Christopher,
There's another way to do this, without using services. I usually try not to add new services if I
can avoid it, don't want my customization to contain 100s of custom services. See the below
example if you have other cases for which you cannot easily find a suitable service to do similar
pre-processing.
It might sometimes seem like an overkill to create a new service to do something as simple as
putting first name and last name together. Or you might want a different formatting like
"<firstName> - <lastName>" and you find getPartyNameForDate not flexible enough.
The following example will remove the need for a separate service altogether, so we don't pollute
the services namespace with zillions of services. Ok, here goes.
You can usually pull in entity rows using <entity-one> (or <entity-and>).
In your <actions> section, you'll usually have to trace from a key you get in request parameters
linking all the way somehow to entity Party via primary key partyId. That's the case for the
example below. Of course, you could be dealing with entity Party as a top-level entity, in which
case you can possibly omit the 1st 3 lines.
You might see something like this:
<set field="someOtherEntityId" from-field="parameters.someOtherEntityId"/>
<entity-one entity-name="SomeOtherEntity" value-name="someVariable"/>
<set field="partyId" from-field="someVariable.someSpecialPartyId"/>
<entity-one entity-name="Party" value-name="riskOwnerParty"/>
(The 1st 2 lines may reside in a screen-widget instead, but the effect is the same; both the
screen-widget and related form-widget will operate on the same context. Line 3 shows a foreign key
linkage from entity SomeOtherEntity to entity Party. Line 1 can actually be omitted in this
example, but I was afraid you'd wonder "where is the primary key for SomeOtherEntity!". Yeah, a
lot of "behind the scenes" issues in OFBiz framework.)
And outside (below, actually) your <actions> section, do:
<field name="riskOwnerPartyId" title="${uiLabelMap.Owner}">
<display description="${riskOwnerParty.lastName},
${riskOwnerParty.firstName}"/>
</field>
(The context variable ${riskOwnerPary} is a map, a list of values for the single row pulled in
from entity Party.)
That way, you won't have to hunt for hundreds of available services that precisely serves your
thousands of specific needs. And you just need a few lines (3-5) of XML codes.
That said, you should use all available services whenever possible.
Interesting note: You'll realize the above example is very similar to your typical programming
styles -- get entity1, link to entity2, use entity2 key to pull down list from entity3, etc. You
did ask about "flow of variables" (like in a typical programming construct), so the above should
look very familiar to you. Oh, before I forget, variables are stored in context, so store and find
them there, simple as that.
About the intricacies of the combination "<field><display-entity/></field>", let me know if you
want a detailed explanation of that.
If you're thinking it's easy to have bad/sub-optimal coding practices in OFBiz, you'd be right.
Even the above example may not be the best way to go about things. When in doubt, ask David E.
Jones (back to the source), that's what I'd do.
Can you help to write down what you learned in some comprehensive technical reference somewhere?
Thanks. :) I still need to train my boss' staff at some point, and you could really help me a lot
here.
Jonathon
Chris Howe wrote:
In your row actions, run the service getPartyNameForDate, passing in
the partyId and optional Y/N for lastNameFirst variable and optional
compareDate
--- Christopher Snow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I have a field that is returned in a form list:
<field name="riskOwnerPartyId" title="${uiLabelMap.Owner}">
<display-entity entity-name="Party" key-field-name="partyId"/>
</field>
I would like to display "Party.lastName, Party.firstName" and not the
partyId.
How can I do this?
Many thanks ...
