JBoss Seam + Netbeans Update 2

The good news is that the Seam plugin for Netbeans deploys without any issues to JBoss 4.0.5 server. I've also added a Postgresql database into the mix and successfully generated entity classes and deployed to 4.0.5 successfully!

The bad news is that I ran into an issue with M9. At least, it is an issue with M9 and the Facelets plugin (on my workstation). I cannot tell if this issue is a bug with M9, or just my slow workstation, but the IDE literally locks up if I try to edit XHTML files with the Facelets plugin installed. I just found this out this morning when trying to add a new Facelets page to my Seam Plugin app. It would not work...I restarted the M9 application several times.

Needless to say, I've reverted to Netbeans 5.5.1 and have been using the Facelets code without issue.

In summary: Netbeans 5.5.1, Seam Framework Plugin, Facelets Plugin, and Postgresql database create an easy CRUD application without issue...and in just a few minutes!

As stated in previous posts, I will try to make a mini-application using this model. I then wish to port it to Glassfish as well just to see how difficult that step will be. It may take me a while...but I will post my results.

JBoss Seam + Netbeans 6.0 M9 Update

I've not had much time lately to play with Seam and get some good development going. However, I've been trying to make the Seam plugin work with Netbeans 6.0 M9...and it does quite nicely. Follow the link to the blog by Michael Yuanto see how you should set up your environment. This is tested and functional with Netbeans 6.0 M9.

I tried to make this work with JBoss 4.2, but I never quite made it. The issue is that I need to run JBoss on a different port other than the default 8080. I cannot make this happen with JBoss 4.2 within the Netbeans 6.0 M9 environment. When I register the server with Netbeans, it automatically defaults to 8080...I do not like this. I've also tried to change all references to 8080 within the JBoss 4.2 home to something else...no luck. The good thing is that with JBoss 4.0.5, you can simply adjust the server.xml within the server\default\deploy\jbossweb-tomcat55.sar directory. This then registers with Netbeans 6.0 on the specified port without issue.

I am hopeful to hear more about the Netbeans Seam plugin soon...the initial release is very good...

JBoss SEAM 1.2.1 GA and Glassfish V2

I've just followed the excellent write-up by Roger Kitain and built the glassfish example for Seam on Glassfish v2. If you follow Roger's blog instructions, it works without any issues using Seam 1.2.1 GA.

Now...onto the Netbeans 6.0 M9 integration. I hope to install the Seam plug-in (or minimally the Facelets plug-in) for Netbeans to M9 and deploy to Glassfish...I'll blog on my results.

Netbeans 6.0 - Great Information Resource

I am a little bit behind...but I've just recently read the article in the Netbeans Magazine May 2007 edition regarding Netbeans 6.0. It is an excellent article. If you are looking for a good resource to learn the newest features of the IDE then I definitely recommend giving it a read!

Also, another excellent resource is always Roumen's Weblog. I listen to each of the Netbeans podcasts, and I visit his site often...always has great information regarding Netbeans. He also has some good Flash Demos available.

Check it out Netbeans users!

Good Java Reference

Just wanted to post the link to a good Java reference I ran across today. This may be old, but it is still a good reference while trying to port applications to different platforms. Read How to avoid pitfalls in your Java application development for some quick, yet decent material.

JFXBuilder...I'm Impressed

You've heard of JavaFX, right? Of course you have...unless you have not paid any attention to the Java world in the past couple of months. I'm interested in the upcoming technology and all that it will cover. I've read through a few tutorials and played around a bit and I do like the syntax of the FX scripting language. I was impressed when I checked out java.net this morning and saw that ReportMill has already released a WYSIWYG editor for JavaFX. I took a brief trial run and it looks good so far! Give it a test run at http://www.reportmill.com/jfx/ and you will also be impressed!

Two Early Access IDE Releases

Just recently, two of the IDEs which I use on a daily basis have released early preview distributions of future products. No doubt, JavaOne had a lot to do with the timing of these releases. I've used both of the new releases, but I cannot say that I will be using either of them full time as yet.

