Name and Port
            FacesContext fctx = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
            HttpServletRequest hsrequest = (HttpServletRequest) fctx.getExternalContext().getRequest();

            String serverName = hsrequest.getServerName();
            int serverPort = hsrequest.getServerPort();

            String runnableUrl = "http://" + serverName + ":" + serverPort + viewUrl;

            //Create Object of shortcurt link
            link = new JShellLink();
            filePath = JShellLink.getDirectory("") + runnableUrl;
            //Set Where you want to create shortcut
            link.setFolder(JShellLink.getDirectory("desktop"));
            //Set shortcut file name
            link.setName("Programmatically Created Shortcut");
            //Use ico file to use as shortcut icon
            link.setIconLocation("C://Users//Admin//Desktop//Jdev_Logo.ico");
            link.setPath(filePath);
            link.save();

        } catch (Exception ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }

    }

6.  All done :) , run and check application
Click on button and check on desktop

Same code can be used to create shortcut from pure java application
Cheers :) Happy Learning

ADF Basics: How to invoke model layer methods from managed bean (Best Practice to write business logic in ADF)

Again a post about ADF Basics for those who are starting with ADF
This topic is posted multiple times and one of the most asked question on OTN

How to access AM method in bean ?
How to pass parameters to model from managed bean (viewController) ?
How to pass taskFlow parameter to model ?

Or sometimes I have to tell user that you should not access ApplicationModule or not update model from managed bean and then i post a link about this
I often post a link of Frank's blog
Best practice invoking business services methods from JSF beans
It is well explained but still user not able to do because he/she doesn't know about clientInterface, pageDef etc

So i thought to write a step by step implementation of this and if you want to know why it is best to call method through binding layer ?
Then please refer Frank's blog :)

What i am going to explain is How to call a method defined in ApplicationModule Impl class in managed bean ?
So for this first i need to define a method in ApplicationModule Impl class




Here i am using Departments table of HR Schema and i have created a method to create new row in Departments viewObject
See implementation part -

• To create AMImpl class--> Open ApplicationModule in editor--> Goto Java tab--> Click on edit (pencil) icon and check the checkbox to generate class
  
  
  
  
  
  


• Now write your logic and create method here so i have created a method to create department record and this method takes a parameter i;e DepartmentId



    /**
     *Custom Method to create row in departments viewObject
     */
    public void createDepartmentRecord(Integer deptId) {
        ViewObject deptVo = this.getDepartmentsVO1();
        Row newRow=deptVo.createRow();
        newRow.setAttribute("DepartmentId", deptId);
        deptVo.insertRow(newRow);
    }



• Next step is to add this method to client interface so that we can access this , Again open AM in editor -->Go to Java tab--> Click on edit icon of clientInterface--> Shuttle method to selected side





• Now to add this method in pageDef , Open page in editor--> Click on Bindings tab (bottom of editor)--> Click on green plus icon of bindings section--> Select methodAction and click on ok






Now select method name here and click ok





Now you can see this method is added in pageDef





• Now time to call this method in managed bean so for that added a button in page and created actionListener in bean . See the code 



    /**Method to get Binding Container of page
     * @return
     */
    public BindingContainer getBindings(){
        return BindingContext.getCurrent().getCurrentBindingsEntry();
    }

    /**Calling method defined in AMImpl class to create new Department
     * @param actionEvent
     */
    public void callAMMethodToCreateDepartmentAction(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
        //Get OperationBinding of method
        OperationBinding ob=getBindings().getOperationBinding("createDepartmentRecord");
        //Passing parameter to method -Get parameter map and use paramater name as key
        ob.getParamsMap().put("deptId", 9999);
        //Execute this method
        ob.execute();
        //Check for errors
        if(ob.getErrors().isEmpty()){
            // Successfully Executed
        }
    }



• Now run application and check , is it working ? ;)

On click a new row is inserted in table with DepartmentId 9999

All done :)
In same way you can call method defined in any model implementation class, remember don't access ApplicationModule or viewObject directly , make use binding layer

and again why it is best practice ?? to know this read Frank's blog :)

Cheers :) Happy Learning 

ADF Basics: Using contentStyle and inlineStyle property to change basic styling of component in ADF Faces

Hello All,
Again a post about ADF Basics for beginners
I have seen lots of thread on OTN about changing basic styles of component . for example,

How to change font size of inputText ?
How to change color of inputText/outputText ?
How to change color of link or button ?

and everyone starts creating a css/skin for these minor changes but there is no need of that
Skin should be used for complex styles or you have apply same style to all components of your application

If you will read API docs then you will know this, See what docs says about inlineStyle property-

The CSS styles to use for this component. This is intended for basic style changes; you should use the skinning mechanism if you require any complex style changes. The inlineStyle is a set of CSS styles that are applied to the root DOM element of the component. Be aware that because of browser CSS precedence rules, CSS rendered on a DOM element takes precedence over external stylesheets like the skin file. Therefore skins will not be able to override what you set on this attribute.

Difference between contentStyle and inlineStyle -

contentStyle property used to style content part of component like if you want to change color of inputText or any other input component then you have to specify this in contentStyle property of that component

inlineStyle is about whole component and also available in output (outputText) or collection (table, tree etc) component's property where contentStyle is not there. This can be use to set width, height ,border or color of output components etc.

So this is enough about theory , no one likes theory ;) , Everyone is looking for some code that is ready to use
Let's see some practical usage of both properties -

Change font, color, size(width), padding of input components (af:inputText, af:inputDate, af:selectOneChoice etc)-

Used this in contentStyle property of components
width:150px;color:white;font-weight:bold;font-size:small;background-color:red;padding:5px;
and check the output

you can also change input text to uppercase , lowercase, Initcap using contentStyle property, just use any of this -
text-transform:uppercase; // To change in uppercase
text-transform:lowercase; //To change in lowercase
text-transform:capitalize; //To change in initcap

Change properties of output components , color of link/button -

Output components doesn't have contentStyle property as there is not content part in component , here we make use of inlineStyle property
See what happens on applying same style in outputText and link using inlineStyle

It looks good :) , but same style doesn't work for button because button has multiple root element (we can only change width, color of text and font of button but background color and other styling can not be changed using inlineStyle property)
For more detail about button skinning check - Customize af:button (font, shape, size, color etc) using skinning -Oracle ADF (12.1.3)

Change data collection components (af:table, af:treeTable,etc) height, width -

just write in inlineStyle property like this
width:600px;height:200px;background-color:lightyellow;color:red;
background color will be applied on empty area of table and color will be applicable on column header and EmptyText
Remember to set table's height using inlineStyle ensure that autoHeightRows should be set to -1

In same way we can change color of columns too, see i have used different background colors (set background-color:colorName; in inlineStyle of af:column) for columns and it looks like this

Now it's your turn , try more combination on different components. you can do a lot using contentStyle and inlineStyle property. Remember all these changes can be done using skin also but if have some minor changes then why use skin , when framework provides these wonderful properties

Cheers :) Happy Learning