FlexDock integration

[volvin]

Hi,

The sandbox of the 0.2.1 release contains some classes for the integration with flexdock. I tried to configure them by changing the applicationPageFactory in the application context, but I got a nullpointer (see below).

Has anyone actually succeeded to make this work? Am I missing something?

Thx


01:01:33,218 ERROR [ApplicationLauncher] Exception occured initializing Application bean
java.lang.NullPointerException
at be.somko.rcrm.client.gui.view.flexdock.FlexDockApp licationPage.loadLayout(FlexDockApplicationPage.ja va:194)
at be.somko.rcrm.client.gui.view.flexdock.FlexDockApp licationPageFactory.createApplicationPage(FlexDock ApplicationPageFactory.java:67)
at org.springframework.richclient.application.support .AbstractApplicationWindow.createPage(AbstractAppl icationWindow.java:226)
at org.springframework.richclient.application.support .AbstractApplicationWindow.createPage(AbstractAppl icationWindow.java:212)
at org.springframework.richclient.application.support .AbstractApplicationWindow.showPage(AbstractApplic ationWindow.java:161)
at org.springframework.richclient.application.Applica tion.openWindow(Application.java:148)
at org.springframework.richclient.application.Applica tion.start(Application.java:210)
at org.springframework.richclient.application.Applica tionLauncher.launchMyRichClient(ApplicationLaunche r.java:223)
at org.springframework.richclient.application.Applica tionLauncher.<init>(ApplicationLauncher.java:103)
at be.somko.rcrm.client.Startup.main(Startup.java:19)

[Andrius Šabanas]

I don't remember exactly as I just played a bit with flexdock integration a couple of months ago... I think you should implement a flexdock PerspectiveFactory that supplies the initial view layout, and inject it into the FlexDockApplicationPageFactoryBean, like this:

  <bean id="flexdockApplicationPageFactory" 
    class="org.springframework.richclient.application.flexdock.FlexDockApplicationPageFactory">
    <property name="floatingEnabled" value="true" />
    <property name="defaultPerspective" value="defaultPerspective" />
    <property name="perspectiveFactory">
      <bean class="com.mycompany.myproject.MyPerspectiveFactory">
        <property name="dockableIds">
          <list>
            <value>fooView</value>
            <value>barView</value>
            <value>bazView</value>
          </list>
        </property>
      </bean>
    </property>
  </bean>

The MyPerspectiveFactory should look like this:

package com.mycompany.myproject;

import java.util.List;

import org.flexdock.perspective.LayoutSequence;
import org.flexdock.perspective.Perspective;
import org.flexdock.perspective.PerspectiveFactory;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.InitializingBean;
import org.springframework.util.Assert;

public class MyPerspectiveFactory implements PerspectiveFactory, InitializingBean {
    private List<String> dockableIds;

    public Perspective getPerspective(String perspectiveId) {
        Perspective perspective = new Perspective(perspectiveId, perspectiveId);
        LayoutSequence sequence = perspective.getInitialSequence(true);
        
        String prevDockableId = null;
        for (String dockableId : this.dockableIds) {            
            sequence.add(dockableId, prevDockableId);
            prevDockableId = dockableId;
        }
        
        return perspective;
    }
    
    public void afterPropertiesSet() throws Exception {
        Assert.notEmpty(this.dockableIds, "No dockable ids specified");
    }

    public List<String> getDockableIds() {
        return dockableIds;
    }

    public void setDockableIds(List<String> dockableIds) {
        this.dockableIds = dockableIds;
    }
}

Please note that I tried this on 0.3-SNAPSHOT development code from SVN, so this might not work on 0.2.1.


Have fun,

Andrius

[mscoon]

Hi,

I am currently developing an application and I have succesfully used flexdock. It is not trivial, but it is not too complex either.

The three interesting integration classes are:

• FlexDockApplicationPage
• FlexDockViewDescriptor
• FlexDockApplicationPageFactory,

along with interface PerspectiveFactory.