JDeveloper 11g - Quick Review

The technical preview for JDeveloper 11g was released recently. I decided to download it and take a look at it's capabilities this week. I must admit that I was blown away by the new layout of the IDE altogether. It is well thought out with added search boxes located throughout to assist in finding code. The application menu now displays only one application at a time by default...the other applications are listed in a pull-down menu. The overall look and feel is more visually appealing. I use the database connections features quite often and it is slick. Each database connection now has added options such as access to different types and database links. Another nice feature of the database connection editors is the SQL editor which opens by default when you connect to a database.

However, the JDeveloper 11g technical preview does have some faults. Unfortunately, the faults will limit my exposure to the IDE until the bugs have been repaired. For instance, the database connections expansion tree is way too sensitive. It is hard to select a database package and/or body for editing. By default, when you select a database package or package body then it opens in a read-only mode. You must select a variable, function, or procedure definition in order to edit the package. This is too cumbersome for my liking. I hope that these changes can be made for the next release because I can definitely see the potential in this IDE.

Netbeans 6.0 M9 - Quick Review

The Milestone 9 release of Netbeans 6.0 has an abundance of new features to tout. I have only performed some basic editing and development tasks thus far. Therefore, I do not feel that I can give an informative review of this release. However, with my limited exposure this IDE milestone release is outstanding. I have not run into any bugs thus far. The editor reacts nicely and the new look and feel is great. Built-in profiler is a welcome feature as well.

The only disappointing feature of M9 that I have found so far is that it does not come fully equipped with Tomcat AS. You must download and install Tomcat separately if you wish to use that application server. M9 comes with Glassfish by default (which is nice), but I think many people are still using Tomcat and may not like the removal.

It has been a great month for the Java community! Check out the IDEs when you have a chance because both of them are worthy of a look or two.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/jdev/index.html

http://www.netbeans.org/community/releases/60/index.html

Essential Web Development Tool

I have been doing quite a bit of graphical design within my web development as of late. In previous web development projects, tools such as MS Paint and Open Office were good enough to complete the task. However, at times you may run across a task which cannot be completed with those basic image editing utilities.

I was about to break down and purchase the one and only Adobe Photoshop so that I could perform high-end image editing. Of all that I've heard, Photoshop is the ultimate image editing and graphic design software. That may be true, but have you ever heard of The GIMP, an open-source image manipulation program? If not, you may want to give it a spin.

I am able to complete every task imaginable with The GIMP, including image editing, text formatting, and even animation. Some of the tasks take a bit of work to complete, but there are a slew of online tutorials to help you along the way.

If you are in the need of an image manipulator, GIF creator, or just a cool imaging utility, give The GIMP a try.

Help Wanted: New Jython Monthly Editor

I have sent my last distribution of the Jython Monthly newsletter this morning. The choice to resign as editor of the newsletter comes about as a result of many changes which will impact my availability. I already do not have time to spend with the newsletter, and the April Newsletter shows it. I have not found the time to author articles for the newsletter as of late, and it has become increasingly difficult to find material for the distribution.

I'd like for someone to take over as editor of the newsletter as it is a great way to help increase the online Jython library and overall awareness of the language. If anyone is interested in taking over, please feel free to leave me a comment and let me know.

JPC

Check out the attached link...the JPC project offers computer virtualization in Java. Although I have only briefly reviewed the project, it looks to be very interesting and useful. Have a look...

Just a Quick Note on FireBug

I have to blog about FireBug...the web development FireFox add-on. This tool is excellent, and it has helped me to find my javascripting bugs in a minimal amount of time. No more guessing which javascript line caused the bug, or using alert messages to find errors...Firebug allows one to traverse the javsscript while it is executing. This debugger is very similar to most IDE debuggers, and you can use it on any web page!

Love FireBug...if you have not tried it then I suggest downloading it now!

