SPEL in Personalization - OA Framework

SPEL in Personalization - OA Framework

OAF - Write Diagnostic statements for debug Purposes:

From your contorller :
import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.OAFwkConstants;

String testmsg = "This is a test diagnostic message";
pageContext.writeDiagnostics(this,"TESTDIAG: = " + testmsg ,OAFwkConstants.STATEMENT);

Then set profile option at user level
FND: Diagnostics - set to Yes
FND: Debug Log Enabled - set to Yes --default to NO
FND: Debug Log Level - set to Statement
FND: Debug Log Filename for Middle-Tier - give a path to a log file on the server. (test.log)
FND: Debug Log Level ---%

run the application and search for your diagnostic message in test.log file.

Oracle Customer Online Extension

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfpr7qkv_1534mpjxdd9

OAF - Cant find server.xml ?

How to create server.xml if its not there in your $JAVA_TOP/...server/ folder
Many a times server.xml is not packaged with other objects in server folder for may packages. If you are lucky you may find it, but if you dont, then you will have to create it or ask oracle support to provide one.
I find the approach of recreating it much easier .

Approach1 : (Easy)
Create the business component package for java in Jdev mentioning the path till the server folder. It will create the server.xml file.
Now you have to add all your VO,EO and AM's in this package by selecting the package in jdev and click on the file menu > open button. Select all the files. Now all your VO,EO and AM's will be added to this server.xml
Pros: Simple and faster
Cons: leaves the VO/EO/AM in edit mode at users mercy to do something dumb and modify them.

Approach2 : (little hassle)
Take server.xml from some other folder from your /myprojects/..../server folder and add each and every entry for VO, VL, LOV, AM, EO manually. Agrred its a lot of pain , specially if you have to add 25 objects so
forexample : code from server.xml



Name="server"
SeparateXMLFiles="true"
PackageName="oracle.apps.imc.i.am.creating.this.server" >




Name="outthenameofAM"
FullName="oracle.apps.imc.i.am.creating.this.server.putthenameofAM"
ObjectType="AppModule" >

Name="putthenameofVO"
FullName="oracle.apps.imc.i.am.creating.this.server.putthenameofVO"
ObjectType="ViewObject" >



Now add this server.xml file to your project.jpr, you can see all the objects imported correctly
Pros: when you click on any VO, notice all the options are greyed out, so you cant accidentally modify them.
cons: its hard to manually edit the server.xml and add entries of each object.

But you know what , both approaches work and you can choose whatever works for you.

System.out.println in production code

This is the most commonly asked question in web applications development in jdeveloper including OA Framework, ADF, ejb, web services etc.
Can I leave System.out.println or System.err.println in the production code?
System.out.println comes handy when debugging the application because you can see the messages pretty much easily in the jdeveloper console. And it takes relatively less time than the debugging option in Jdeveloper. So even experienced developers use it for debugging. You may think, "Anyway this doesnot any affect in the production system". But actually System.out.println statements will have serious performance issue in the production system if you fail to remove them in the final code.

The reason is that the application server will have only one output stream and one error stream in the JVM. Hence multiple threads calling the System.out.println() have to be synchronized.

Considering the production system with thousands of users, back end programs, webservices, scheduled process running parralley in the machine. Calling system.out.println() will potentially block the performance of whole system.

Also the application server doesn't redirect the std out to a file, and is lost.

Hence always remove the System.out.println() /System.err.println() from the production code.

Ref : http://prasanna-adf.blogspot.com/2009/04/systemoutprintln.html

debug bc4j objects

How to debug the VO, LOV, poplist queries?

You can see the executed queries and its bind values in the jdeveloper console or messages window. By default, this option is not available in jdeveloper.
To enable the debug console option in Jdev 9i

1. Right click on project and select project properties

2. Navigate Configurations -> Development -> runner

3. Add the following parameter in the java options
-Djbo.debugoutput=console

4. Select OK

5. Rebuild the project and run again to see the debug information in jdeveloper log window

This option would be very helpful in finding out what going on in the bc4j objects. Including LOV queries, poplist queries, VOs etc. Whenever the query is executed through the AM or procedure is called, the bind variable values and executed sql will be displayed in the jdeveloper message window.

