SammyRulez Projectz

JSF: how to export UIData in Excel [ActionComponent]

2005-09-05T09:25:00.000+02:00

Since I bore a lot of people in Apache myfaces mailing list with my newbbie questions I give this back to the word... hoping that it would be of some use for someone else.

This is my action bean that store the content of a uidata component in a excel file.

It needs POI (http://jakarta.apache.org/poi) v 2.0 in che classpath.

1 add the bean and the util class to your project

2 add the mappings to the faces-config.xml


 <managed-bean>
        <managed-bean-name>excelManager</managed-bean-name>
        <managed-bean-class>com.kyub.jsf.excelaction.ExcelManagerBean</managed-bean-class>
        <managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope>
        <managed-property><property-name>fileCache</property-name>
            <value>/Users/sammyrulez/IdeaProjects/Faces/exploded/</value>
          </managed-property><managed-property>
              <property-name>templateFileName</property-name>
              <value>/Users/sammyrulez/IdeaProjects/Faces/workbook.xls</value>
        </managed-property>
         <managed-property>
            <property-name>sheet</property-name>
            <value>0</value>
        </managed-property>
        <managed-property>
            <property-name>rowOffset</property-name>
            <value>3</value>
        </managed-property>


        </managed-bean>

ok properties meaning:

fileCache: where excel file are cached
templateFileName: excel file to use as a template: it could be an empty excel file, but it must be a valid excel 97/2000 ecc spreadsheet
sheet: sheet where to write data (number zero based)
rowOffset: row from where start writing data (number zero based)

3 add navigation .. here my example with a jsp displainig the link to the file...


<navigation-case>
       <from-outcome>excel</from-outcome> <!-- excel is the outcome of my action! -->
       <to-view-id>/excel.jsp</to-view-id><redirect />
   </navigation-case>

4 add a command link to the footer (or header) facet of your dataTable


 <f:facet name="footer">
                <h:commandLink actionListener="#{excelManager.listenTable}" action="#{excelManager.exportData}"   >
                    <f:param name="properties" value="name,password"/>
                    <f:param name="headers" value="Nome,Password"/>
                    <f:param name="filename" value="rapportino_excel.xls"/>
                    <h:outputText value="export in excel"/>
                </h:commandLink>
 </f:facet>

"properies" are the properties of the enclosed collection which is the value attribute of your dataTable you want to display in the column. (things like order.customer.name should work!)
"headers" are the header of each column
"filename" is the fixed part of the name of the output file. A time stamp and the dataTable id will be added.

I will make a consistent package if I will have the time this week with a decent "readme"

source code here http://www.kyub.com/ExcelManagerBean.java and here http://www.kyub.com/ReflectionUtil.java

Against the "Everithing sux" philosophy

2005-09-01T09:51:00.000+02:00

I' really tired to read pseudo bile blog, without humor, of people that pretend to know almost all framework, language , Operative system, mobile device ecc.. and seem to hate them all. Why? Why do you still go into them? Change your job, your life! Why they don't buy a boat and start sealing in carabean seas... or whoatever.. The last one was this post (it is in italian but the blog's title is quite self-explaing...). This guy complain about the complexity of Java bringing the high number of modifier, default values of primitive types, 0 based count of month in Calendar as element of complexity. I find all this stuff silly, every language and every framework have its own leaks... but something you have to choose, or just STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT!

Linuxworld expo

2005-05-24T11:40:00.000+02:00

Agai I got my day at LinuxWorld Italy. I will take may speach in the afternnoon. Everyting ins massy as usual, good people and goot stuff. I'm really impressed form the quality of the gadgets.. :-)
In my agenda I have:

Linux on Fedora
Find someone from Sun to talk about Path Finder
Find some PHP Geek to argue with
Find a novell expert thath explain me hoe to mount a Novell Fileserver on my Fedora core 3

Richard Stallman letter to Italian Parliament about sw patents

2005-05-16T08:27:00.000+02:00

This is a letter that Richard Stallman sent to the Italian Parliament. We have big problems with the upcoming software patent laws and such a big voice could help. I hope it will help. I will post an english version soon

Lettera Aperta di Richard Stallman al Parlamento Italiano — Fellowship:

Cari membri del Parlamento italiano,

Gli sviluppatori e gli utilizzatori di software in Europa si troveranno di fronte ad un grande pericolo se l'UE permetter�di brevettare le tecniche di software: il pericolo di essere incriminati per le idee contenute nei software che essi sviluppano e usano.