Jython Monthly Articles Needed

I am the editor and distributor of the Jython Monthly newsletter. Part of the monthly routine for ensuring an effective distribution is to obtain articles and blogs which are worth reading. I hate to throw together a newsletter full of garbage and waste the expensive time of the readers.

One of the reasons I started the Jython Monthly newsletter was to begin generating a more complete article library for Jython. I had hoped to obtain at least one or two articles per month for distribution with the newsletter. This worked well for a while, but we seem to have fallen into a slump as of late. Since the new year has begun, I've received very few articles for distribution with the newsletter. Therefore, I hope to see another spark in the community for generating useful Jython resources. We need more Jython articles!

If anyone has an article that they would like to contribute for this month or any coming month, please visit Jython Monthly Articles to get started. Anyone can contribute, so feel free to post any and all Jython related content.

Thanks for the help, and I look forward to reading your Jython Monthly article in the near future!

Old Buggy Details

I was reviewing an issue involving a record modification form within a PL/SQL web application yesterday. This modification form is basic...it displays the data which already exists within a database record and allows an end-user to modify that data within different text fields on the form.

The issue was that some of these text fields were not updating as expected. After some initial review, I saw that the records having this issue had been submitted without any data in the fields that were not updating. Furthermore, I checked the database and all varchar2 fields which were not updating as expected had NULL values within them. Ahh...the old NULL value comparison issue!!!

As it turns out, upon submitting a modified record, the PL/SQL application checks each field within the database to see if it's contents match the previously submitted data. If not, then the field and new content are added to the update statement so that the resulting modifications are submitted successfully. However, the comparison being used was not allowing for NULL values to be compared. The result was a false positive result which was prohibiting the data to be updated.

For example, the data is compared such as:

if cursor_rec.old_value != incoming_new_value then
update_text := update_text || ' my_field = ''' || upper(incoming_new_value)
|| ''';
end if;

The issue is that the above IF statement is never true if the varchar2 value contained within the incoming_new_value variable is NULL. You must always compare a varchar2 against a non-null value for obtaining a valid result in such cases. Therefore, the use of the Oracle nvl function comes into play.

The updated code which repairs the issue simply replaces a NULL value with a character so that comparisons will function as expected.

if cursor_rec.old_value != nvl(incoming_new_value, '*') then
update_text := update_text || ' my_field = ''' || upper(incoming_new_value)
|| ''';
end if;

An oldie but goodie to remember!!!

Oracle ADF Faces

I've just read a great blog promoting the Oracle ADF Faces framework. I am an advocate of ADF Faces and I've used it in many of the applications which I have written. The open-sourced Gather! reunion application uses a version of ADF Faces which Oracle has open-sourced to Apache.

If you are a JSF developer and you have not yet worked with the framework, give it a chance and see how great it can be. I have found that the framework can save lots of time and it helps to create a professional layout.

Another Fine JSF Component Library

I was performing my daily visual scrubbing of the java.net website this morning and I found a blurb about a new JSF component library called Woodstock. I briefly visited the project homepage and tested a few of the components. It looks as though this library could be a promising addition to the list of component libraries available for the JSF framework. While some of the basic components such as buttons and labels do not seem too different from stuff we've seen before, the Woodstock library has "Alert" and "Image and Masthead" components which may be very useful.

Check out the Woodstock JSF component library project page for more details, or go directly to the component preview to check out the features.

Best Jython/Python Podcasts

I am curious as to if anyone has any good links for podcasts relating to Jython or Python. I currently listen to Python 411 on a frequent basis, but I'd like to find out if there are any more very good podcasts for these subjects.

If you know of any other good Jython or Python podcasts, please leave me a comment!

Thanks

Easy to Use Javascript Charting

I am currently working on a PL/SQL application which requires some simple charting. I have a defined set of trend data for which I must created a line chart...thus, displaying the trend for the data. I Googled javascript charting and found this javascript library. I cannot perform a complete review of the library because I have only used the line charting thus far, but I can tell you that the library is easy to use, flexible, and works great.