Using OA Extensions to extend existing Apps 11i OA Framework pages (step by step)

--Got this from Metalink : Found it useful.
PURPOSE
-------
This document are some personal thoughts to describe the steps to add an Extension to an Apps 11i page using the OA Extensions released with 11.5.10

It is not meant to be a commercial strength application, but simply an simple exercise to go through the steps to demonstrate some kind of addition to an existing Apps 11i OA Framework page.


SCOPE & APPLICATION
-------------------
Consultants or Customers who need a guided practise to extend an existing Apps 11i OAF page



Using OA Extensions to extend existing Apps 11i OA Framework pages (step by step)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I decided to do a simple customization to the "Customer Search" page in the " iReceivables Internal, Vision Operations (USA)" responsibility

Internal system is a 11.5.10 CU2 VISION installation, with Windows 2000 RDBMS and middle tier, and also load balanced Linux Middle tier (so I need to deploy Java code onto both middle tier servers)


STEP BY STEP
------------

Create customization in existing package
-----------------------------------------

1) Create new project
In my simple test, I am creating a new OA Project called "mzExtend"I am using application shortname "MZ" and responsibility key "MZCUSTOMSSWA" for my project, as this is already setup on my environment (see Note 216589.1)

In project settings, change the Runner options in configuration section to add the entry "-Djbo.project=mzExtend" to the end of the line.
Also add "F:\oracle\viscomn\java" to the "Additional Classpath" (this is a shared network drive to my OA_JAVA directory) You would have to copy the server.xml to your local PC first, if the Apps 11i instance was on a Unix box.

2) Add existing BC4J Objects to your project
Refer to chapter 9 on the Developers Guide "Extending OA Framework Applications"
The "server.xml" files are shipped with Apps 11i, so you add the server.xml file to your custom project in order to access the original BC4J objects. You need access to the original objects in order to select them in the "extends" field when creating your new object.

Add the file "F:\oracle\viscomn\java\oracle\apps\ar\irec\common\server\server.xml" to the project. This will create a BC4J Package in your custom project.

For my custom page, I need to create a custom VO and AM
oracle.apps.ar.irec.common.server.InternalCustomerSearchByCustomerIdVO
oracle.apps.ar.irec.common.server.CustomerSearchAM

Create a new VO, extending the original
oracle.apps.ar.irec.common.server.mzInternalCustomerSearchByCustomerIdVO
Manually copy the SQL from the original VO, my customization requires me to remove the WHERE clause from the original SQL

Create a new AM, extending the original
oracle.apps.ar.irec.common.server.mzCustomerSearchAM
In the view objects selection, add "mzInternalCustomerSearchByCustomerIdVO"

I am modifying these java files, to enable a default selection to show when the custom page is launched
mzCustomerSearchAMImpl.java
mzInternalCustomerSearchByCustomerIdVOImpl.java

3) Create a new OA Web page called "mzSearchPG.xml"
Simple page, with 4 fields from "mzInternalCustomerSearchByCustomerIdVO"

Add a Page Controller "mzSearchPGCO.java" to send a hard coded customerID to the AM to show customer data on the page when the page is launched (I told you this was a simple example :-) ) See java code in Appendix A below.

Run this page through JDeveloper and check it displays the page, with some data on it..

