Congratulations to Stefan Wurm for graduation!

He sent us his Master Thesis about JVx EE. It is a great documentation about the features and power of JVx EE. The document is in German.

Feel free to send us your comments.

The project is hosted on sourceforce and is available under Apache License 2.0.

I'm sure that some of you have already used custom swing controls in Forms applications to enrich them. But have you tried to use JavaFx together with your Forms application?

JavaFx has cool effects, animations, controls, css styling and much more.

If you enter 'oracle forms javafx' or similar, in your favourite search engine, you get no specific results. So I think it is time to integrate JavaFx to an Oracle Forms application, isnt't it?

Oracle Forms and JavaFx

We used the source code from the official example, that integrates JavaFx in a Swing application.

The result of our integration is a screen that contains Swing and JavaFx controls. If you change a value in the table, the chart is updated immediately. It is really cool because the chart has nice transition effects.

You can combine rapid application development with modern controls and new development concepts.

The good old Oracle Forms UI does not look really cool. Of course, you can use nice icons and choose the right colors, but the controls are not fancy compared to swing controls.

If you try to to migrate from Oracle Forms to Java, wouldn't it be great to migrate one screen after the other. Or better, create new screens with Java and integrate them in your existing Oracle Forms application. Use both technologies as long as is necessary.

Don't think that you have to migrate the whole Oracle Forms application, migrate step by step. It is absolutely possible to use your new screens in your Oracle Forms aplication or as separate application without Forms. Save time, money and don't replace your existing Oracle Forms developers.

You would like to see how this can look like?


The first screenshot shows a standard Java swing application, with a simple master/detail and some editors:

JVx Swing UI

The next screenshot shows the same screen (without source code changes) used in an Oracle Forms application:

Forms with Java screen

You are right, it is great to embedd the same Java screen, but the Look and Feel is not very cool. Do you know that Java has some nice LaF's? Here is the same screen with Nimbus Look and Feel:

Oracle Forms Nimbus LaF

The scource code is online. Thanks to Stefan for his great work!

Check out the project page.

In the coming weeks we will finalize the documentation and build the binaries.

You find the JPA integration and a complete example application in the repository.
Have fun.

Our new project is created and we are preparing the source upload.

What is JVx EE?

It's the integration of JPA 2.0 in JVx. Create professional backend software with JVx and use your domain model which is already available in your Java EE based web application. With JVx EE you can use the configured EntityManager and JPA implementation of your web application. Reuse your existing DAOs or EAOs without changes in your application.

With JVx EE it is possible to create a standard JVx application that is connected to your domain model, e.g.:

or with a custom EAO

Do you need a professional backend application for your existing web frontend? Use JVx and your problems are solved. You get all advantages of JavaEE in your JVx application.

JVx EE is licensed under Apache License 2.0.

Do you have any questions? Let me know.

If you use Javeleon for JVx applications and your preferred IDE is Eclipse, check out our new Eclipse plugin. It is the inofficial Javeleon plugin for Eclipse. The name of the plugin is Javilion Plugin. It is available on SourceForge and it is released under Apache License 2.0.

The plugin has two helpful features:

• Reload Javeleon manually

  Simply reload Javeleon whenever you want.

• Automatic Reload after resource file update

  The current Javeleon version(s) does not reload when you change a resource file like .properties, .xml, ... If you enable the Javilion plugin in your Eclipse project, reload happens automatically.

If you want to use the plugin, use the following instructions, because we have not setup an updatesite right now!

• Download the plugin
• Copy the jar to the dropins or plugins directory of your Eclipse installation
• Restart Eclipse
• Add Javilion nature to your project: right mouse click on your project, Javilion/Add nature
• Right click on your project to verify that Javilion is added:
  

  Popup menu

• Configure your application run configuration and add the port property to your javaagent, e.g.:

  -javaagent:D:\javeleon.jar=nbjdk=default;profile=java;port=9999

  The port 9999 is the default setting. If you need another port, configure it in your .project file:

  <buildCommand>
      <name>com.sibvisions.eclipse.javilion.JavilionBuilder</name>
      <arguments>
          <dictionary>
              <key>port</key>
              <value>1234</value>
          </dictionary>
      </arguments>
  </buildCommand>

  It is a little bit tricky, because we don't have a configuration UI for the plugin right now.

If you use the plugin together with a Javeleon ReloadListener (-Djaveleon.reload.listener=app.MyListener), you feel the full power of Javeleon.

We released VisionX 1.1.1 as little Thank you to our customers. Thanks for the great Feedback and for all the compliments!

The new release contains many improvements and solves some ugly problems.

The details

• Application reload in Browsers

  It is not necessary to clear the Java or Browser cache. The application now reloads automatically.

• Data export

  The simple export of records now creates valid CSV files. Simply open it with Excel or other Office suites.

• Install the database without freeze

  VisionX had a problem with opened database connections, because the installation waits until all resources are freed. In the current release, VisionX closes all opened connections during installation. The database installation now runs smoothly.

• Translation update

  We updated the English translation.

• Tomcat Settings

  If you reused a Tomcat setting, the port is set to 80. Now the stored port is used.

• User Management

  Now it is possible to customize the User Management screen.

• Form screen validation

  If you close a form screen but not all required fields are filled, you get only one information dialog.

• Default table sort

  If you sort a table with different columns and different sort orders, it is saved now.

• Edit data table

  We found a potential freeze during screen update and changed the display of the data type.

• Action editor

  A value change command does not create a new insert command anymore.

Have fun with this fantastic release.

It is available from the project page.

What's different?

This beta release is an update release and contains not a lot of new features.

• CSV Export uses client locale

  Before 1.1, we used a semicolon ";" as separator. Now we use a locale specific separator. This solves country specific data export problems.

• Modal Internal Frames on MacOSX

  We solved the problem with resizable modal internal frames on MacOSX. Now the resizebox is always visible.

• UITable readonly

  Now it is possible to set an UITable readonly independent of the IDataBook.

• API changes

  We reverted the API change, made in JVx 1.0, because the implementation was not very clever. Now it is possible to extend the DBStorage and have full database independent support. In JVx 1.0 you had to extend the default DBStorage and the specific MySqlDBStorage and the specific PostgreSqlDBStorage.... was not very developer friendly. With JVx 1.1 you have the same features but without development overhead.

  Old:

  DBStorage dbs = getDBAccess().createStorage();
  dbs.open();

  New:

  DBStorage dbs = new DBStorage();
  dbs.setDBAccess(getDBAccess());
  dbs.open();

Check the Changelog for a complete list, and use our Forum to talk with us

Sometimes it is useful to change PDF Metadata.
The following code snipped is based on Add an image to an existing PDF

Do you know the problem: You got a PDF document and want to add an image to a single page, but you have no printer/scanner.

Normally jPdf Tweak solves simple PDF problems, but it is not possible to add a simple image to a PDF file . It supports watermarks, but it is not supported to set the position or page.

I wrote some lines of code to solve my problem:

Use the current iText version or iText 4.2.0 (friendly license).