Netbeans for the Coffee Drinker

Using server faces its possible to store up the pages a user has visited in an order. This was useful for me because I needed one page to be called from a lot of other places and “javascript:history.back()” wasn’t working because when the user clicks buttons on the page, the back page is the last one!.

So first setting up the session bean.

In the session bean I added a public string.

    public String[] sURL={"","","","",""};

And some functions to support it:-

public void StoreURL(String sURLtoSearch) {
// this routine keeps a history of 5 urls
// that the user has visited
// so that we can correctly link back to the last one
if (sURL[0].equals(sURLtoSearch)) {
return;

}
// its different lets do the shuffle
for (int i=4;i>0;--i) {
sURL[i]=sURL[i-1];
}
sURL[0]=sURLtoSearch;

}
public String getURLs() {

String result="";
for (int i=0;i<5;++i) {
result=result.concat(sURL[i]);
}
return result;
}
public String getLastPage() {
// returns the last page visited
return sURL[0];
}

Then on the the pagefragment I have on all the pages (header) I added the code:-

HttpServletRequest request= (HttpServletRequest)FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().getRequest();

try {

 String sURL=request.getRequestURL().toString();
        sURL=sURL.substring(sURL.lastIndexOf("/")+1);

        getSessionBean1().StoreURL(sURL);

} catch (Exception e) {

}

I’ve left it pretty for you but its now down to one line.

Then lets say I have a Hyperlink I want to link back to the last page…

hypWHEREFROM.setUrl(getSessionBean1().getLastPage() );

And off we go.

Ok

I’m nearly ready to roll out a big course booking application so I needed to start implementing the reports and just like everyone else I chose Jasper Reports netbeans plugin.

BRILLIANT, we are delivering the reports in PDF format so its easy for the customer to email or print them as required.

How is it done?

1. Install the Netbans Jasper Reports plugin file (NBM download from the Jasper Reports website)

2. Add the Jasper Reports Snapshot viewer library to your project

3. Right click your web project, then Add a Jasper Report - I decided it would be nice to use the wizard and go from there -

a. hint - you need to add the extension .jrxml to the filename so netbeans knows what it is.
b. FOLDER - put it in the WEB folder

4. Edit your report and save

Now the dirty code….

I modded this code from another site to make it work with Netbeans 6 and with having the file located in the WEB directory.

/**
 * <p>Generate the specified report, in the specified output
 * format, based on the specified data.</p>
 *
 * @param name Report name to be rendered
 * @param type Content type of the requested report ("application/pdf"
 *  or "text/html")
 * @param data <code>ResultSet</code> containing
 *  the data to report
 *
 * @exception IllegalArgumentException if the specified
 *  content type is not recognized
 * @exception IllegalArgumentException if no compiled report definition
 * for the specified name can be found
*/
public void jasperReport(String name, String type,
ResultSet data) {
jasperReport(name, type, data, new HashMap());
}

/**
 * <p>Generate the specified report, in the specified output
 * format, based on the specified data.</p>
 *
 * @param name Report name to be rendered
 * @param type Content type of the requested report ("application/pdf"
 *  or "text/html")
 * @param data <code>ResultSet</code> containing the data to report
 * @param params <code>Map</code> of additional
 *   report parameters
 *
 * @exception IllegalArgumentException if the specified
 *  content type is not recognized
 * @exception IllegalArgumentException if no compiled report definition
 * for the specified name can be found
*/
public void jasperReport(String name, String type,
ResultSet data, Map params) {

// Validate that we recognize the report type
// before potentially wasting time filling the
// report with data
boolean found = false;
for (int i = 0; i < VALID_TYPES.length; i++) {
if (VALID_TYPES[i].equals(type)) {
found = true;
break;
}
}
if (!found) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid report type '"
+ type
+ "' requested");
}

// Look up the compiled report design resource
ExternalContext econtext = getExternalContext();
InputStream stream = econtext.getResourceAsStream(PREFIX + name
+ SUFFIX);
if (stream == null) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown report name '"
+ name
+ "' requested");
}

try {
data.beforeFirst();
} catch (Exception e) {
throw new FacesException(e);
}

// Fill the requested report with the specified data
JRResultSetDataSource ds = new JRResultSetDataSource(data);
JasperPrint jasperPrint = null;
try {
jasperPrint = JasperFillManager.fillReport(
stream, params, ds);
} catch (RuntimeException e) {
throw e;
} catch (Exception e) {
throw new FacesException(e);
} finally {
try {
stream.close();
} catch (IOException e) {

