Goodbye Nightmare: Tips and Tricks for Creating Complex Layouts with Oracle ADF Faces - Luc Bors

Luc Bors, june 2013, ODTUG KScope 2013 New Orleans

Tips and Tricks for Creating Complex

Layouts with Oracle ADF Faces

Goodbye Nightmare

Who Am I

• Luc Bors

• Principal Consultant

• AMIS Nieuwegein Netherlands

• Friends of Oracle & Java

• 5 Oracle ACE(D)

• Oracle Partner

Just a Quote…

Let's face it: With ADF Faces rich client, layout ……..

once you are a layout master, all bow before you, but it's more of an art than a

science, and it is often, in fact, way too difficult to achieve what should

(apparently) be a pretty simple.

Back to the drawingboard

Visio Stencils

• http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/indexes/samplecode/jdeveloper-adf-sample-522118.html

ADF Layout Containers

The PanelFormLayout

• Organize (input) components in a form layout

– Aligning labels and fields in

rows and columns

– attribute labelAlignment to

display labels above the fields

The PanelFormLayout

• Use the ‘Rows’ attribute

• Use the ‘MaxColumns’ attribute

The PanelStretchLayout

• Stretches its components to fill available space

– Top and bottom facet can be set to fixed height (or auto)

– Start and end facet can be set to fixed width

– Facets with no content

do not render

Demo

The PanelSplitter

• To create resizable panes

– That stretch their content

• panelSplitter has two facets: first and second

– Content for the panes is

provided in the facets

• Orientation horizontal or vertical

• Can be collapsible

• Position can be fixed

• Can be nested

• Collapse and resize events can be listened to

panelAccordion

• The panelAccordion displays one or more collapsible/expandable panes in a vertically layout

– Multiple panes can be expanded at once if discloseMany=true• discloseNone=true means

that all panes can be

collapsed

– Overflow icon is shown

to scroll to panes that

do not fit in the area

– Expanding & Collapsing

panes is a client side

operation

– Accordions can be nested

PanelTabbedLayout

• The panelTabbed displays one or more tabbed panes

– panelTabbed has position attribute

(tab can be shown at the top,

at the bottom or both)

• The content of a tab pane is in a showDetailItem

– A tab has attributes for title, icon, disabled,

• panelTabbed can be nested

• Overflow icon and popup are shown when the tabs do not fit next to each other

Flowing and Stretching

• Setting Background color can help youunderstand what is actually happening.

• Makes you recognize the components at runtime

Demo

Be Aware !!

Stretchable ? Stretches ?

PanelStretchLayout YES YES

PanelSplitter YES YES

PanelCollection YES YES

PanelGroupLayout

(scroll, vertital)

YES NO

PanelGroupLayout

(default, horizontal)

NO NO

PanelFromLayout NO NO

PanelBorderLayout NO NO

PanelDashBoard YES YES(Inside a grid)

PanelTabbed YES YES(StretchChildren = first)

JDeveloper Can Help You

Quick Start Layouts

Predefined Layouts

Even better…

Colors rule !

The ADF Table

• Layout and the ADF Table

– How

– What

– When

A Common ADF Layout issue

• PanelGroupLayout does not Stretch it’schildren

Solution

• Remove PGL

– This does the trick

• Surround withPanelCollection

– Very convenient

The (almost) stretched table

Using the column

• Consider Column Stretching– none (default): Gives optimal performance

– blank: Inserts an empty blank column that is stretched; use this so that the row’s

background colors will span the entire width of the table

– last: Stretches the last column to fill up any unused space inside the viewport

– column:<id>: Stretches a specified column; use the ID of the column that you want

to stretch (requires that you explicitly set the column’s ID property—the drop-down

list for the property displays all columns whose ID has been set)

– multiple When the "multiple" option is used you can set the widths in the columns

(non-group) to be percentages.

The stretched table

Demo

Ready ?

