Taylor

Classpath

Now lets setup the classpath before browsing the code.

Open the Eclipse preferences and add a M2_REPO classpath variable that points to your Maven repository [${user.home}/.m2/repository]

• Or use maven: mvn -Declipse.workspace= eclipse:add-maven-repo

Open a command window, navigate to your master project directory, and run 'mvn install' and then 'mvn eclipse:eclipse' to generate the .project and .classpath files for all of the projects.

NOTE: If this is the first time you are running this it will take a while to download all the necessary jars. You may have to repeat it several times. It will also fail when it reaches the web project, but that is OK, we will come back to that later.

• If you want to use WTP with the web project then use mvn eclipse:eclipse -Dwtpversion=1.5 in the web and pdf project directories
• JSF Support

Now, go back to Eclipse and switch to the Java perspective. Then select all the projects and press F5 to refresh.

Now browse the code to see what was generated. The high-lights are discussed below.

Enumerations

Also give creating an Enumeration a try. And add some Literals. Then create a status property on the entity bean with a type of Status.

Now lets run some helper utilities to make some bulk changes to the model. Right-click on the net.taylor.tutorial.entity package and select Utilities > JPA and then run:

• Add Temporal Stereotypes and
• Add Enumeration Stereotypes

JSF Support

This will probably be fixed in a future version of the eclipse plugin.

Add the following to .settings/org.eclipse.wst.common.project.facet.core.xml

  
Types to Java and JSF Mapping      
NOTE: Change the type of the description property to types.Text so that a Text Area will be generated in the facelet.

                   
                                    
 
 String 
 String 
 JSF Input Text 
 
 
 Text 
 String 
 Text Area - TinyMCE Editor 
 
 
 Date 
 Date 
 Seam Date Picker 
 
 
 Boolean 
 Boolean 
 JSF Check Box 
 
 
 Integer 
 Long 
 RichFaces Spinner 
 
 
 Decimal 
 Double 
 JSF Decimal 
 
 
 Currency 
 BigDecimal 
 JSF Currency 
 
 
 Percentage 
 Double 
 JSF Percentage 
 
 
 Byte[] 
 byte[] 
 Seam File Upload 
 
 
 Image 
 String 
 JSF Image 
 
 
 Link 
 String 
 JSF Link 
 
 
 Enumeration 
 your Enum 
 JSF SelectOne 
 
 
 Many to One Association 
 your Class 
 JSF SelectOne 
 
 
 Double 
 Double 
 deprecated - use Decimal, Currency, or Percentage 
 
 
 Long 
 Long 
 deprecated - use Integer 


JPA Utilities
 
 Cleanup Associations 
 For each association, default the mappedBy and cascade properties 
 
 Add Embedded Stereotypes 
 Add Temporal Stereotypes 
 For each property of type Date, Time, or Timestamp add the stereotype and set the value accordingly. 
 
 Add Enumeration Stereotypes 
 For each property with an Enumeration type add the stereotype and set the value to STRING 
 
 Add Index Stereotype to ManyToOne Properties 
 Add Join Table Stereotypes 
 Switch Inheritance Types 
 Switch Id Generators 
 Add Table Stereotypes 
 Add Column Stereotypes 
 Add Attribute Override Stereotypes 
         

Unit Tests      
       
         From Taylor      
                
                   
                                  
Three types of JUnit tests are generated: Service, Seam, and JasperReports.

Seam
 
A Seam junit test is generated in the Ejb3 project for each entity. These tests verify that the Finder and Editor SFSBs and the Facelets expressions (EL) are working properly. 
 
 You might need to tweak the default values for properties. 
 Association tests are also not generated. 
 
Possible Compilation Errors
 
After generating the code and setting up the classpath you may notice that some of the code might have compile errors. This could happen for several reasons: 
 
Something might be missing from the model. Fix the model and regenerate. 
Various TreeNode and EditorBean methods assume there is a property called 'name' that is used for display. Change these to the property you would like to display. 
For example, in the tutorial the Ticket entity has a 'title' property instead of a 'name' property. 
 
You added an Interceptor from a third party that needs to be added to the Maven pom.xml dependencies section. Or you added an Interceptor that you need to implement. 
The session bean operations need to be implemented because they did not match one of the default implementations: save, get, delete, query. 
You defined a operation named query that does not match the default signature. See below. 
 
