Ken Paulsen has been working for Sun Microsystems, Inc. since 1999. His primary focus has been on Web Application Frameworks, in fact, he has built a couple of his own (see the JSFTemplating Java.net project). Recently his interests have been centered around AJAX and JavaServer™ Faces, in particular how these technologies apply to the GlassFish Admin GUI. Ken is also a member of the JSF 2.0 Expert Group (JSR-314).
Tuesday May 06, 2008 Tips for creating a GlassFish Admin Console Plugin
If you're at JavaOne 2008 you've probably already heard about the "Plug into GlassFish v3 Contest". I'm going to give a few hints here to help get you started.
First, attend the "Plugin into GlassFish with JavaServer Faces and jMaki" lab. Unfortunately this lab is difficult to get into, but don't worry! If you are unable to attend the lab on Wednesday night from 6:30PM - 8:30PM, you can visit booth #175 and ask for a copy of the lab. You can then do the lab exercises on your own time. Or, if you attend another Hands-on Lab during JavaOne 2008, you can find the GlassFish plugin lab on the DVD (lab #4520).
Ok, now that you've worked on the lab, let me point out a few important things you need to know to be successful.
Come up with a great idea. In order to win the contest, you will need to have interesting content that appeals to GlassFish users and developers. Plugins which add-on to GlassFish or highlight existing GlassFish features are also more likely to be picked.
Be aware of your "plugin id." The plugin id is specified in your "console-config.xml" file. The value of the "id" attribute on the "console-config" element specifies your "plugin id". This same value shows up in all urls to pages, images, CSS, and JavaScript. If you include an aboslute path, you will need to know this value. For example if your plugin id is "jeopardy," you might have something like this:
So obviously your plugin id must be unique. So make sure you change this value if you're copying code from the plugin lab.
Load your resources from a jar file. The plugin you create will be an OSGi bundle, which is a jar file. This means a normal request for a resource (JavaScript, images, etc.) will fail. However, simply adding "/resource" after your context path will solve this. See the url in the image tag above for an example.
Adding new Java code is broken. We have not yet fixed some issues related to finding new Java code added via your OSGi plugin jar file. To get around this, you must place your new code inside a jar and put the jar in the "<install-root>/lib/install/applications/__admingui/WEB-INF/lib" directory.
If you get stuck, get help. You can post a question on this blog, email admin@glassfish.dev.java.net, or visit the GlassFish Pod #175. We'll be happy to help get you unstuck.
For those of you not at JavaOne, you won't be able to participate in this contest, however, this may be a good way to contribute to GlassFish. By contributing to GlassFish you may qualify for the GlassFish Awards Program. Check the GAP program rules for details and earn your share of the $175,000.
Sunday May 04, 2008 GlassFish Birds Of a Feather (BOF) Session at JavaOne 2008
Tuesday night from 7:30PM - 8:20PM, there will be a GlassFish BOF (BOF 7900: GlassFish Application Server: Open Source, Fast, Easy and Reliable) in Gateway 104. You'll be able to meet with many of the big names behind GlassFish, or get your tough questions answered by GlassFish experts. In addition, the GlassFish team will challenge the audience to see what they know by playing a round of Glassfish Jeopardy for cool prizes! This will be a fun BOF and a great networking opportunity -- see you there!
Are you lucky enough to be going to JavaOne 2008? If so, don't forget your laptop!
This year at JavaOne there will be quite a few Hands-on Lab sessions where you will be able to try out cool technologies rather than just hear about them. In many of them you'll be given courseware and the software needed to use the technology on your laptop, other labs will provide machines for you to use.
I will be one of the presenters for the "Plug into GlassFish v3 with JavaServer Faces and jMaki" lab. The lab will show how GlassFish v3 will provide a pluggable platform which enables anyone to extend the functionality provided by the GlassFish v3 administration console. This is done in the context of our JavaServer Faces application with the help of OSGi bundles and our plugin API for our application. If you're already signed up, great! If not, you can try to get in (the lab is already full) or stop by the GlassFish booth #175 in the Pavilion and you can get a copy of the lab to try on your own time. Oh... and if you do create a GlassFish v3 plugin during JavaOne, you're eligible for a chance to win a Canon PowerShot SD1000 Digital Camera! See the contest rules for more details.
I'm unsure about many of them, but I will definitely be at the GlassFish BOF at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, (Gateway 104). I am speaking at the "Plug into GlassFish v3 with JavaServer Faces and jMaki" Hands-on Lab (Wednesday @ 6:30PM, Hall E 132). I also helped out with a demo that will be shown during the 1:30 PM General Session on Tuesday, so I don't want to miss that. Everything else I'll try to make on a best effort basis.