ScrollBar ScrollBar Everywhere

• Never place a scrolling

panelGroupLayout inside of another

scrolling panelGroupLayout since

users do not like nested scroll bars

And now they are gone ….

• I Know what to do:

Lets use layout vertical

on the outer PGL………

…… and they are all gone….

This works best

• You learned earlier that:

– PanelGroupLayout does not Stretch it’s children

• Remove PGL

• Stretch via Styleclass

– AfStretchWidth

Now What …..

The PanelformLayout

• Can we create a properly aligned form ?

• Having alignment of fields on the left ?

• Having alignment of fields on the right ?

• Having First Name and Last Name in one line ?

• Look at the default layout for such a form…….

Step 1

• Bring First Name and Last Name into an aggregate Container

– use a panelLabelAndMessage component which is designed specifically for this

purpose of allowing several logical components, or components without their own

label property to be correctly laid out in a panelFormLayout.

Step 2

• Alignment Components For First Name and Last Name

– By default, the panelLabelAndMessage will lay out its children vertically. In this case

we want the components side-by-side. So simply use a horizontal panelGroupLayout

to align the two fields

Step 3 ?

• Remove Labels

Step 3 !

• Remove Labels

– The label is defined by the panelLabelAndMessage.

– set the simple property to “true” on each of the child components.

– also set the for property on the parent panelLabelAndMessage to the relevant child

component id. This will endure that error messages are correctly displayed.

Step 4

• Ensure Right Alignment

– Components such as the selectOneChoice do not stretch and are controlled by the

size of their data

– You will have to control the size manually using styles.

– The contentStyle property is used to control just the width of the drop down box itself

and therefore is the property to use. Unfortunately getting the exact width, is a matter

of trial and error.

– For precise alignment that can survive zooming by the user, you may have to set

explicit sizes in em’s for all the components in the form, or use the fieldWidth and

LabelWidth properties of the panelFormLayout.

And Finally……The Result

Separators and Spacers

• Default behavior • Spacers and Separators

Now What …..

Forget (almost) all Of the Above….

The PanelGridLayout

• The panelGridLayout component is a layout container component that

– uses one or more gridRow components to describe the rows of a grid layout

structure.

– Each row defines a height and margins.

– Each gridRow uses one or more gridCell components to describe the cells for

columns in that row of the grid layout structure.

– Each cell defines width, margins, column span, row span, horizontal alignment, and

vertical alignment

How does it work ?

Bye Bye Spacers & Separators

How to make this layout ?

How we Used to do it

This is What we do Now

Creating OTN with ADF

Demo

What about Outlook ?

Demo

Outlook in ADF

Summary tips

• Work with colors

– Makes it clear what is going on

• Use as little layout containers as possible.

– The pages is smaller and faster

• Reduce the number of components that need to stretch

– The pages are faster

• Use the quick start layouts

– Saves you time

Summary tips

• Start with strechtable outer frame

– Such as…PSL, PSP,

• In there, have the flowing islands.

• Never try to stretch something vertically in a flowing island

– Inconsistent results accross browsers

– Also need to consider the case where you build pagefragments that can be reused in

other pages.

– Styling only via Styleclass.

• Use the Developerguide or create your own Cheat Sheet !

• Benefit from PanelGridLayout !!!

– 11.1.1.7 or 11.1.2.2+

And do not ….

• Do Not use RAW HTML in the pages

• Do Not use inlinestyle � use skinning

• Do Not specify height with %

– Might result in multiple vertical scrollbars

• Do not try to stretch a none stretchable component by setting width = 100%

– Surround with stretchable componenent that also stretches its children

– Or use AFStretchWidth styleClass

Resources

• http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/middleware/richclient/index.html

Resources

• http://jdevadf.oracle.com/faces11117/faces/index.jspx

Questions ….. Answers….

Luc Bors, AMIS, The Netherlands

[email protected]

[email protected]

Follow me on : @lucb_