This is the default signature for operations named query. You will want to define more specialized query operations for the service, but using this signature is a good way to get a prototype up and running quickly. So, either change the model or implement the query as you see fit. Another good option is to use the NamedQuery stereotype to define your queries. It is a good practice to name these the same as the operation that will use them. 
 
 
public List query(SomeEntity example, Long first, Long max, String orderBy) {
}


 

Facelets Customization

The generated facelets are meant to be customized. Generating an
Entity bean is very straight forward because there are well defined
rules and only so many variations. On the other hand, the user
interface is the place where different applications can differentiate
themselves.

To this end, the generated facelets are meant to give you a jump start. The following sections outline possible modifications.

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Editor

For the most part the UI can be customized by making changes to the EditorBeans.

• Implement isEditable()
  
• Change the various isRendered methods
  
• Implement isRendered(String name) and isDisabled(String name) to control individual fields
  
• Modify Many2One and Many2Many association methods to change
  what fields are displayed and add filters. See TODO tags placed in the
  code.
  
• Change createInstance() to initialize properties.
  
• Add additional actions like submit() and schedule(). Examples have been generated.
  

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Finder

• getSearchFields()
  
• Add Chart methods
  

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Menus

The default-object.xml file defines how pages will be displayed in
JBoss Portal. You will probably want to add and remove pages from this
file. Alternatively, you can do this online in JBoss Portal.

You can also create additional *-object.xml files.

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UI Facelets

This is were you might make the most changes, such as rearranging fields, changing input types, and adding buttons.

The Facelets use the standard Portlet CSS Styles, so you can accomplish a lot by changing the Portal Theme.

Facelets templates and tags are leveraged also. When the
Web project is built for the first time the Taylor-Tags library will be
expanded into your project. You can then change the following files to
make global changes across your application:

• webapp/web-inf/jsf/templates
  
• webapp/web-inf/jsf/tags
  
• webapp/web-inf/pdf/templates
  
• webapp/web-inf/pdf/tags
  

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Report Facelets

The generated Seam PDF files are just Facelets so the same things apply as for the UI facelets.

Seam Tests

Taylor Commons contains a port of the Seam TestNG libraries to JUnit. Seam junit tests are generated for each Entity in the model to test the generated CRUD Editor and FInder classes. You will need to tweak the default values for some fields like dates and enumerations.

Version Control

Check in the model, diagrams, and generated code and descriptors into your version control system. I typically generate the code, then tweak it enough to compile, and then check it in. Then I do any major modifications and check that in before iterating again through the model and regenerating.

Package and Deploy

Setup

• Download and unzip Taylor Tracker 1.1.0 JBoss Bundle. This contains JBoss with all the necessary components configured, such as EJB3 and JBoss Portal.

• Copy the necessary configuration files generated in your Ear project's jboss\deploy directory to the server\all\deploy directory.
  • For example, to setup a datasource copy tutorial-hsqldb-ds.xml

• Setup the JBOSS_HOME system property to point to your JBoss installation
  • SET JBOSS_HOME=C:\jboss-4.2.0.GA

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Build

• Change directories to your master project run mvn clean install to clean, compile, test, package, and install all the sub-projects: jpa, ejb, web, pdf, app, doc, etc.

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Deploy

• The App project's pom.xml has the logic to copy the Ear file to your JBoss server.

• Alternatively, you can still use the jboss-maven-plugin
  • Run mvn clean install jboss:harddeploy to deploy your Ear to JBoss.

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Packaging

• Run mvn site to generate the project website with javadoc, xref, and test reports.

• Run mvn assembly:assembly to package everything into zip and tar files.
  • Make these modifications to support this.

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Other Useful Maven Plugins

The templates could be changed to generate some of these:

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Reports

• http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-pmd-plugin/
• http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-changelog-plugin/
• http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-changes-plugin/
• Maven Site Gen Tutorial

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Packaging

• http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/
• http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-deploy-plugin/
• http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-release-plugin/

Customize Code Templates

Templates can be overridden by placing a new version in the directory you specify under Window/Preferences/Taylor. This is useful for overriding the copy right Header template or for fixing template bugs. The templates are found in plug-ins such as net.taylor.mda.ejb3gen.

I typically do the following:

1. Create a templates folder next to the model folder.
2. Set the preferences to point to this folder.
3. Create a Header.jetinc file in this folder.
4. Check in the custom template so everyone else has access.
5. As the project progresses we will put additional customized templates here as well. NOTE: The path has to match the path specified in the particular plugin.xml file so that the engine finds them.

Custom Plugins

Additional templates can be added by placing them in your own plugin and adding the following extension point to its plugin.xml.

Additional information can be found under Architecture.

A good JET Template Editor can be found at http://www.eclipse.org/emft/projects/jeteditor/