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Release day - Merry Christmas

Yesterday, we've released JVx 2.4, VaadinUI 1.4, HeadlessUI 1.1 and JVx vert.x 3.0.

Headless UI and JVx vert.x are maintenance updates because of JVx changes. JVx 2.4 is a bugfix release with some new cool features and VaadinUI is a performance tuning and bugfix release.

JVx and VaadinUI are available on Maven central. The other releases are hosted on SourceForge.

What's new in JVx 2.4?

  • Thread safety

    DataBook (MemDataBook, RemoteDataBook) are now Thread safe. It wasn't guaranteed before 2.4.

  • Support for Boolean and Arrays (Oracle)

    JVx' OracleDBAccess supports Boolean DataTypes via JDBC calls and Arrays as well. We wrapped the functionality in our existing API and it makes no difference for you. Arrays are wrapped as List of IBeans.

  • Parameter changed event in WorkScreen

    The WorkScreen class got a new event: eventParameterChanged. It enables notification about parameter changes.

  • New AbstractFactory

    We introduced AbstractFactory and changed all factory implementations. With AbstractFactory, it's possible to set custom factory properties. We use this new feature for vaadin UI. With new Vaadin UI it's possible to use the old Table or the new Grid implementation. Simply set a property for that.

  • API change: IFactory

    The invokeInThread method now returns the Thread instance.

  • FontAwesome support
  • Automatic Record translation

What's new in Vaadin 1.4?

  • Based on vaadin 7.5.7
  • FontIcon support
  • Grid support (experimental)

    Set the factory property: vaadin.component.legacy_table to true (via web.xml as init parameter or as URL parameter).

  • Lazy loading of LinkedCellEditor

    Before 1.4, all LinkedCellEditors were loaded immediate. This was a performance impact. With 1.4 this was changed and data will be loaded, when needed.

  • Performance tuning

    The performance is now about 5 times faster than before. We improved the performance because we reduced our CssExtension and reduced the database calls. You can feel the new performance :)

What's new in JVx vert.x 3.0?

It's based on Vert.x 3 and works with JVx 2.4.
(JVx vert.x is hosted on GitHub)

You can find all changes in the project Changelogs.
Happy coding!

categories Release notes | rjahn | 24/12/2015 | comments Comments (0)

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Using Boolean Datatype with Oracle and JDBC

Oracle doesn't use/define the SQL Type Boolean. You can't define a column in a table as Boolean. It's possible to use boolean in PL/Sql e.g. for procedures or functions but you can't call the function from SQL.

Example functions

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION afunc(pIn BOOLEAN) RETURN BOOLEAN IS
BEGIN
  RETURN pIn;
END afunc;
/

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION bfunc(pIn VARCHAR2) RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
BEGIN
  RETURN pIn;
END bfunc;
/

It's possible to call:

SELECT bfunc('Hello') FROM dual;

but it's not possible to call:

SELECT afunc(true) FROM dual;

or

SELECT afunc(1) FROM dual;

(1 = true, 0 = false; boolean is mapped to integer in Oracle)

If you want to call a procedure or function which defines boolean parameters, it's not possible without tricks with Oracle JDBC driver. This is annoying.

We solved the problem in JVx 2.4 and it's now possible to call functions or procedures without tricks. Here's a "more complex" example. We define a function with an input parameter and a procedure with an input/output parameter in a package:

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE TestBoolean IS
 
  FUNCTION test(pOutput BOOLEAN) RETURN BOOLEAN;
  PROCEDURE testBoolOut(pOutput IN OUT BOOLEAN);
 
END;
/

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY TestBoolean IS

  FUNCTION test(pOutput BOOLEAN) RETURN BOOLEAN IS
  BEGIN
    IF (pOutput) THEN
      RETURN FALSE;
    ELSE
      RETURN TRUE;
    END IF;
  END;

  PROCEDURE testBoolOut(pOutput IN OUT BOOLEAN) IS
  BEGIN
    IF (pOutput) THEN
      pOutput := FALSE;
    ELSE
      pOutput := TRUE;
    END IF;
  END;

END;
/

Now we use JVx' DBAccess to call the function and procedure.

//DB connection
DBAccess dba = new OracleDBAccess();
dba.setUrl("jdbc:oracle:thin:@oravm:1521:XE");
dba.setUsername("test");
dba.setPassword("test");
dba.open();

//Function call
Assert.assertEquals(Boolean.TRUE, dba.executeFunction("TESTBOOLEAN.TEST", Types.BOOLEAN, Boolean.FALSE));

//Procedure call
InOutParam param = new InOutParam(Types.BOOLEAN, Boolean.FALSE);
dba.executeProcedure("TESTBOOLEAN.TESTBOOLOUT", param);

Assert.assertEquals(Boolean.TRUE, param.getValue());

The whole type mapping was done in OracleDBAccess and it's invisible for you. Simply use the API to call procedures or functions.

categories Development | rjahn | 18/12/2015 | comments Comments (0)

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eTV in Action

Some days ago, I wrote about our eTV project. The blog post had some pictures but no more details. I want to tell you some details about this project because it's simply awesome.

The project was a research project of our framework team and was started just for fun. The use-case was simple: Our room had 4 walls and 3 were full with pictures and world maps. Only one wall was empty. Why not using a flat TV for showing different content like livestreams, comic strips, images.

The idea was great and some days later, the last wall was full. A nice 43" flat TV was mounted.

We thought that a RaspberryPi could bring the content to the TV because it's a small device and fits behind the TV. Java works without problems on the Pi and JVx as well.

After all hardware pieces were ready, it was time to think about the software because a sort of control center was needed to implement some features. The plan was to write a simple server which has a set of commands like: open website, show image, play livestream, execute command, upload file, download file.