A differenza del copyright, che protegge la descrizione dell'intero programma ma non le singole idee che lo compongono, la brevettabilit�del software consentirebbe un monopolio sull'uso di tecniche generiche. Un programma complesso �la combinazione di migliaia di queste tecniche. Se un paese permette la brevettabilit�di ognuna di queste tecniche, un programma complesso pu�infrangere centinaia di brevetti in un colpo solo. ( secondo uno studio svolto lo scorso anno il Kernel di Linux, la parte centrale del programma linux, usato per il sistema operativo GNU, infrangerebbe 283 brevetti USA)

Come sono queste tecniche? Consideriamo la 'progress bar', la barra progressiva che gradualmente passa dallo 0% al 100% mostrando sullo schermo la realizzazione di una operazione, come l'apertura di una pagina web o lo scaricamento di un documento. Questa tecnica �una piccola parte contenuta in migliaia di programmi software che svolgono differenti funzioni. Persino questa tecnica �stata brevettata all'Ufficio Europeo dei Brevetti, insieme ad altre 50.000, a dispetto dello stesso trattato costitutivo dell'Ufficio Europeo dei Brevetti. Se la Direttiva del Unione Europea desse un valore legale a questi brevetti, gli sviluppatori e gli utilizzatori di migliaia di programmi rischierebbero la minaccia di incriminazioni.

Un programma �come un romanzo: una raccolta di dettagli che insieme sviluppano molte idee. Immaginate cosa accadrebbe se ogni idea letteraria venisse brevettata, per esempio 'una scena d'amore con una donna sul balcone' o 'gli occhi blu di una persona che assomigliano al mare'.

JavaBlackBelt - knoked down!

2005-04-26T08:35:00.000+02:00

JavaBlackBelt - Java skills evaluation platform:

"a few hours ago and we've got between 500 and 1000 concurrent users. It looks like it cannot stand such mass and the server crashed twice in 4 hours.
Sorry if it crashed (or will crash) in the middle of your quizz.
Expect problems during the next 24h.
Thank you for your patience!"

Well beeing a Karate black I shoud say that scalability is not in their Kata portfolio. I'm realizing that scalability is everithig in web-apps.
Here an example: my customer ask me to build an application to manage 100 object. At the end of the test he said the "real world" model has about 2000 object... so I fear that tasting should focus more on scalablity, having a sort of grain of scale performance graph to be sure how to manage growth.

Flickr for files

2005-03-02T12:48:00.000+01:00

It would be great to have the same service as Flickr for files , mainly short clips, PDF, keynotes.. I mean a selective collection of file types with an uploader, metadata, tags and API to manage them... Well this is my daily wish.. :-) If you know a similar service drop a comment please!

IBM backs PHP. Un-named analyst makes a jab at Java

2005-02-28T08:30:00.000+01:00

IBM backs PHP. Un-named analyst makes a jab at Java:

"IBM has announced that they are collaborating with Zend, of PHP fame. An un-named analyst got into the mix claiming that IBM is disillusioned with Java. What a bold comment. Give me a break."

Well... after building things like websphere I don't think big blu will drop java in favor of a scriting language such as php. But everybody knows that they throw a lot of money in experiments. PHP is Pretty Home Page so it isn't for the entrprise. I think I will register the domain www.php.biz and put this sentence on the home page.

Apple's Mac mini

2005-01-26T08:39:00.000+01:00

AnandTech: Apple's Mac mini - Tempting PC Users Everywhere:

1) At the same price point, you can get a much more powerful CPU from Dell.

2) Sure, you get better graphics with the mini and a better optical drive, but you get more memory and a faster hard drive with the Dell.

3) To the user, to which this type of computer is targeted, do either numbers 1 or 2 matter? The answer is no. All that matters is price and whether or not the thing works. If that statement weren't true, then you would never hear the phrase, 'I've had my computer for 5 years, I need a new one.' Instead, everyone would be a performance fanatic like the rest of us and upgrade every year at worst.

ok so that's my point of view
1) do you ever listen someone speach about G4,risk, Misc or intel processors? i mean it is not a GHZ business: it depends of what you want to do with the machine... and 1 GHZ on a G4 is about 2.3 GHZ on an intel machine

2)you also get a lot more noise, heat and it get more space... should I go on? P.s you also get OS X with the mini

3) well so Apple was to blame because its pc were too expencive, now is to blame because they don' make the cheapest computer on the market... ???? It make no sense to me...

