Preface

Oracle ADF Faces is the view/controller part of the Oracle ADF end-to-end framework. ADF Faces has more than 150 Ajax-enabled components that help developers to rapidly build applications that are robust, reactive, and easy to use.

In this book, we will learn how to deal with the different features of the ADF Faces framework. In the first part of the book, we will learn how to install JDeveloper and ADF, create a simple Oracle ADF application, present data in different ways using ADF Faces components, and use common ADF components such as inputs, menus, toolbars, and more.

In the second part of the book, we will understand how to create a unified template for ADF Faces applications, apply different skinning techniques, and use different visualization components and graphs.

In the last part of the book, we will learn how to use partial page rendering and different ADF Faces events; create reactive applications using polling, push, and WebSockets; add validation and conversion for different ADF Faces inputs; and create different ADF Faces resources for reuse. Finally, we will discuss some best practices, tips, and advice on how to scale and tune your ADF Faces application.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Building Your ADF Faces Environment from the Ground Up, provides the necessary steps to build your environment and install different software to work with ADF Faces.

Chapter 2, Getting Started with ADF Faces and JDeveloper, focuses on getting you started with a simple ADF application and showing you how to deal with JDeveloper IDE.

Chapter 3, Presenting Data Using ADF Faces, shows different ways to present business service data with highlights over i18n and l10n.

Chapter 4, Using Common ADF Faces Components, describes how to work with the common ADF Faces components.

Chapter 5, Beautifying the Application Layout for Great User Experience, provides different techniques of creating great looking application by creating templates and skins, and by using advanced skinning techniques.

Chapter 6, Enriching User Experience with Visualization Components, explains how to work with different ADF Faces Visualization components to create great dashboards.

Chapter 7, Handling Events and Partial Page Rendering, describes how to use partial page rendering and different ADF events. It also provides an explanation of how to create great reactive applications by understanding how to use polling, push, and work with WebSockets.

Chapter 8, Validating and Converting Inputs, explains how to provide conversion and validation for different input components to insure the validity of the data returned to the service layer.

Chapter 9, Building Your Application for Reuse, shows how to create different resources for reuse, such as task flow templates, declarative components, contextual events, and how to package your application for reuse.

Chapter 10, Scaling Your ADF Faces Application, provides multiple tips and advice of how to scale your application and tune its performance.

What you need for this book

To make sure you can work with the recipes in this book, the following software will be required:

• JDK: Java SE Development Kit 7u45 or newer

• Oracle Database: Oracle 10g or newer

• Oracle JDeveloper: Oracle JDeveloper 12c (12.1.2.0.0) or newer

• Miscellaneous tools: Scout App (0.7.1) or newer

Who this book is for

If you are an ADF developer who wants to harness the powers of Oracle ADF Faces to create exceptional user interfaces and reactive applications, this book will provide you with the recipes needed to just do that. Readers of this book need to know little or none about Oracle ADF Faces, but should be comfortable with the development of Java applications, Java EE frameworks, and JSF. This book is also for ADF developers who know Oracle ADF Faces but want to know what's new in Oracle ADF Faces 12c.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Open the jdev\bin\jdev.conf path under the jdeveloper directory."

A block of code is set as follows:

# optimize the JVM for strings / text editing
AddVMOption -XX:+UseStringCache
AddVMOption -XX:+OptimizeStringConcat
AddVMOption -XX:+UseCompressedStrings

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

builder.append("AdfPage.PAGE.showMessages(component.getClientId());");
builder.append("component.focus();");
erks.addScript(context, builder.toString());

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

PATH=%JAVA_HOME%\bin;

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Click on Finish after you finish and you will have the entire book's Git repository locally."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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