The server was implemented as simple socket server, with JVx. It executes pre-configured commands and has some important control features: take screenshot, next - previous window, get window list, close window. The server has no GUI and is more or less a window/process manager.

The server has no GUI, but we need a GUI to control the server. We wrote a simple JVx application as remote control. The remote control application was deployed on a Jetty application server (on the RasPi, with vaadin UI) and as mobile JavaFX application. Jetty runs fine on the RasPi and our vaadin UI as well.

The TV with RaspberryPi, streaming a Video from YouTube:

eTV YouTube Stream

eTV YouTube Stream

After we were ready with the server, we tried to create a simple JVx demo application to demonstrate JVx on embedded devices. It was funny to use eTV for live streams or to show images, but what about real-world use-cases?

The idea was about a JavaFX application, running on the RasPi. The application could be a monitoring app for a warehouse with a nice looking frontend and a backoffice view for administration. It's usual to have a nice looking frontend and a not so nice looking backoffice part.

We've implemented an application for a big assembly hall. The application is a styled JVx application but still 100% JVx. We've used VisionX to create the UI:

VisionX design mode

VisionX design mode
TV mode

TV mode

The application in VisionX is not 100% the same as on the TV because of the screen resolution, but it's the same source code and VisionX works with this application. The application on the TV hides the application frame and only shows the screen content, but this is a supported feature.

The UI technology is not JavaFX! We tried to use JavaFX but it wasn't possible because the RasPi had performance problems with the amount of nodes. It wasn't possible to reduce the amount of used nodes with standard JavaFX controls. Overclocking the Pi didn't solve the problem.

We simply switched to Swing and didn't have any performance problems. So, the UI technology is good old Swing. It works great in combination with the RasPi and we think the result is also nice!

The application is a monitoring application for different events, like performance, effort, pressure, temperature, aerodynamics, alerts. We did connect a temp sensor and two buzzers to get a better real-world experience and because it was easy to support with a RasPi. Initial setup:

Initial setup

Initial setup

The backoffice/backend was deployed as web application (Jetty on RaspberryPi, JVx vaadin UI) because it should be possible to use it on tablets or smartphones without native apps:

Backend view

Backend view

The same UI on mobile phones:

Mobile view

Mobile view
Mobile view (no menu)

Mobile view (no menu)

The application is a 100% JVx application with Swing UI and vaadin UI. Everything runs directly on the RaspberryPi.

We've used the whole eTV system as showcase application at DOAG conference in November:

eTV @ DOAG 2015

eTV @ DOAG 2015

The results of our "research project" are awesome and eTV is a ready-to-use product. We didn't code one line of code to support different UI technologies and didn't have problems with resolutions of tablets, smartphones or the TV (#responsive).

Thanks to JVx it was super easy to create an amazing application.

categories Development | rjahn | | comments Comments (0)

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JVx and Java 8, Better Lambda support in 2.4

Already at the beginning of this year we started to improve the support for Lambdas in JVx. Now with 2.4 only a few days away, I'm happy to announce that we managed to improve it dramatically! Our events are now supporting basically every method which you can imagine as handler.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? As most of you know, our own event handler scheme had support for basically five different variations of listeners:

private void initializeUI()
{
    button.eventAction().addListener(new UIActionListener() { ... });
    button.eventAction().addListener(this, "doActionA");
    button.eventAction().addListener(this, "doActionB");
    button.eventAction().addListener(this, "doActionC");
    button.eventAction().addListener(this, "doActionD");
}

public void doActionA()
{
    // A simple method with no parameters.
}

public void doActionB() throws Exception
{
    // A simple method which can throw *any* exception.
}

public void doActionC(UIActionEvent pActionEvent)
{
    // A method with the correct signature.
}

public void doActionD(UIActionEvent pActionEvent) throws Exception
{
    // A method with the correct signature which can throw *any* exception.
}

This scheme allows us to wire up basically any method to the event, and even to wire the same method to different events. Behind the scenes there is some reflection magic going on which I won't describe here, but with Lambdas entering the stage this changes quite a bit. The good thing about Lambdas is that they are fitting neatly into the already existing interface structure, so you can replace any interface implementation which has only one method with a lambda.

That means that you can do something like this:

private void initializeUI()
{
    button.eventAction().addListener(this::doActionA);
}

private void doActionA(UIActionEvent pActionEvent) throws Exception
{
    // The correct implementation.
}

But if you wanted to use a method without parameters you were out of luck until now, because listener interfaces always expect a parameter. With 2.4 there will be a new interface, called IRunnable, which provides a method which does not accept any parameter and can throw any exception and the EventHandler will also accept listeners which implement this interface. That means that the scheme outlined above is now fully possible with lambdas.

private void initializeUI()
{
    button.eventAction().addListener(new UIActionListener() { ... });
    button.eventAction().addListener(this::doActionA);
    button.eventAction().addListener(this::doActionB);
    button.eventAction().addListener(this::doActionC);
    button.eventAction().addListener(this::doActionD);
}

private void doActionA()
{
    // A simple method with no parameters.
}

private void doActionB() throws Exception
{
    // A simple method which can throw *any* exception.
}

private void doActionC(UIActionEvent pActionEvent)
{
    // A method with the correct signature.
}

private void doActionD(UIActionEvent pActionEvent) throws Exception
{
    // A method with the correct signature which can throw *any* exception.
}

And more good news, did you notice that the visibility of these methods changed from public to private? With the new Lambda scheme these methods no longer need to be public, they can have any visibility and will still work as intended.

So JVx 2.4 is the release when it comes to Lambda support, and everyone who has the possibility to already use Java 8 can now enjoy full support for them.

categories News | rzenz | 17/12/2015 | comments Comments (0)

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