Raible Designs

Sunken/Highlighted Input Fields with CSS

One thing I really like about TheServerSide's new look is the sunken input boxes (that light up on focus) in the top right corner. I noticed that Macromedia does this on a lot of their form's too. It's good stuff. Here's how easy it is to add this "feature".

In your stylesheet, add the following class definitions:

/* for cool looking "sunken" input boxes, from www.theserverside.com */
form#searchForm input {
    padding-left: 4px;
    margin: 1px 1px 1px 1px;
    border: 1px solid black;
    color: #777;
    background-image: url(../images/input_white.gif);
}

form#searchForm input.focus {
    margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
    border-bottom: #ffdead solid 2px;
    border-right: #ffdead solid 2px;
    border-left: #c07300 solid 2px;
    border-top:  #c07300 solid 2px;
    color: #000000;
}

Of course, restricting these classes to one form (as I've done with form id="searchForm") is optional. Then in your form's input fields, add: add a couple of onfocus and onblur event handlers:

onfocus="this.className='focus'" onblur="this.className=''"

You'll also need to grab the background image and put it on your site. If you're adding this to a form in your webapp, it might be easier to add all the event handlers with JavaScript:

var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName("input");
for (i=0; i < inputs.length; i++) {
    inputs[i].onfocus=function() {this.className='focus'};
    inputs[i].onblur=function() {this.className=''};
}

Thanks to the guys at TheServerSide for showing me how to do this - I dig it.

[New Feature] Wiki Syntax support added to comments

For you, my friends, I've added the ability to use JSPWiki syntax when writing comments. All you need to do is start your comment with an exclamation point - ! Hopefully this will help add automatic line-breaks when you add a line-break in the textarea, as well as making it easier for you to you to type in any code. If you're typing or pasting in Java code, try using the Java2HtmlPlugin. It's easy to use, just type the starting and closing tags, and insert a blank line before your code. For example, here's the raw text.

[{Java2HtmlPlugin 

public class HelloWorld {  
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    System.out.println("Hello World!");
  }
}
}]

I don't know if the "Preview" button (from the Permalink) supports it, but I've added the following to both twisty comments and regular comments.

        #if($content.startsWith("!"))
            #set( $wikiText = $stringUtils.substring($content,1))
            #set( $renderedText = $wikiPlugin.render($wikiText))
        #else
            #set( $renderedText = $content )  
        #end
            $renderedText

Enjoy!

The Verge Web Framework

After reading this post on the Server Side, I'd hate to be the guy who invented Verge. He's getting pounded like a rabbit during mating season!

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with another web framework. Competition is good. The funny thing is that I've never had a need to migrate away from Struts. I do admit that the IoC (Inversion of Control) in WebWork looks cool, but I don't have a need. After reading most of Rod Johnson's J2EE Design and Development, I do understand IoC (I didn't have a clue before), but I still don't see how I need it. I've never run into a problem with Struts that I couldn't solve. Maybe it helps that I've written my own app to make Struts development simpler.

Even though I do like Struts, and I do find it easy to develop with, I also plan on stuffing my head in a couple of books and learning all about Spring, Tapestry and WebWork. Why? Mainly because I'm a fool and I can't be happy just sitting on the couch and watching TV (which would probably help my blood pressure and make my family happier). I'm a fool because I'd rather learn than relax. Back to the point - why do I want to learn these "big 3?" To be honest, it's primarily because some big names (and folks I'd consider friends) are saying they're cool and they'll make my job easier. If only I wasn't so easily influenced...

What I hate about all of this is that as soon as I decide to integrate Spring into AppFuse, it becomes more complicated. Yes, an XML BeanFactory file is more complicated than Interface i = new InterfaceImpl(), especially for newbies.

Furthermore, I'm willing to bet that I'll end up writing workarounds for issues I encounter in Tapestry and WebWork. I'll even put my money where my mouth is - if your framework doesn't require me to write any workarounds, I'll donate $100 to the project. Heck, if it really is that cool - I'll donate money regardless of workarounds.