Javalobby/Jdocs.com debug code in clear text?

2005-01-17T11:02:00.000+01:00

I was looking at JDocs.com rss feeds, a great project by JavaLobby but the contents didn,t reflet the content of the page. I fear that one of these things could be happended:

JDocs javadocs parser read also dirty programmer comments as javadocs. A simple bug, and a funny one which is an unsual thing for a bug!

The link in the homepge is wrong and points to a wrong feed(a developer discussion or something like that)

RSS feeds are just a stub implementation and displays various debug data instead of RSS content... this one is quite scaring in security prospective

Anyway jdocs is a great thing for everyone...

Here the code(you can verify it here):

inal String msg = "blah, blah.";

final String confirmMsg = "Check this box to no longer see this information message.";

PreviewPlugin plugin = PreviewPlugin.getDefault();

IPreferenceStore prefStore = plugin.getPreferenceStore();

Shell shell = new Shell();

/*if toggleState is true, then the user previously checked the box to no longer see this message. */

boolean toggleState = prefStore.getString(FINISH_CONFIRM_KEY).equal(MessageDialogWithToggle.ALWAYS);

if (!toggleState) {

MessageDialogWithToggle.openInformation(shell, "Values Stored", msg,confirmMsg, toggleState, prefStore,
FINISH_CONFIRM_KEY);

plugin.savePluginPreferences();

} ]]> Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:23:21 -0500 http://myserver.mydomain.com/myapp/servlet/page1, you can use this construct only thus:

RequestDispatcher rd = request.getDispatcher("/myownpage.jsp");

rd.forward(req, res);

This will invoke the page as if you typed:

http://myserver.mydomain.com/myapp/myownpage.jsp

on the browser !

I dononet (I don't know .Net)

2005-01-13T10:31:00.000+01:00

I don't know .Net, I mean I don't know how to design and implements an enterprise sized application in a .Net env. It's not my skill. Thats all. I focused my skils in J2EE env and I have several years of experience in the field. I know the goods and the bads of .Net but develop on it is another story. It's not just learn C#. Learning langueges is quite easy. The framework and the logic behind it is the problem. I'm a professionel and I made my choice and my company knew it when I was engaged 3 years ago. Now one of my .Net co-worker has left the company and the sys admins complains about issues about some applications. They asked me to handle the issuses and when I answered thath I didn't know .Net env the replaied that I was lazy and I didn't want to learn C#. The problem is not C#, the problem is the framework and a narrow minded, old styled view of software design. The differences between J2EE an .Net are not the same that there were between Cobol and Fortran. They are complete different world but sadly someone miss it out. In the end I think that focusing on a tecnology is important in order to master it. I read a lot of peole argue that they handle both .Net and J2EE but I think that I could not just because strong skills need training, exercise, experience (time) and I have none of them

Oops I did it again (reinvent the wheel)

2005-01-07T14:30:00.000+01:00

Contempling my taglib I realized I was making a jsf implememntation. So, before going further I checked and see both jsf spec and Myfaces Impl. Well.. I fera the event handling in jsf spec is a little too complex and "bounding" for our kinf of development. We have a lot of boring-ui-mainacs as customers and generaling frameworks too mutch will force us to reimplement something in the way. In this week end I will make an attempt to JSFize my custom tag lib (aka implement interface and refacto model classes in ordere to be JSF compliant). If I will realize thath it make sense maybe it could be JAFFI ! (Just another Faces Framework Implementation)

SCO site says "We own all your code"

2004-11-29T16:03:00.000+01:00

IS THIS A HACK, or is SCO being as serious as only SCO can be?