4) Now I want to deploy this to my Apps 11i instance, so I can run through Apps itself

a) First copy over the compiled objects, if using your custom scheme, this could be easiest achieved by copying over the whole of the D:\Jdev_510\jdevhome\jdev\myclasses\oracle\apps\mz directory to the $OA_JAVA\oracle\apps\mz directory, although you can be more selective if required
NOTE - it is the "myclasses" files you need to copy (the .class not the .java files!)
In this case, I have added classes to the existing ar directory structure, so need to copy the 4 class files from "D:\Jdev_510\jdevhome\jdev\myclasses\oracle\apps\ar\irec\common\server" to the $OA_JAVA/oracle\apps\ar\irec\common\server directory.

b) I have not yet used the "substitution" mechanism in JDev to use custom objects rather than the original ones, but had I done so, I would need to load the .jpx file into the MDS. Follow the instructions in the Developers Guide, chapter 9 "Deploying Customer Extentions" to do this, but you can use a batch file like below:-
REM
REM Batch file to set environment to upload JPX file into Apps database
REM Version : 1.0
REM Author : Mike Shaw
REM Updated : 16th Sept 2004
REM
REM This section is for the PC specific variables
set JDEV_BIN_HOME=D:\Jdev_510\jdevbin
set JDEV_USER_HOME=D:\Jdev_510\jdevhome\jdev
set DB_CONNECTION="(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(host=hostname.domain.com)(port=1521))(CONNECT_DATA=(SID=VIS)))"
set JPX2UPLOAD=mzExtend
set APPS_PASSWD=apps
REM End of PC specific variables
REM Set PATH to ensure we are using the right Java.exe
set PATH=%JDEV_BIN_HOME%\jdk\bin;%JDEV_BIN_HOME%\jdev\bin;%PATH%
REM This is what we actually want to run...
call jpximport.bat %JDEV_USER_HOME%\myprojects\%JPX2UPLOAD%.jpx -username apps -password %APPS_PASSWD% -dbconnection %DB_CONNECTION%
pause
REM End of process

This loads the JPX into the MDS, for example to the location
/oracle/apps/ar/irec/common/server/customizations/site/0/mzInternalCustomerSearchByCustomerIdVO

To remove the substitution, you would need to use JDR_UTILS, for example
exec jdr_utils.deleteDocument('/oracle/apps/ar/irec/common/server/customizations/site/0/mzInternalCustomerSearchByCustomerIdVO');

c) Deploy the XML pages into MDS from local PC. Can use following wrapper script
REM
REM Batch file to set environment to upload XML Page files into Apps database
REM Version : 1.0
REM Author : Mike Shaw
REM Updated : 27th Jan 2005
REM
REM This section is for the PC specific variables
set JDEV_BIN_HOME=D:\Jdev_510\jdevbin
set JDEV_USER_HOME=D:\Jdev_510\jdevhome\jdev
set JDEV_PROJECT_HOME=%JDEV_USER_HOME%\myprojects
set DB_CONNECTION="(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(host=hostname.domain.com)(port=1521))(CONNECT_DATA=(SID=VIS)))"
REM example of PAGE2UPLOAD mz\comments\bc4jcomponents\CreateCommentPG
REM can also just specify directory to load all pages in that directory
set PAGE2UPLOAD=ar\irec\common\server
set APPS_PASSWD=apps
REM End of PC specific variables
REM Set PATH to ensure we are using the right Java.exe
set PATH=%JDEV_BIN_HOME%\jdk\bin;%JDEV_BIN_HOME%\jdev\bin;%PATH%
REM This is what we actually want to run...
call import.bat %JDEV_PROJECT_HOME%\oracle\apps\%PAGE2UPLOAD% -rootdir %JDEV_PROJECT_HOME% -mmddir %JDEV_BIN_HOME%\jdev\lib\ext\jrad\config\mmd -username apps -password %APPS_PASSWD% -dbconnection %DB_CONNECTION% -jdk13 -validate
pause
REM End of process

Check they are uploaded OK, using the SQL
REM START OF SQL
set serveroutput on
set pagesize 132
exec JDR_UTILS.listContents('/oracle/apps/ar/irec/common/server', true);
REM END OF SQL