The worst part is that there's really no reason to convert my Struts webapp to these newer, cooler frameworks. About the only good reason is so I can say "I know the XXX Framework." I doubt XXX Framework will make anything easier, but it certainly might make my webapp a whole lot cooler.

AppFuse on DB2 and WebSphere

I did some trial-and-error this morning, and with the help of a lot of handy-dandy unit tests, I got [Appuse working on DB2|AppFuseOnDB2]. I learned that I need to figure out how to create a database with page size = 8 by default - anyone got a SQL script to create DB2 databases (with reasonably sized table spaces) lying around?

Next up: Getting AppFuse running on WebSphere 5.1, this should be fun. Especially considering that they only seem to support .ear files, not .war files. I've only glanced at the thing for 5 minutes - any advice/links would be awesome.

Should I buy a PowerBook or a PC?

I received the following e-mail from Jason Boutwell a couple of days ago (published here with his permission).

I'm in the market for a new development laptop, either a P4 or a G4. I see from some of your older blog posts that you went through the same thing last year. First you went with a P4, then ended up with a PowerBook, so you've done both.

Since we seem to have similar professional interests (jobs where you BYOL, developing J2EE apps with tools like Hibernate, Struts, XDoclet, IDEA, etc.), you seem an ideal person to ask.

It's as simple as this: you can't beat the form-factor of the PowerBook. The fact that it's so small and light really make it a killer laptop. iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes are all killer apps and make digital photography and video so much easer. However, as a development environment - it sucks. It's sooooo much slower that my Windows XP desktop (that only cost $800).

My perspective of the speed difference might not be fair though - desktops (most likely) will always be faster than laptops. However, to run "ant deploy" for AppFuse takes 23 seconds on my 2.6 GHz CPU / 1.5 GB RAM desktop and 36 seconds on the PowerBook (1.33 GHz CPU / 1 GB RAM). It is difficult for me to develop on the Mac after developing on my PC for awhile, it's just so much slower. That being said, I don't think I'd be happy with a PC laptop - they're too ugly and bulky (for the 17" models) and don't offer the slick digital hub integration that the Mac does.

Don't expect the PowerBook to be a desktop replacement. And if you've never used a Mac, prepare to be frustrated. I've been a Windows user for 10+ years and getting used to the way a Mac works is not easy. It's been most frustrating for me because I can navigate around and do stuff on Windows really fast - it's almost like second nature. On the Mac, I have to think about how to do stuff. I think that Mac or Linux users migrating to Windows would feel the same frustration.

Above all else, you need to experience a Mac first hand. Go to your local Apple Store and play around with one. Download your favorite IDE and checkout an open source project from SourceForge. Download and install Ant and try compiling the project. You're gonna love the feel of the Mac, but you might find it's a bit slower than you're used to.

The one problem with not buying a PowerBook is that you'll always long for one. ;-) Would I buy a PowerBook again? Definitely. Would I give up my Windows desktop for a Mac desktop? No. Why should I give up all my years of becoming an efficient Windows user to be a slow-ass frustrated Mac user - it just doesn't make sense.

What should I learn next?

I received an e-mail a few minutes ago from an old friend. We used to work together at eDeploy, which has finally gone out of business, 2.5 years after they closed their doors. This was my last full time job and was also my favorite job of all time. I rode my bike to work, got to learn Java, wore shorts all the time, and thoroughly enjoyed our Friday lunches.

His questions were fairly simple:

• What is the best way to find a Java job/contract in Denver?
• Since you've had a lot more exposure to what technologies are being used more than others, is there somethings that I should brush up on while I've got the time off (i.e. struts, xslt, EJBs, . . .)?