Lol! read the full article here

Let's Hibernate Toplink

2004-11-24T13:18:00.000+01:00

I recently read TopLink: 10 Years of Persistence on Theserverside.com and I still think that Toplink is not the tool form me. As some of my readers ( :-) ) know I'm a Hibernate zeloth. To be a zeloth is not a good thing at all, but after testing almost every JDO implememntation and get tired of huge JDBC code writing hibernate almost saved my life. I have tested also Toplink. I got not the skill nor the time to make a Hibernate vs Toplink Article and so I will make only a simple consideration. Toplink has been out for ten years that is a huge period in this "framework-age". Got it out Oracle products? I mean Are there any market ruler sw that uses Toplink? Ask yourself the same things about Hibernate

Things to do. Services to use

2004-11-12T08:22:00.000+01:00

Hi!

After reading Alex Toussaint's Blog post I thought that planning is everiting and so this is my "Things to do. Services to use"

Finish read the J2EE Architect handbook (pdf version)
Read JSR 170
Prepare some Hibernate magic to show at Brescia Java User group
Update the layout of my Bloggerman Project' blog
Buy a Firefox t-shirt
Buy Mac Os X for Java Geeks from O'Reilly
Buy stuff at earchery.it and build some arrow for the December Archery Contests

These items should be a sample of a tipical, in my opinion, thechy, --Java Geek-- //TODO list.. maybe some Star Trek is missing...

Now post yours!

Cheers

::SammyRulez::

JSF and JSTL: I got the clue

2004-11-09T10:57:00.000+01:00

Finally I understood the true meaning of using jstl an jsf. I'm writing this to the one that, like me, aproched custom tag in "the servlet way". I found that tag tecnolgy gives his best if used with a sort of reuse paranoia in mind.
I gave myself.. and going to propose to the team, these rules:

Check the Standard taglib before writing something in a jsp
Check the company taglib before writing something in a jsp
Check the Jakarta taglib before writing something in a jsp
Everything longer than 10 lines of code in a JSP should be placed in an include jsp (and maybe parametrized: jsp:param do exist!)
Everything longer than 10 lines of code in a JSP should be placed in a new tag of the company taglib (or maybe is a businees method!)

Maybe these rules are oblivious for the most of you... but I'm working very hard in refactoring hugly jsp.

Pause is over... back to work!

JSTL in real world

2004-10-12T17:41:00.000+02:00

'm playing with JSTL but I found it quite messy... I mean look at this code:


	<c:forEach items="${mycollectionswithforuobj}" var="myObj" >

		<c:out value="${myObj}" />

    	</c:forEach>

it returns a blank page, without any error... I think the problem is that the collection in not a bean property but comes from a biz method... I'm thinking that old school well included page still rocks!

2004-10-01T11:39:00.000+02:00

Novell 2 ICal

I had the need of sync my Novell GW calendar with my Mac's ICal... a very simple task... but I found no software to do it! I alaways found promises of a project to open source openExchange that will include Novell and ICal... but i neet it now! So I write a small servlet that do the thing... since calendar items are mail messages and ICal supports HTTP remote calendars I wrote a servlet that read the messages from Novell and create an ics file to feed ICal. It works great... I'm planning to post the source code when I fix a couple of security Issue (ex: mail passwords in clear config file!)

Novell and ICal are registred trade marks of the respective owners

2004-09-30T12:24:00.000+02:00

Evening meeting of the Java User Group of Brescia
Yesterday evenig there was a Evening meeting of the Java User Group of Brescia. I got a speach on my open source project Spread Objects. Andrea , owner of the JAME project took a speach on texture mapping in java. I liked it very muth because I alaways wondered how 3d engines work in depth, but never found clear documentation for my lazy attitude to non web stuff.
I like the jug because it keeps me in contact with developers that are not my co-workers or college firends. I wolud like it to grow a little bit more, and so if there is someone out there in Brescia area please consider join the team. See our Yahoo group or drop me a line here.

2004-09-25T09:35:00.000+02:00

GMail Giveaway (Bonanza) I have Three account left... put your comment with email adress to get one.
::GMail Rulez::

Spread Object

2004-08-31T00:14:00.000+02:00

Spread object is now in Final RC!

SpreadObjects is basically a utility framework/wrapper for Jakarta POI library. The main problem in handling Excel files with POI is that you have to write custom code to load each sheet, each column, each row and so on. This gives you a great freedom in handling custom shaped files but in the 80% of the cases you have to load/store a big amount of data to/from java object structure.
From this point of view you can imagine each sheet as collection of beans, each row as a single bean and each column as property of that bean

http://sourceforge.net/projects/spreadobjects