Because I needed some customized functionality (namely the ability to control whether a "view" would have a title or not), I created my own classes, which inherit from the above classes:

• JOverseerApplicationPage
• JOverseerViewDescriptor
• JOversserApplicationPageFactory

and override some of the methods. You can simply do the same without overriding any methods for starters.

Also, I have JOverseerPerspectiveFactory which implements PerspectiveFactory. This you will have to implement, regardless of whether you subclass the above classes.

Here is what I did to make flexdock work:

* Added the declaration for JOversserApplicationPageFactory to application-context.xml as follows:

<bean id="joverseerApplicationPageFactory" depends-on="serviceLocator"
        class="org.joverseer.ui.flexdock.JOversserApplicationPageFactory" lazy-init="false">
         <property name="floatingEnabled"><value>true</value></property>
         <property name="perspectiveFactory">
             <bean class="org.joverseer.ui.flexdock.JOverseerPerspectiveFactory"></bean>
         </property>
         <property name="defaultPerspective">
             <value>joverseer</value>
         </property>
    </bean>

Note that the application page factory contains a reference to the perspective factory that it will use to create the perspectives for the application page.

* Registered the application page factory with my services (again in application-context.xml):

<bean id="applicationServices"
        class="org.springframework.richclient.application.support.DefaultApplicationServices">
        <property name="imageSourceId"><idref bean="imageSource"/></property>
        <property name="formComponentInterceptorFactoryId"><idref bean="formComponentInterceptorFactory"/></property>
        <property name="applicationObjectConfigurerId"><idref bean="applicationObjectConfigurer" /></property>
        <property name="applicationPageFactoryId"><idref bean="joverseerApplicationPageFactory"/></property>
        <property name="binderSelectionStrategyId"><idref bean="binderSelectionStrategy"/></property>
        <property name="conversionServiceId"><idref bean="conversionService"/></property>
    </bean>

* Declared my views in application-context.xml as JOverseerViewDescriptor's as follows:

<bean id="characterListView"
        class="org.joverseer.ui.flexdock.JOverseerViewDescriptor">
        <property name="viewClass">
            <value>org.joverseer.ui.listviews.CharacterListView</value>
        </property>
        <property name="closable"><value>true</value></property>
        <property name="pinnable"><value>true</value></property>
    </bean>

* Implemented the perspective factory as follows:

public class JOverseerPerspectiveFactory implements PerspectiveFactory {

    public Perspective getPerspective(String persistentId) {

        List<DockingState> dss = new ArrayList<DockingState>();

        DockingState ds = new DockingState("mapView");
        dss.add(ds);

        ds = new DockingState("characterListView");
        ds.setRegion(DockingConstants.SOUTH_REGION);
        ds.setRelativeParentId("mapView");
        ds.setSplitRatio(.3f);
        dss.add(ds);

        ds = new DockingState("populationCenterListView");
        ds.setRegion(DockingConstants.CENTER_REGION);
        ds.setRelativeParentId("characterListView");
        ds.setSplitRatio(1f);
        dss.add(ds);

        ds = new DockingState("nationEconomyListView");
        ds.setRegion(DockingConstants.CENTER_REGION);
        ds.setRelativeParentId("characterListView");
        ds.setSplitRatio(1f);
        dss.add(ds);

        // ... more views here
        
        return createPerspective("joverseer", dss);
    }

    private Perspective createPerspective(String perspectiveId, java.util.List<DockingState> dockingStates) {
        Perspective perspective = new Perspective(perspectiveId, perspectiveId);
        LayoutSequence sequence = perspective.getInitialSequence(true);
        for (DockingState dockingState : dockingStates) {
            if( dockingState.getRelativeParentId() != null)
                sequence.add(dockingState.getDockableId(), dockingState.getRelativeParentId(), dockingState.getRegion(), dockingState.getSplitRatio());
            else
                sequence.add(dockingState.getDockableId());
        }
        return perspective;
    }

And this is pretty much it. The key parts in summary are:
- declare the flexdock application page factory in application-context.xml
- delcare your views as FlexdockViewDescriptors (or a subclass)
- implement a PerspectiveFactory

I hope the above is of some help. Feel free to ask more questions if you find more problems.

Marios