Wednesday April 02, 2008 JavaServer Faces overview @ the Salem JUG
Yesterday I made a nice drive down I-5 from my home in Brush Prairie, WA to Oregon's state capital, Salem. I spoke with the Salem Java Users Group about JavaServer Faces, and also demoed JSFTemplating and GlassFish. Many of the members of the JUG were already using JavaServer Faces and had lots of good questions. I had a great time and look forward to visiting them again to talk more about GlassFish!
You can find my slides here. If you want me to come talk to your JUG (or company), send me an email (and possibly a plane ticket )... or better yet, meet me at JavaOne 2008!
A couple months ago I found a book called Java EE Development using GlassFish Application Server. As a GlassFish developer, I was immediately curious as I hadn't heard anything about this book until it was already published. Perhaps this is a sign of how popular GlassFish has become.
When I first opened the book and thumbed through it, I was impressed (flattered?) by the number of screen shots of the GlassFish Admin Console -- which for those who don't know is the part of GlassFish I help develop. The book's chapters are well organized and topics are very easy to find. The book reads like a well-written tutorial that easily takes someone completely new to GlassFish (or even Java EE) and walks them step-by-step through building applications and learning each major component. I was impressed. To give you an idea of the topics covered, here are the chapter titles:
Getting Started with GlassFish
Servlet Development and Deployment
JavaServer Pages
Database Connectivity
JSP Standard Tag Library
JavaServer Faces
Java Messaging Service
Security
Enterprise Java Beans
Web Services
Beyond Java EE
So as you can see from the chapter titles, the book covers it all. However, it's only about 400 pages, so as you can imagine the depth of coverage for any one of these technologies is minimal. However, this is perfect for an introduction to each of these technologies so that you know what the each one is good for and how to get started with them. It certainly beats buying and wading through half a dozen different books to come up to speed on all of these technologies!
However, there are a few things in the book that I would have liked to see different. First, JSP is introduced early and doesn't mention JSF for a few more chapters. Since this book is aimed at an introductory level, I would have expected the text to at least suggest using JSF instead of JSP before it discussed JSP in detail -- new users should start on JSF instead of JSP, or at least be given the option. Why learn bad habits from JSP? In fact, I think the book should have done its readers a favor and deemphasized JSP a lot more in general. The 2 chapters dedicated to JSP (JSP & later JSTL) should have been combined.
As for the JSF chapter, again it used JSP. However, in this case, I can see the authors dilemma. JSP is the only view technology that is immediately available out-of-the-box when GlassFish is installed, but JSP isn't the way anyone should write JSF applications. In my opinion, the author should have mentioned JSP, maybe showed one quick example... then merged the Facelets section at the back of the book (in the Beyond Java EE chapter) into the JSF chapter. The majority of the examples should have been using Facelets -- or better yet JSFTemplating (ok I'm biased and I admit it! BTW, did you know JSFTemplating supports the Facelets syntax and is a GlassFish project?). While we're at it, throw in Ajax4JSF which would otherwise be left lonely at the back of the book.
So, would I recommend this book? I would absolutely recommend it, to anyone just learning Java EE or anyone that would like a quick overview of everything Java EE offers. It's also a great book for more experienced developers that may not be familiar with all parts of Java EE. However, if you're looking for an in-depth book on any one of the topics covered in this book... do the math, the book is 400 pages and covers ALL of Java EE (with lots of screen shots!).
If you're ready to buy the book, here's a link to it on Amazon (I don't get paid if you click on this link... unless someone can tell me how! ).
Thursday January 17, 2008 JSF Component Authoring Made Easy
Frustrated with the complexities of writing a JavaServer Faces
component? With the help of the JSFTemplating and Woodstock projects,
you can write a component with only two files.
BT had a booth at JavaONE for their Web21C SDK. The SDK, among other things, allows you to write software that invokes a WebService hosted by BT to place a phone call between 2 parties. You simply need to provide 2 phone numbers and BT calls both parties and connects the two. They provide a limited amount of usage for free, and for a small fee you can use their service more, here's a link to their pricing. The Web21C SDK opens up the door to many possibilities, however, that's outside the scope of this blog.
BT was offering a challenge at their booth: Use their SDK to place a phone call and win a remote controlled helicopter. My son is 5 and would love to crash the helicopter, and it sounded like any easy task for GlassFish + JSFTemplating... so I got to work!
