How figure out methods and properties of jQuery object returned by apex.region(region_static_id).widget() method? - oracle-apex

I am using APEX 20.2.0.00.20. apex.region(region_static_id).widget() method should return a jQuery object according to the documentation. I am trying to figure out how to know what the object's properties and methods are, especially when they are not mentioned in the documentation. I tried running apex.region(calendar_region_static_id).widget() to return the object and inspect what properties and methods it has but I got S.fn.init [div#CAL_calendar.fc.ui-widget.fc-ltr, prevObject: S.fn.init(1)] 0: div#CAL_calendar.fc.ui-widget.fc-ltr length: 1 prevObject: S.fn.init [document] __proto__: Object(0)
I did not get the object. I do not know what s.fn.init or the rest of the returned code is?!
I see code like apex.region("calendar_static_id").widget().fullCalendar("getView"), so I assumed I should have gotten the jQuery object which has the "fullCalendar" method and more when I ran apex.region(calendar_region_static_id).widget(), but I have not.
Is this not the right way to inspect a jQuery object's properties and methods?

APEX integrates the FullCalendar widget, but it doesn't duplicate its documentation. Have a look here for a list of the FullCalendar methods and options.
In general, most (interactive) APEX regions are implemented as jQuery UI widgets. That means you can use them like this:
$('selector').widgetName('methodName'); //invokes said method
$('selector').widgetName('methodName', 'param1'); //invokes said method with a parameter
$('selector').widgetName('option', 'optionName'); //gets a specific option
$('selector').widgetName('option', 'optionName', 'newVal'); //sets a specific option
What's more, you can inspect all available options by running:
$('selector').widgetName('option');
And even have a look at the internal object, see all methods, public and otherwise, via:
$('selector').widgetName('instance');
Moreover, via its region interface, APEX offers an even easier way to reach those methods and options, even without having to know a region's widgetName:
// this
$('widgetSelector', 'staticId').widgetName('methodName');
// is equivalent to
apex.region('staticId').widget().widgetName('methodName');
// is quivalent to
apex.region('staticId').call('methodName');
The last way is the shortest and doesn't require knowing the real widget's id or widget name.
All of this helps when dealing with regular APEX widgets, such as the Interactive Grid.
apex.region('emp').call('instance'); //inspects all methods
apex.region('emp').call('option'); //inspects all options
This however does not work on the FullCalendar region, for reasons that are beyond me. It should help you navigate all other APEX regions, but for the FullCalendar you'll have to resort to their API docs.
Hope this helps a bit.

Related

what's the difference between a collection and a store in REST?

I'm trying to wrap my head around the difference between a "collection" and a "store" in REST. From what I've read so far,
a collection is:
"a server-managed directory of resources"
and a store is a:
"client-managed resource repository"
I found this post: How "store" REST archetype isn't creating a new resource and a new URI?
but it didn't really help me clarify the difference. I mean, I understand one is controlled by the server and the other by the client... but can someone give me a concrete example of what a store might be in a real world application?
I *think it's something like this:
GET http://myrestapplication.com/widgets/{widget_id} -- retrieves a widget from db
POST http://myrestapplication.com/widgets/{widget_id} -- creates a new widget from db
PUT http://myrestapplication.com/widgets/{widget_id},[list of updated parms & their vals] -- update widget
PUT http://myrestapplication.com/users/johndoe/mywishlist/{widget_id} -- updates john doe's profile to add a widget that already exists in the database... but links to it as his favorite one or one that he wants to buy
Is this correct?
if so, could the last PUT also be expressed as a POST somehow?
EDIT 1
I found an online link to the book i'm reading... where it makes the distinction between the two:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=4lZcsRwXo6MC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=A+store+is+a+client-managed+resource+repository.+A+store+resource+lets+an+API+client:+put+resources+in,+get+them+back+out,+and+decide+when+to+delete+them&source=bl&ots=F4CkbFkweL&sig=H6eKZMPR_jQdeBZkBL1h6hVkK_E&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BB-vVJX6HYWvyQTByYHIAg&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=A%20store%20is%20a%20client-managed%20resource%20repository.%20A%20store%20resource%20lets%20an%20API%20client%3A%20put%20resources%20in%2C%20get%20them%20back%20out%2C%20and%20decide%20when%20to%20delete%20them&f=false
REST uses http verbs to manipulate resources. Full-Stop. That's it. To build some classes of browser-based application developers sometimes use local storage (a store), but that has absolutely nothing to do with REST (in fact, it's the opposite). Collections are a special consideration in REST-based API design because the REST principles place considerable constraints on how they are represented in the results of your queries -- special consideration also because there are no standards on how these things should be represented and access if you're using anything other than html as a resource type.
Edit:
REST suggests that when we ask for a resource we receive that resource and only that resource and that things referenced by that resource are returned as links, not as data. This mimics the http standard by which we return the requested page and links to other pages rather than embedding linked pages. So, our resources should return links to related resources, not the resources themselves.
So, what about collections?
Let's use as an example a college management system that has Course objects each of which contains a huge lists of Students.
When I GET the course I don't want to have the collection of students returned as an embedded list, because that could be huge and because my user might not be interested. Instead, I want to know that the course has a students collection and I want to be able to query that collection separately (when I need to) and I want to be able to page it on demand. For this to work, the course needs to link to the students collection URL (maybe with an appropriate type so that my code knows how to handle the link). Then, I want to use the given collection's url to request a paged list of resources. In this example, the collection's url could be something like: course/1/students, with the convention that I can add paging info to the search string to constrain the results with something like course/1/students?page=1&count=10. Embedding the students collection into the course resource would be a violation of REST. I would not be returning a course, I'd be returning course-and-students.

