Annotation Driven Bean and EJB DataControls in ADF 12c

So as the trend of using annotations over XML configurations goes on and on in software development there is no exception to  ADF. Many developers asked for more annotations to configure metadata on Bean DataControls. Since ADF 12c finally there is support for annotations on Bean and EJB DataControls. Let's have a look on it.

Sample POJO DataModel

In my sample I am using a simple Data Model that I want to expose as Bean DataControl to check the new annotation features. We use simple POJOs „Person and a PersonService". See next figure

Next we want to see some of the annotation features in action.

Primary Key Definition

In order to make your DataModel functioning correctly in most cases you should define a primary key. You can do this now with the @Id-Annotation: (No need to generate an XML file for these kind of metadata)

(If using JPA-based entity classes make sure to use the javax.persistence.Id annotation)

Setting UI Hints

To set specific UI Hints like label, tooltip, display, width, height, autoSubmit, controlType, formatType, format, timezoneId, etc. you can leverage the @AttributeHint, @DateFormatter and @Formatter Annotations. Further it is possible to define custom properties through @Property annotations

See the whole feature list for UI Hints here: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1213/adf/develop-data-controls/data-controls-ejb.htm#ADFDC996

Note a: If you set UI hints for an attribute both using annotations and in an XML data control structure file, the settings in the data control structure file take precedence. 

Note b: When you apply annotations for UI hints, you can not see the affect of the hints in the design-time view of pages that you create based on the data controls. However, you can test and verify the hints using the ADF Model Tester. 

BTW: Everything looks easy so far, but: The most challenging part for me was to recognize that these annotations only work on METHOD level and not on FIELD level although there are no compile errors! It felt natural for me to put these annotations on fields, but believe me, it won't have any effect in ADF 12.1.3. So remember

Interesting to note: The @Id Annotation works also on FIELD level!

Testing the result
Running the sample we see that the annotation driven meta data is recognized correctly. It has been applied to Table Column Headers and Form Labels, Formatters and Input-Types.

Setting AccessMode for Collections

For collections you can define the AccessMode (Scroll, Range-Paging or None).

For SCROLLABLE or RANGE_PAGING Mode to work correctly you need to implement the following method signatures (for every collection) 

List<Person> getPersons(int firstResult, int maxResults)

long getPersonsSize() 

Note: These annotations only work on getter methods.

Testing Metadata Using the Oracle ADF Model Tester 

For EJB and Bean Data Controls you can go to the DataControls.dcx file select the given DataControl and exceute „Run" from the context menu.

=> This is pretty cool. As your deployment roundtrips can be reduced ;)

Gotchas

First everything looks promising. But if you try to do some real world developer roundtrips some gotchas appear. Commenting some annotation out, testing changes etc you notice that some information are not refreshing properly inside JDeveloper. So, e.g.

Step 1: Change primary key definition

Step 2: Open DataControls.dcx

=> The change is recognized correctly by the DataControls Editor.

Step 3: Go to the  structure definition file (Person.xml)

=> The old attribute is still displayed as primary key! Expected: firstname, because of the recent changes. Hhhm. Is this a bug? It could lead to frustration and unexpected behaviour. Workaround is to close the JDeveloper application and open it again. Looks like a caching/synchronization failure.

Conclusion

The support for annotations is getting better in ADF. Besides some caching problems at design time views there is missing support for Validation. As JSR 303 (Bean Validation) is Java industry standard and widely adopted it would be cool to see ADF moving in that direction too! At this time Validations on POJO DataModel must be done in the DataControl structure files per entity. Due to the "sparse bean nature" the XML file only for the given entities needs to be generated.

Download

Sample application build with JDeveloper 12.1.3: enpit.sample.dc.annotations-jdev1213.zip

Further information

• Oracle ADF 12.1.3 Documentation: 4.8 Using Annotations to Declare Metadata for Bean Data Controls
• Oracle ADF 12.1.3 Developing Applications with Oracle ADF Data Controls
• See also my sample for Model-Driven LOVs in ADF 12.1.2