}
}

// Configure the exporter to be used, along with the custom
// parameters specific to the exporter type
JRExporter exporter = null;
HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse)
econtext.getResponse();
FacesContext fcontext = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
try {
response.setContentType(type);
if ("application/pdf".equals(type)) {
exporter = new JRPdfExporter();
exporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.JASPER_PRINT,
jasperPrint);
exporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.OUTPUT_STREAM,
response.getOutputStream());
} else if ("text/html".equals(type)) {
exporter = new JRHtmlExporter();
exporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.JASPER_PRINT,
jasperPrint);
exporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.OUTPUT_WRITER,
response.getWriter());
// Make images available for the HTML output
HttpServletRequest request =
(HttpServletRequest)
fcontext.getExternalContext().getRequest();
request.getSession().setAttribute(
ImageServlet.DEFAULT_JASPER_PRINT_SESSION_ATTRIBUTE,
jasperPrint);
exporter.setParameter(
JRHtmlExporterParameter.IMAGES_MAP, new HashMap());
// The following statement requires mapping /image
// to the imageServlet in the web.xml.
//
// This servlet serves up images including the px
// images for spacing.
//
// Serve up the images directly so we
// don't incur the extra overhead associated with
// with a JSF request for a non-JSF entity.
exporter.setParameter(JRHtmlExporterParameter.IMAGES_URI,
request.getContextPath() + "/image?image=");
}
} catch (RuntimeException e) {
throw e;
} catch (Exception e) {
throw new FacesException(e);
}

// Enough with the preliminaries ...
// export the report already
try {
exporter.exportReport();
} catch (RuntimeException e) {
throw e;
} catch (Exception e) {
throw new FacesException(e);
}

// Tell JavaServer Faces that no output is required
fcontext.responseComplete();

}

private void jasperReport(String name, String type, ResultSet data, HashMap hashMap) {
throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not yet implemented");
}

Now to code a button to print to a PDF. Create a table and drop some data in it. Then also go look at the XML source code of your report, you’ll see the SQL query there you’ll need to copy that and paste it in.

In this case my grid has created a CachedDataRowProvider1() so I use that to supply the data for the report. Note that I also set up a Static Text box and named it txtRESULT just incase I get any problems (don’t forget to add the binding attribute).

public String button3_action() {
Map fillParams = new HashMap();
// The above statement generates warnings with Java SE 1.5
// To eliminate the warnings, replace with the
// following statement:
// Map<String, URL> fillParams =
//   new HashMap<String, URL.>>();
try {
String sSaveSQL=getSessionBean1().getCoursesRowSet1().getCommand();
// Set up the data provider to match your SQL code from the report.
getSessionBean1().getCoursesRowSet1().setCommand(
"SELECT  courses.`coursetitle` AS courses_coursetitle," +
" courses.`coursedescription` AS courses_coursedescription, " +
" courses.`price` AS courses_price, "+
" courses.`kitprovided` AS courses_kitprovided, "+
" courses.`days` AS courses_days "+
" FROM `courses` courses "+
" ORDER BY courses.`coursetitle`");
getSessionBean1().getCoursesRowSet1().execute();
getApplicationBean1().jasperReport
("Courses", "application/pdf",
getSessionBean1().getCoursesRowSet1(), fillParams);
getSessionBean1().getCoursesRowSet1().setCommand(sSaveSQL);
} catch (Exception e) {
txtRESULT.setText("Exception generating report: " + e);
}
return null;

}

and that should do it. My thanks for getting me started (and most of the code goes to this) http://www.netbeans.org/kb/55/vwp-reports.html

Note that you do not have to do most of the setup in that document as Netbeans now does it for you. Just install the plugin, add the libraries, use the code and off you go.

So with great excitement I downloaded Netbeans 6.1 RC which is great, only problem I had was my existing project loaded up and complained about missing references and then wouldnt run even when I had corrected the missing references.

The problem seems to be something to do with the persistance.xml file. I found that by “fiddling” and saving, rebooting etc I fixed it.

What about it then? well it’s more stable that’s for sure and works really well, I still can’t get my checkboxes to bind properly to BIT fields in server faces. Not without writing code to do it, but I’m sure it worked in 6.0.1.

It’s much faster and I love the add binding attribute thing. I’m releasing an app to a  client this week written in server faces running on a web browser that will be mostly developed in 6.1.

OK

Now we’ve decided, not me the ROYAL WE that we want to use Microsoft Sharepoint for certain applications. So rather than spend a fortune on .net I’ve been looking at if it’s possible to write Web Parts with Netbeans. This sounds a little crazy I know but lets just look at it.

A web part is composed of a “Web part Description file” .dwp and a .NET assembly or .dll file. Now this sounds like at the first instance we are stuck since java ofcourse produces “JAR” files not “.DLL” files. The second problem is that even if we were to “wrap” the Java in a DLL it would not be as good as say running a Glassfish server with java server faces native.

Then I discover that we can use WSDL to talk to share point! http://www.infoq.com/articles/swanson-moss-web-services suggests that we can use soap to talk to sharepoint (cleanly!) which is fantastic. So I’m going to explore that and then post here on how we can actually do the job.

In fact the URL’s are listed here  http://www.developer.com/tech/article.php/3104621 and as the Netbeans IDE has a way to consume web services it’s simply a matter of giving it a go.