I wrote a long answer and thought others might be able to benefit from it - so here it is (please add your own advice as you see fit):

What I'd recommend is to subscribe to the following local mailing lists:

RMIUG Jobs: RMIUG Jobs: http://rmiug.org/html/email_lists.html
DJUG Jobs: http://www.denverjug.org/resources/mailinglist.html

They get a fair amount of jobs that come across the wire, and I actually got 2 gigs last year through the RMIUG list. Struts is definitely one of the hottest skills, but I continue to get a lot of calls as a UI/Java Developer. Having the ability to write clean and pretty HTML as well write Java seems to be rare. To complement Struts, I'd focus on JSTL and JSP 2.0. You can't go wrong learning more about Ant and JUnit - I think a lot of people know JUnit, but not many put it on their resume.

You could check out my AppFuse application which uses all of these, as well as Hibernate (another hot one) for the persistence layer.

I started writing AppFuse when I wrote a couple chapters for Pro JSP last year. I use it on all my projects and it really helps accelerate the whole JSP/Struts/JUnit/Tomcat development cycle.

I'd also recommend reading a couple of really great books:

Java Development with Ant: a truly awesome book
Pro JSP: of course ;-)
J2EE Design and Development: I'm reading it right now

EJBs are a thing of the past - you might be able to get a gig doing them, but they're definitely waning. Rod Johnson (author of the 3rd book) wrote the Spring Framework as part of the book, and it's a pretty slick framework for taking the ugly out of J2EE. The project is getting a lot of press, and I hope to use Spring pretty soon to bind all my components together in AppFuse.

Above all else, I recommend starting to read weblogs (a.k.a. blogs), and if you like it, start your own. The best place to start reading them is JavaBlogs, JRoller and Java.net. I'm a committer on the open source project (Roller Weblogger) that runs JRoller. It's some damn slick blogging software. I host my site at KGBInternet for a measly $20/month and I get my own instance of Tomcat to screw up. Reading blogs is definitely the best way to stay on the bleeding edge of Java (and any other industry for that matter).

The Battle of the GZip Filters

When I first added a Compression/GZip filter to AppFuse, I used the one from Roller, which I believe Lance found in this book. This has worked fairly well since I added it in July last year. When I discovered that there were issues with it on Resin, I chaulked it up as "no big deal" since I don't use Resin anyway. But yesterday, when I discovered that it stopped my apps from displaying my 403 <error-code> page, that was the last straw. I remembered seeing the "Two Servlet Filters Every Web Application Should Have" article on ONJava.com about a different implementation, so decided to download the source and try it out.

I quickly discovered that this Filter does work on Resin, so that's quite a bonus. I've had issues getting Roller to work on Resin with the Filter enabled, so I might have to replace Roller's CompressionFilter. However, I did still have to change a few things to convince this Filter to satisfy my needs.

Here are a few things I discovered about this GZIPFilter vs. Roller's CompressionFilter:

• Don't download the GZIPFilter from the article. There is a newer version of the code. Not much has changed, save for an almost completely re-written GZipResponseStream.java file. This one supposedly does better handling of large files.
• This Filter has the same problem I experienced with Roller's CompressionFilter: JSP pages don't finish rendering when running my Canoo WebTests. I'm assuming that this is because the buffer hasn't finished spitting out HTML. I ended up writing a new isGZIPSupported() method (in GZIPFilter.java) to do the check for GZip support. This allows my webtests to run smoothly by disabling the filter for HttpUnit.
• This Filter shares another issue that I found in the CompressionFilter yesterday. When my webapp returns an HttpServletResponse.SC_FORBIDDEN error code (from trying to access a method that denies the users role), the Filter suppresses the error and the user is not served up the 403 error page defined in my web.xml. To fix this, I overrode sendError() in GZIPResponseWrapper.java and added a check for this error code in the getWriter() method.

Overall, I'm pleased with this code because I love the concept of GZip Filtering, and now it's not causing any conflicts in my app or targeted appservers.