Using this library, it is possible to create one or many different charts on a web page. You can define static sets of data (does anyone do this anymore?) or use your database. I have found the line charting simple...especially with PL/SQL. The advantage of using PL/SQL to perform dynamic javascripting tasks is that your data is easily accessible.

I'll wrap up this blog with a quick example of line charting using PL/SQL and the JSGraph javascript library. If you have the need for a dynamic charting solution in your application, give JSGraph a look.

The following is an example of line charting in PL/SQL. In my particular case, I've defined a package which contains many different procedures. I recommmend using the PL/SQL Web Toolkit to define PL/SQL web applications. This is an exerpt from the procedure within my PL/SQL web package which defines my line chart:

(Please ignore the "-" within the tags...this blogger does not print tags well)

procedure GRAPH_TREND (in_trend_id number) is

cursor trend_cur is
select *
from my_trend_data
where trend_id = in_trend_id;

... more definitions ...

begin

... PL/SQL Code ...

-- Define Chart (Static data for this example)
htp.htmlopen;
htp.headopen;
htp.p('<-script language="JavaScript1.2" src="jsgraph.js"><-/script>


<-script language="JavaScript1.2">
var graph = new JSGraph();
graph.graphLeftPaddingOverride = 30;
graph.yAxis(4, 200);
graph.xAxis(4, 300);
graph.addBackground('#FFF8DC');
graph.addTrellis(40, 1, '#FF0000', 'blah1','tahoma,sans-serif',9);
graph.addTrellis(80, 1, '#FF0000', 'blah2','tahoma,sans-serif',9);
graph.addTrellis(120, 1, '#FF0000', 'blah3','tahoma,sans-serif',9);
graph.addTrellis(160, 1, '#FF0000', 'blah4','tahoma,sans-serif',9);
graph.addTrellis(200, 1, '#FF0000', 'blah5','tahoma,sans-serif',9);
graph.addLinePlot(0);
graph.addLinePlot(30,1,'maroon',1,'Foo 1','tahoma,sans-serif','maroon',9);
graph.addLinePlot(50,1,'maroon',1,'Foo 2','tahoma,sans-serif','black',9);
graph.addLinePlot(178,1,'maroon',1,'Foo 3','tahoma,sans-serif','maroon',9);
graph.addLinePlot(200,1,'maroon',1,'Foo 4','tahoma,sans-serif','black',9);
graph.addLinePlot(36,1,'maroon',1,'Foo 5','tahoma,sans-serif','maroon',9);
graph.addLinePlot(0,1,'maroon',1,'Foo 6','tahoma,sans-serif','black',9);
graph.addLinePlot(146,1,'maroon',1,'Foo 7','tahoma,sans-serif','maroon',9);
graph.addLinePlot(12,1,'maroon',1,'Foo 8','tahoma,sans-serif','black',9);
graph.addLinePlot(191,1,'maroon',1,'Foo 9','tahoma,sans-serif','maroon',9); <-/script>
');
htp.headclose;
htp.bodyopen;
htp.p('
<-div id="lineplotGraph1" style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; LEFT: 50px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; POSITION: absolute; TOP: 50px">
<-script language="JavaScript">
graph.makeGraph();
<-/script>
<-/div>
');
htp.bodyclose;
htp.htmlclose;

...

end GRAPH_TREND;

Jython 2.2 - Beta 1 - Part II

I have just finished installing Jython 2.2 beta1 without any issues. The installer is clean and easy to use. I am currently using Java SE 6 and this new Jython release had no problems installing.

I've only begun to test a few scripts out, but no issues thus far.

Thanks again to the Jython developers...it is great to see a new release!

Jython 2.2 Beta 1 Released

The Jython project has just released 2.2 Beta 1! This is a major milestone for Jython and it proves that the project is actively moving forward.

Thanks to all of the developers of Jython for their hard work! You can download this new beta release here.

I'm going to get it right now!!!

Snippets

Check out the new site from DZone which will be a repository for source code snippets. You can search the repository for existing code to use in your projects, or you can contribute some code which may be of use to others.

This is a great idea!