>>>>> On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:13:49 -0700, Edward Burns <edward.burns_at_oracle.com> said:
>>>>> On Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:03:10 -0600, David Schneider <david.schneider_at_oracle.com> said:
DS> Sorry for the late response, I've been a bit under the weather lately.
DS> On 3/16/2012 9:01 AM, Edward Burns wrote:
DS> This flow is used to create/edit some type of data record (e.g. a
DS> customer contact, employee, etc.). The flow's starting point, its
DS> 'default activity', is indicated with the green halo.
EB> Obviously the router is an embodiment of some logic. How is the logic
EB> encoded? A java method invocation? I don't have "Router Activity"
EB> correctly represented in the proposal [1]. David, can you please say
EB> what I should put for "Router Activity"?
DS> In ADF a router activity is the control flow equivalent of a switch
DS> statement. It consists of a sequence of EL value expressions and an
DS> outcome value to be generated if the EL evaluates to 'true'. There's
DS> also a default outcome to be generated if none of the expressions
DS> evaluate to 'true'. In theory the same thing can be done with a single
DS> Java method call but we found in some cases developers preferred being
DS> able to use metadata instead of code, especially if IDE support is
DS> available for generating the metadata.
EB> Thanks, I've updated the proposal.
In the 25 business days since this email, I've been hard at work on
building a protype of this feature and I have something that I hope will
stimulate EG discussion.
Details about the prototype
===========================
A very early, yet functional, prototype of the feature exists in the
nightly builds of mojarra. To evaluate the prototype, take the
org.glassfish:javax.faces:2.2.0-SNAPSHOT jar from maven.java.net and
drop it into GlassFish 3.1.1 or later. The Mojarra trunk workspace has
three test projects that exercise the extent of the prototype. These
tests are located in the test/web-profile/flow directory of the Mojarra
workspace. Unfortunately, due to [1], the jar artifact produced from
the mojarra-cdi-extension project within that directory is necessary to
put into WEB-INF/lib to enable the feature to work. The three simple
tests can be examined in their increasing order of complexity
basic
basic-multi-page
intermediate
The intermediate one is only partly fleshed out and is based on a design
given to me by David Schneider.
Details about the specification of the feature
==============================================
ACTION: Experts, please follow the review instructions in this paragraph
and followup to this email with your feedback. I need significant
discussion to happen on this thread and reach some kind of consensus by
15 May.
Please take a look at the latest published generated specification in
the -javadoc.jar for the javax.faces:javax.faces-api:2.2-SNAPSHOT [2]
Within there, view the class javadocs for javax.faces.flow.FlowHandler.
Start here when reviewing the specification of the feature. Once you've
reviewed that class, look at the other classes in the javax.faces.flow
package. Once you've done that, look at the VDLDoc for the new "Faces
Flows" tag library. This can be accessed by clicking on the "Facelets
Tag Documentation" link in the top navigator and selecting the "Faces
Flows" tag library. Of all the prototype work in the spec and
implementation, this part is the most raw, so please bear that in mind
when reviewing.
This is the last revision of the spec I'm making before coming to Martin
Marinschek's CON_FESS conference next week [3]. Perhaps we'll have some
time to informally discuss the feature there, but I am not going to go
for a formal EG meeting during the CON_FESS this year.
I sincerely hope this elicits some discussion.
Ed
[1]
http://java.net/jira/browse/JAVASERVERFACES-2404
[2] type javax.faces:javax.faces-api:2.2-SNAPSHOT in to the search box
at <maven.java.net>. Select the -javadoc.jar artifact in the tree
browser. Select the Archive Browser tab. Expand the tree browser
within the Archive Browser tab and click on index.html. Click on "JSF
API Documentation".
[3]
http://2012.con-fess.com/
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