Here's what I had to do:
1) I started with the JSFTemplating demo application. (Note: I used the version from CVS so that I would already have a build environment setup which uses APT.)
2) I added the Web21C jar files to my WEB-INF/lib directory of the demo app. They gave me a memory stick with these, but I think you can find them here.
3) I had problems w/ some of their jar files because many of them are already part of GlassFish and were not needed. Also some of the versions may not have been compatible. I ended up turning off classloader delegation by adding this to my sun-web.xml file:
<class-loader delegate="false"/>
4) I registered my application. BT requires you to register your application. This was a necessary, but the most painful part of the process. It required me to download the Web21C-Certificate-Tool, patch the JDK with the unlimited strength policy files, run their certificate tool, place the generated file in the WEB-INF/classes directory of the demo app, and create / place a security.properties file in the WEB-INF/classes directory that pointed to the generated file.
5) With the environment finally setup, I was ready to write the app! I created the following JSFTemplating page:
/** * <p> This class is written to demonstrate how to write a * <code>Handler</code>.</p> */ public class Web21CHandlers {
/** * <p> This is a handler makes phone calls.</p> * * @param context The <code>HandlerContext</code>. */ @Handler(id="Web21.call", input={ @HandlerInput(name="to", type=String.class, required=true), @HandlerInput(name="from", type=String.class, required=true) }) public static void calculateResponse(HandlerContext context) { // Get the input. String to = (String) context.getInputValue("to"); if (!to.startsWith("tel:+")) { to = "tel:+" + to; } String from = (String) context.getInputValue("from"); if (!from.startsWith("tel:+")) { from = "tel:+" + from; }
com.bt.sdk.thirdpartycall.ThirdPartyCall tpc = new com.bt.sdk.thirdpartycall.ThirdPartyCall(to, from); tpc.startCall(); } }
7) I compiled the app (just typed "ant" on the command line, the demo application already has the build environment setup), started the server and went to http://localhost:8080/demo/call.jsf where I saw:
After typing in the 2 phone numbers and clicking the "Make Call" button... the 2 phones rang!
8) Finally... I showed this to the Web21C people and they gave me a helicopter!
(I'm in the blue Sun shirt. You can also see this on flickr.)
That's how to get a helicopter using JSFTemplating + Web21C + GlassFish at JavaONE.
Monday May 07, 2007 Streaming Content in JSF with JSFTemplating's FileStreamer
FileStreamer
I have received questions from several people about how to use the "FileStreamer" feature of JSFTemplating. So I thought a blog would be the best way to demonstrate how it works.
FileStreamer provides the ability for the FacesServlet to stream content to the client (i.e. web browser). If that sounds generic, it is because FileStreamer is very generic. It allows you to define a ContentSource that is capable of getting content from just about anywhere. You might choose to get content from a database, retrieve it via a web service, generate it in code, access it from the filesystem or the classpath, or just about anywhere else. The ContentSource interface allows you to specify the content and information about it so that appropriate http headers will be set, causing the client (browser) to treat it correctly (i.e. Content-type, Content-Disposition, etc.). In addition to this, FileStreamer works in the context of JSF, meaning you will have access to managed beans or anything you require from your JSF environment. (NOTE: FileStreamer actually provides a Context which interacts with its environment. This allows different Context implementations to be provided for different environments; Servlet and JSF Contexts are currently available, see: ServletStreamerContext and FacesStreamerContext).
Lets look at a couple of examples.
Setup
First you have to have your JSFTemplating evironment setup. Follow these instructions for this.
Next to configure FileStreamer for JSF, add the following to your web.xml file:
The context-param registers 2 ContentSources. The source to both of these is checked into JSFTemplating's demo application. You can browse that source online here. The servlet-mapping requires a prefix mapping and needs its own dedicated FacesServlet mapping. "/resource/*" is the default, however, this can be configured, see RESOURCE_PREFIX for more info.
ExampleContentSource
Let's take a look at the key part of the ExampleContentSource to see how it works.
ExampleContentSource.java:
public InputStream getInputStream(Context ctx) throws IOException { // See if we already have it. InputStream in = (InputStream) ctx.getAttribute("inputStream"); if (in == null) { // Create some content... in = new ByteArrayInputStream(("<b>Hello! You requested: '" + ctx.getAttribute(Context.FILE_PATH) + "'</b>").getBytes());
// Set the extension so it can be mapped to a MIME type ctx.setAttribute(Context.CONTENT_TYPE, "text/plain");
// Save in case method is called multiple times ctx.setAttribute("inputStream", in); }
// Return the InputStream return in; }
The above ContentSource (ExampleContentSource) is very simple, it generates its content from a String (see green text above). The String is some text with the request path (which is the PATH_INFO of the request, in other words the part of the URL after the "/resource"). Notice I added some HTML tags to show how they're treated. The red text shows that the Content-type is being explicitly set to "text/plain". This should cause the browser not to parse any html (so we should see those <b> tags on the screen).