The following is a general script to look for all pages in your custom schema
REM START OF SQL
set serveroutput on
set pagesize 132
exec JDR_UTILS.listContents('/oracle/apps/mz', true);
REM END OF SQL


d) Create new Function to call the page, for example:
Function Name = MZ_CREATE_COMMENT
User Function Name = mz Create Comment
Type = SSWA JSP Function (JSP)
HTML Call = OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/mz/comments/bc4jcomponents/CreateCommentPG

In my case, I am adding the following:
Function Name = MZ_CUSTOMER_SEARCH
User Function Name = mz Customer Search
Type = SSWA JSP Function (JSP)
HTML Call = OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/ar/irec/common/server/mzSearchPG

e) Add function to menu
MZ_CUSTOM_SSWA menu for example.

f) Bounce Apache

g) Test page
Login as user with the responsibility to see the menu
Select the menu function to launch the page and check the results are the same as from JDeveloper


Create similar customization, in custom schema
----------------------------------------------
I really should have created the above customization in my custom schema, so will do so now.


Create a new empty BC4J package called
oracle.apps.mz.sanity.server

For my custom page, I need to create a custom VO and AM

Create a new VO, extending the original
oracle.apps.mz.sanity.server.mzSearchVO
Manually copy the SQL from the original VO, my customization requires me to remove the WHERE clause from the original SQL

Create a new AM, extending the original
oracle.apps.mz.sanity.server.mzSearchAM
In the view objects selection, add "mzSearchVO"

I am modifying these java files, to enable a default selection to show when the custom page is launched
mzSearchAMImpl.java
mzSearchVOImpl.java

3) Create a new OA Web page called "mzNewSearchPG.xml"
Simple page, with 4 fields from "mzSearchVO"

Add a Page Controller "mzNewSearchCO.java" to send a hard coded customerID to the AM to show customer data on the page when the page is launched.

Run this page through JDeveloper and check it displays the page, with some data on it..

4) Deploy the page and java objects to the Apps 11i instance and re-test

5) Once checked that it is working, I am now going to personalize this new screen.
I did not include all the items from the VO in the customization, so will add a new field to the page directly.

Do a Site level personalization, then add an item.

Type = Stylised Text
ID = ConcatenatedAddress
prompt = Address
VO Attribute = ConcatenatedAddress
VO Instance = mzSearchVO1

On saving this personalization and returning to the page, you will see the Address text on the page as well


APPENDIX A
--
-- java code for mzSearchPGCO page controller
-- (comments and spacing stripped out)
--
package oracle.apps.ar.irec.common.server.webui;
import java.io.Serializable;
import oracle.apps.fnd.common.MessageToken;
import oracle.apps.fnd.common.VersionInfo;
import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.OAApplicationModule;
import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.OAException;
import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.OAViewObject;
import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAControllerImpl;
import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OADialogPage;
import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAPageContext;
import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAWebBeanConstants;
import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.OAWebBean;
import oracle.jbo.domain.Number;
public class mzSearchPGCO extends OAControllerImpl
{
public static final String RCS_ID="$Header$";
public static final boolean RCS_ID_RECORDED =
VersionInfo.recordClassVersion(RCS_ID, "%packagename%");
public void processRequest(OAPageContext pageContext, OAWebBean webBean)
{
super.processRequest(pageContext, webBean);
-- NOTE this is hard coded value for quickness and simplicity.
String customerId = "8070";
OAApplicationModule am = pageContext.getApplicationModule(webBean);
Serializable[] params = { customerId };
am.invokeMethod("initDetails", params);
}
public void processFormRequest(OAPageContext pageContext, OAWebBean webBean)
{
super.processFormRequest(pageContext, webBean);
}
} // end of class



IMPORTANT NOTE
--------------
Ensure you are using the correct version of JDeveloper. Review Note 416708.1 to confirm the correct patch number


RELATED DOCUMENTS
-----------------
Note 330236.1 "Configuring JDeveloper For Use With Oracle Applications 11i"
Note 357218.1 "Troubleshooting JDeveloper setup for Oracle Applications"
Note 416708.1 "How to found right version of JDeveloper for eBusiness Suite 11i and 12"