GZIPFilter.isGZIPSupported(HttpServletRequest):

GZIPResponseWrapper.sendError(int, java.lang.String):

GZIPResponseWrapper.getWriter():

Cactus and Form-Based Authentication

Quick Summary: Did you know it's possible to login (with form-based authentication) before running each of your testXX methods in a ServletTestCase or CactusStrutsTestCase? Just add a "begin" method in your Base class, or in each of your Tests, and it will be called automatically, just like setUp() is called.

    public void begin(WebRequest request) {
        request.setRedirectorName("ServletRedirectorSecure");
        request.setAuthentication(new FormAuthentication("tomcat","tomcat"));
    }

Long and Winded: Yesterday, I began adding the "roles" attribute to my Struts action-mappings - to limit access for certain user roles (Yes, XDoclet 1.2 supports this). This worked great in my web UI, until I tried to run my StrutsTestCases. Access was denied because I was not logged in. Rather, I was "faking it" by retrieving a UserForm object in my setUp() method and stuffing it into the session [View Source]. This worked like a charm until I added the roles restriction.

Cactus has a nice feature: if you write a beginXX method, it will be called before your testXX method. In other words, begin = client, test = server. So I added a number of beginEdit, beginSave, etc. method to my Action Tests. Great - everything worked. But it was ugly to add all those beginXX methods. Then, via Vincent Massol's wisdom, I learned of the global begin(WebRequest wr) method. Now I simply have a begin() method in my BaseStrutsTestCase class, and everything works as smooth as pie.

    public void begin(WebRequest request) {
        request.setRedirectorName("ServletRedirectorSecure");
        request.setAuthentication(new FormAuthentication("tomcat","tomcat"));
    }

A couple of issues I discovered:

• If you have an Action that doesn't have any roles in any of it's mappings, this will fail, so you have to override the begin() method with an empty {} method in your *Test.class. I believe the error message was it couldn't find the SecureServletRedirector.
• You must define all the roles (you plan to authenticate with) in your Ant build.xml file. [Read More]
• My <error-code>403<error-code> is not working on AppFuse or the current real-world app I'm working on. [Read More]

All in all, I'm pretty pumped that Cactus makes it this easy to test my app in its true production environment.

Later: I figured out the source of the 403 error-page not rendering. Once again, my Compression Filter does more harm than good. I switched it out for a more recent GZIPFilter and the same thing happens. The good news is that the new filter works on Resin, whereas the old one did not.

Running AppFuse on Resin

Want to run AppFuse on Resin? I did some research (a.k.a. banging my head against the wall) and figured out how this morning. It isn't too tough, now that I've figured out how. You can read about my journey on my wiki, or follow the following steps (for the CVS version):

• Edit $RESIN_HOME/conf/resin.conf and add the following after the last </web-app> closing tag.

<resin:include href='appfuse.conf'/>

• Download appfuse.conf and put it in the $RESIN_HOME/conf directory.
• Put activation.jar, mail.jar and mysql-connector-java-3.0.9-stable-bin.jar in $RESIN_HOME/lib.
• Remove password encryption by changing the Login Servlet's encrypt-password init-param (in web.xml) to false. You can do this in the build process by changing "encrypt.password" to false in app-settings.xml. You could also do it from the command line using -Dencrypt.password=false. For testing, you will need to change a number of files that have the encrypted password. Search for "536c0b339345616c1b33caf454454d8b8a190d6c" and change it to "tomcat".
• Remove the <filter-mapping> for CompressionFilter.
• To enable the "Remember Me" feature, remove the <c:if test="${rememberMeEnabled}"> check in loginForm.jsp. (AppFuse 1.3-dev)

DISCLAIMER: I did not thoroughly test that everything works, I just ran through a couple of pages.

Useless Tag Library?

Inspired by this post, I wrote a tag library to expose the fields of my Contants.java class to my JSPs. It allows a user to specify a single variable using:

<appfuse:constants var="USER_KEY"/>

Or all variables:

<appfuse:constants/>

By default, it exposes the values from the Contants class imported into the tag library, but also allows a className variable to specify a different class. The main reason I wrote this was to prove it was possible. The second reason was to get around importing my Contants class (and using <%=Contants.VARNAME%>).

Interested? Read More ...