As you can see, this simple ContentSource produces plain text in the browser. You also see that the URL requires "contentSourceId=example". "example" comes from the "id" of ExampleContentSource.
ProxyContentSource
Let's take a look at 1 more example ContentSource. We'll use the same URL, except we'll use the contentSourceId of "proxy" to target our other ContentSource. Below is the interesting part of the source code for ProxyContentSource.java:
ProxyContentSource.java:
public InputStream getInputStream(Context ctx) throws IOException { // See if we already have it. InputStream in = (InputStream) ctx.getAttribute("inputStream"); if (in == null) { // Get the path... String path = (String) ctx.getAttribute(Context.FILE_PATH); while (path.startsWith("/")) { path = path.substring(1); }
// Get the URL... URL url = new URL("http://" + path);
// Set the extension so it can be mapped to a MIME type int index = path.lastIndexOf('.'); if (index > 0) { ctx.setAttribute(Context.EXTENSION, path.substring(index + 1)); }
// Open the InputStream in = url.openStream();
// Save in case method is called multiple times ctx.setAttribute("inputStream", in); }
// Return the InputStream return in; }
Again we are creating an InputStream, however, this time we are getting it via a URL. This time instead of hard-coding the Content-type, we're setting the extension of the file so that it will be mapped to an appropriate Content-type. Here's the output for the same URL as before (except w/ our "proxy" contentSourceId):
In this example, the content is pulled from java.sun.com from the server (not the client), then streamed to the client. The appropriate Content-type of "image/gif" was sent to the browser so that it could treat the content correctly. If you run this example, try other urls and types of media (html, pdf, doc, etc.).
I hope this blog gives you an idea of how FileStreamer functionality is useful. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think! Below is one more section describing how to configure FileStreamer in a Servlet environment (doesn't need JSF):
That's it... the rest is the same as above. You can change the url mapping directly in the web.xml file in this case. Oh... and yes, you can use the same ContentSources in both environments!
Sun has delivered some great components as part of Sun Java Studio Creator and NetBeans Visual Web Pack. But if you don't use one of those products, you probably didn't know it. Well, now you don't have to use these tools to enjoy the rich JavaServer Faces components they provide. In fact not only are they available outside these products, they are now Open Source!
Project Woodstock is the Java.net project which contains the source code for these components. Both Creator's and NB VWP components were derived from earlier versions of this code base. The code is released under the very flexible CDDL license. These components have been in the making for over 2 years and have gone through several development cycles. They're stable, full featured, and work seemlessly together sharing a common theme -- they're ready for production!
Let's take a look at what some of these components look like:
The CommonTasks component produces a page of common tasks for your application, complete with drop-down help and nice roll-over visual effects:
This Table component can create simple to very complicated tables. It takes advantage of the unique "DataProvider" feature that makes managing your data efficient and a breeze! Below is a fairly complicated table:
The Masthead component allows you to present a visual appealing and very functional masthead complete with status information, buttons, branding, and more:
The Wizard component allows you to create web-based wizards for walking your user through a process:
The Tree component provides a both a server-side and client-side rendering option and nice visual appeal:
The PropertySheet and FileChooser shown below are two more nifty components that provides a nice page layout and the ability to browse and select a file on the server:
All of these components are "themed" so you can adapt the look of these components to your company's look and feel by creating your own theme. Many of the components use Ajax (via Ed Burn's Dynamic Faces project), and more Ajax features are sure to come. The TLD document and example application included in the project provide more than enough information to get you started.
If you're a Faclets user, Jason Lee is already working on creating a Facelets taglib for Woodstock. And of course if you're a JSFTemplating user, I have full support for the Woodstock components built in... plus I have a simple example app on the site to get you started. Plus, the entire GlassFish admin console (source here) is built using JSFTemplating and Woodstock components. So whatever your JSF environment (NetBeans, Facelets, JSFTemplating), you'll be able to use these components.
So what are you waiting for? Go download the components and try them out!
Tips for creating a GlassFish Admin Console Plugin
)... or better yet, meet me at JavaOne 2008!
