On 12/3/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Craig,
I use the panelNavigation in a wizard....suppose the panelNavigation has
3 items:
Page1 (call outcome "gotopage1")
Page2 (call outcome "gotopage2")
Page3 (call outcome "gotopage3")
In our wizard, generally, we don't want the user go directly to Page2
clicking on item "Page2" when he stay on Page1 but pressing the
"confirm" button. But generally, when the user is on Page N we permit to
go directly in Page N-1 clicking on item of panelNavigation (for example
if the user is on Page2 can go in Page1 clicking on Page1 item). We like
put all this logic in the dialog manager and not in the application
(programmatically). Is the analyst that, creating the dialog, decide if
the user can or not click on a item in a particular state. Having the
transiction names and view name configured in the dialog manager can
help this implementation, otherwise I'll have to manage this problem
with application logic.
One approach would be to having a custom JavaBean class for the data that
includes:
public class MyData {
private booelan page1Disabled = true;
public boolean isPage1Disabled() { return page1Disabled; }
private boolean page2Disabled = true;
public boolean isPage2Disabled() { return page2Disabled; }
private boolean page3Disabled = true;
public boolean isPage3Disabled() { return page3Disabled; }
public String gotoPage1() { page1Disabled = false; return "Go"; }
public String gotoPage2() { page2Disabled = false; return "Go"; }
public String gotoPage3() { page3Disabled = false; return "Go"; }
}
Now, the trick is to make sure that the actual navigation choices call the
appropriate gotoPageX methods, instead of navigating to the page directly.
You can do that by having the three <t:commandNavigation> controls return a
logical outcome of "Page1", "Page2", and "Page3", but defining transitions
in your dialog like this:
<dialog name="MyWizard" start="Page1">
<action name="Page1" method="#{dialog.status.gotoPage1}">
<transition outcome="go" state="viewPage1"/>
</action>
<action name="Page2" method="#{dialog.status.gotoPage2}">
<transition outcome="go" state="viewPage2"/>
</action>
<action name="Page3" method="#{dialog.status.gotoPage3}">
<transition outcome="go" state="viewPage3"/>
</action>
<view name="viewPage1" viewId="/Page1.jsp">
<transition name="Page2" state="Page2"/>
</view>
<view name="viewPage2" viewId="/Page2.jsp">
<transition name="Page3" state="Page3"/>
</view>
<view name="viewPage3" viewId="/Page3.jsp">
<transition name="Finish" state="Finish"/>
</view>
<action name="Finish" method="#{dialog.data.finish}"/>
</dialog>
The basic idea is that you have an action state in between each view state
that updates the boolean flags saying what pages can be accessed. Note that
the person coding up the pages doesn't have to know anything about this --
they write navigation outcomes just like they are used to, and the dialog
manager manages the navigation.
For the person writing your application code (the MyData bean), you could
encapsulate the above kind of navigation management in a base class that
provides the methods defined above, and only do new action methods for stuff
that is specific to a particular wizard.
As a final touch, you might want to disable the links to pages that the user
is not allowed to navigate to yet. Do that by setting the disabled property
on the command navigation links dynamically:
<t:commandNavigation ... disabled="#{dialog.data.page2Disabled}"/>
It's all about thinking about the conversation with the user in terms of a
state machine
Craig
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Craig
McClanahan
Sent: 3 dicembre 2006 19.16
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: How know current State?
On 12/3/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> Yes, I think is a bad choice use directly the State object of the
dialog
> machinery.
> But what I really need is to know the possible transaction names of
the
> current dialog in the current state....in the old version of shale I
> used, the only way to know it was use directly the State object.
> Don't you think could be useful have an utility class that return some
> information like:
> - current dialog name
> - current view name
> - possibles transactions
This information is all an internal implementation detail of the
particular
dialog implementation you are using. There is no guarantee that this
information even exists .
Without this utilities, is there another way to resolve my problem?
> I don't understand (because my English is very bad :) ) what you mean
> for "data" item....
In the new design, DialogContext is the API you use to deal with a
particular active dialog. For example, you can programmatically stop
the
dialog if you want, by calling:
FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
DialogContext dc = (DialogContext)
context.getExternalContext().getRequestMap().get(Constants.DIALOG_BEAN
);
dc.stop();
In addition to methods like stop(), DialogContext includes the following
API:
public Object getData();
public void setData();
so that you can use the "data" property to store application related
information. You can either use one of your own beans (see how the Use
Cases example application does this for the logon dialog), or the Dialog
implementation will provide you a map.
From a binding expression, you can get to this information easily.
Assume
you have an "authorized" boolean property indicating that the user has
been
authorized. Reference it like this:
#{dialog.data.authorized}
Storing application specific state in the "data" property means you do
not
need any access to the internals of the dialog manager.
Craig
-----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Craig
> McClanahan
> Sent: 3 dicembre 2006 00.26
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: How know current State?
>
> On 12/2/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> >
> > I have implemented an extension of t:panelNavigation
> > (x:shalePanelNavigation) that set active all items of the panel that
> > have an action callable based of the current state of the current
> > dialog. At the moment I do:
> > - take the current state (I use an old version)
> > - obtain shaleState.getTransitionOutcomes() (in Iterator trans)
> > - for each item of the panel navigation I check if his action ha a
> value
> > present in the iterator trans
> > - if true I set active the item...otherwise disactive
> >
> > Obviously I have some application standards to respects for a
correct
> > use of this panel navigation, but at the moment is perfect for us.
> >
> > I hope is a good reason Craig.... :)
>
>
> Well, it is certainly an *understandable* reason :-). However, I fear
> that
> enabling access to the information you propose will affect your
> application
> design in negative ways. The information needed to determine what
> navigation choices should be available can be stored in an application
> data
> structure that is independent of the dialog machinery, and kept in the
> "data" item, without needing any reference to the internals.
>
> Among other things, that would let you migrate later to a more
> sophisticated
> dialog management system like the Commons SCXML version (or even
> something
> completely different like Spring WebFlow) without having to
rearchitect
> everything once the State object no longer exists :-).
>
> Thanks in advance
> > Mario
>
>
> Craig
>
>
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