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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/TOMAHAWK-1250?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel
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Ji Kim updated TOMAHAWK-1250:
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Status: Patch Available (was: Open)
> Adobe Flex components as MyFaces JSF components
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> Key: TOMAHAWK-1250
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/TOMAHAWK-1250
> Project: MyFaces Tomahawk
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Environment: Have tested using os [windows xp], browsers [firefox
> 2.0, opera 9.25, ie 6.0], and app server [tomcat 5.5.23].
> Reporter: Ji Kim
> Attachments: mxmlComp.patch, mxmlComp.zip,
> mxmlExamplescreenshot-1.jpg, patchZip.txt
>
>
> I wished to contribute set of components to give users capability in creating
> Adobe Flex components as MyFaces JSF components. So users would create the
> components as normal JSF components and the contribution will create the
> necessary SWF files and etcetera and link the values of the components back
> to the managed beans using JSON+Javascript and etcetera.
> The components require Adobe Flex SDK to be extracted to C:\Program
> Files\flexSDK or /usr/local/bin/flexSDK.
> Optionally users can modify the mxmlConstants.xml or can pass the directory
> as a JVM parameter mxmlc_bin
> Requires ANT during compile time, so have modified the sandbox's POM with the
> dependency.
> Have tested using FireFox 2.0, Opera 9.25, and IE 6.0 browsers with TomCat
> 5.5. Also have used Sun's JDK for Adobe Flex SDK [JAVA_HOME].
> The basic design is as follows [will implement it better later] :
> (1) All Flex components must be nested within <s:mxmlApplication /> tag as
> it is the top component and this tag must be outside the <h:form /> component
> [due to IE's
> use of objects].
> (2) There exists replaceMapping XMLs which will tell how to pick the fields
> from the components [i.e. by attributes of the UIComponent or by method call
> for that object].
> (3) There exists templates [users can modify it if they wish to have some
> default capability to all similar component] which will be used per component
> to create preMxml
> files. In a nutshell, it is nothing but a simple file that contains
> tokens which will be replaced by component values using the replaceMapping
> XML and ANT's Replace
> Task.
> (4) Necessary source files will be created to their respective directory
> [i.e. ActionScript file[s] that is/are needed by the system and XML file[s]
> that is/are needed by the
> ActionScript files[s] and should be defined within
> mxmlConstants.xml]
> (5) After all the components' preMxml within <s:mxmlApplication /> have
> been created, MXML file and SWF file will be created using ANT by the
> MXMLApplication class.
> <s:mxmlScript /> will give capability in writing ActionScript
> contents as the body content of the Tag by extending UIComponentBodyTagBase.
> Similar flexibility is given to
> other Tags by extending MXMLUIComponentBodyTagBase; however
> it should be used sparingly and should be used mainly for components that
> extend
> MXMLUISimpleBase component. One additional thing to note is that
> mxmlPackageName attribute for <s:mxmlApplication /> tag will be used to name
> the mxml file and
> the swf file.
> (6) Also <s:mxmlApplication /> will create JSON objects which will be
> rendered onto the page for initial values of the Flex components. The reason
> for this is because
> <s:mxmlApplication /> has various modes :
> debugMode => meaning preMxml, Mxml, and SWF files would
> be created in each run as well as JSON objects
> simplySWF => meaning Mxml which has been modified by
> the user exists, so create only SWF files and JSON objects [users can use
> this to modify the mxml
> file and create a swf file]
> productionEnv => meaning SWF file already exists, so nothing
> to do here but create JSON objects [this is the default value to ensure that
> users do not run the
> components in either of the
> two other modes in an environment that is higher than dev]. One thing to note
> is that all directories of
> WebContent/swf/* should be
> copied to their corresponding directory within the Workspace during the move
> to higher env [since the
> system uses
> servContext.getRealPath(new String()) as the root directory of preMxml, Mxml,
> and swf directory and TomCat for example flushes it
> out to their cache
> directory under metadata].
> For large components such as DataGrid, am planning to write it as a
> service in retrieving and setting the values
> (7) Uses dojo during the onLoad time to connect all the Form's onsubmit
> event with a pageUnload function.
> Also each Flex/Flash app will communicate back to the page when it has
> finished setting up on its side [such as setting callBack methods and
> etcetera], JSON will be
> passed to the apps to set the initial values with the check interval
> set to 500 milliseconds. So the values will be decoded [for example htmlText
> allows XML tags and
> etcetera, so on the Java side there will be encoding and decoding on
> the Flex/Flash side] and set to the component's values.
> (8) During the form's onsubmit action, pageUnload will return false and
> make a call to Flex/Flash app to return the component's values to the page.
> When returned, nodes
> will be appended to the form that was in the process of
> submission and will submit the page
> On the Flex/Flash side, there will be an ActionScript which will use
> E4X [love it] to look up within an XML file the property/attributes that the
> component must return as
> JSON objects to the page, so that the page can create the elements
> with their attributes as child nodes of the form element.
> Will write this better later and will plan on making the code much cleaner
> and better during free time, but wanted to see if this is something that
> could be considered as a contribution within the group. Thanks!!!
> Oh yes, one note regarding preMxml files. In order to keep everything simple
> and debugging easy, a simple method was chosen to create the preMxml files
> for each component. Namely the file with mxmlPackageName_[Major Num][Minor
> Num].pre_mxml will be created per component within directory named
> WebContent/preMxml/[mxmlPackageName]/. So for instance, MxmlApplication will
> have Major Num and Minor Num set to 0 and the first child of MxmlApplication
> will have [1,0] set with it's sibling set to [1,1] and etcetera. Due to how
> it's written, there maybe an issue such that when depth equals a certain
> value and the components within that depth has 3 digits.
> For example,
> 001121 this can mean
> (1) major level 1 with minor level 121 {meaning there exists at
> least 120 components within the swf}
> (2) major level 2 with minor level 1 {meaning this is a child
> of [1,1] and the second sibling with depth two}
> Since issues with this kind of scenario will occur when (1) doesn't
> exist [meaning sibling 120 exists and 121 is placeholder] and (2) exists
> [meaning [2,1] exists], this will
> be very rare. Also if someone has over 100+ components within a
> single swf file, I think it should be reconsidered and rewritten.
> I will possibly considering writing more regarding it later during my free
> time. Thanks!!!
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