Can a Custom DataProvider class expose Custom Templates?

I am currently in the process of writing a custom DataProvider. Using the Intergrate External Data documentation.
I've managed to show the external data in the Sitecore back end. However whenever I try to view the data in the items I created, I am getting an error
Null ids are not allowed. <br> Parameter name: displayName
There seems to be precious little on the subject on how to create a custom DataProvider on the Sitecore Developer Network.
The example on their website seems to only show how to import a SINGLE item into a static database. However I am simply trying to merge some items into the hierarchy and I can't find any useful documentation.
It seems that one of your methods that should return an ID doesn't. It might be GetChildIds and/or GetParentId.
Nick Wesselman wrote a good article about it gathering all the information including an example on the Marketplace. I think that is your best start. You can read it here.
Turns out I needed to include at the very least, the Fields->Section->Template in the GetParent method. To be on the safe side I included the Fields/Sections/Templates into my implementations of
GetChildIDs
GetItemDefinition
GetParentID
It wasn't obvious that this was the case, since I had in fact implemented the GetTemplates method correctly, and I had expected that should be enough.

CFInclude vs Custom Tag vs CFC for Presentation and Security

I'm just starting out with ColdFusion OOP and I am wanting to make a DIV which shows different links to users depending on what page they are on and what login rights (role) they have. Basically a 'context' menu.
Should I put this toolbar/navigation DIV in a .cfm or .cfc file?
To reiterate; The cfm or cfc file needs to know what page the user is on and will also check what role they have. Depending on these two pieces of information it will display a set of links to the user. The role information comes from the database and stored in a SESSION variable, and to find out what page they are on I guess it could use #GetFileFromPath(GetBaseTemplatePath())#.
My first thought was to have a normal .cfm file, put all the presentation and logic in that file (the HTML and lots of <cfif> statements) to ensure the correct information is displayed in the DIV, and then use <cfinclude> to display it on the page. Then I started thinking maybe I should make a Custom Tag and ask the calling page to pass in the user's credentials and the #GetFileFromPath(GetBaseTemplatePath())# as arguments and then have that Custom Tag return all the presentational data.
Finally I guess a CFC could do the above as well, but I'd be breaking the 'rule' of having presentational and logic data in a CFC.
Any suggestions on the best practice to achieve what I'm trying to do? It will eventually serve thousands of customers so I need to make sure my solution is easy to scale.
Anything that outputs HTML to the screen should be in a .cfm file.
That being said, depending on your need, you could have methods in a CFC that generate HTML, but the method simply returns the HTML as a string.
In programming, there are very few absolutes, but here is one: You should NEVER directly output anything inside of a function or method by using output="true". Instead, whatever content is generated, it should be returned from the method.
If you will have a need to use this display element more than once, a custom tag might be the best way to go rather than an include.
I see security as being a combination of what menu items I can see and what pages can be ran.
The main security function is inside of the main session object
On the menus
I call a function called
if (session.objState.checkSecurity(Section, Item) == 1)
then ...
For page security
function setupRequest() {
...
if (session.objState.checkSecurity(getSection(), getItem()) == 0) {
location("#request.self#?message=LoginExpired", "no");
return;
}
...
}
The particulars of what checkSecurity can do varies from application to application, but it is tied into how FW/1 works. The following security variations exist:
session.objState.checkSecurity(getSection())
session.objState.checkSecurity(getSection(), getItem())
session.objState.checkSecurity(getSection(), getItem(), Identifier)
None of the presentation files know anything about security.
Rules by which I live:) :
No CF business logic in CFM files. Just use some service which will serve template and provide needed data.
navService = com.foobar.services.Navigation(form, url);
and later output #navService.GetNavConent()#
No direct output from CFC files, functions should always return content. For example, make one function which makes one link based on some logic, second which wraps that and returns to cfm template.
Also one more hint, avoid using application and session scopes in your services.
This makes refactoring, testing and debugging too difficult.
For session you can make session.currentUser , CurrentUser.cfc which provides all things you need. e.g. session.currentUser.isAuthorized("backend/administration") and if true, show link to backend/administration.
Same for application, if you need locale, applicaiton wide setting or some singleton, make application.applicationSettings, ApplicationSettings.cfc and use that to retrieve all info you need in cfc's.
These rules will make your application to be easier to test and debug, and really easy to migrate tomorrow on some javascript based UI like Angular or backbone.js since all th edata you need is already in CFC and theoretically you just need to put remote in CFC or make some remote facade in the middle and you're done.

khtml library tutorials/guides?

I'm trying to use the khtml library, basically just the DOM html implementation from there, but I even failed to create a basic HTMLDocument from a file using load(), and when I tried to create a HTMLDOcument by mutating it via appendChild I get DOMException with errorcode == 8 (NOT FOUND).
Can anyone please point me to some sample code which uses khtml's dom model without obtaining the document from the GUI components?
Ok, I see what the problem was.
First, if you're using a local html file, your uri needs to be absolute when you call DOM::HTMLDocumemt::load(const DOM::DOMString&).
Secondly, you need to create a DOM document, but it's read-only by default after creation.
So, before you actually call load(), you need to make it editable via
DOM::Document::setDesignMode(bool designOn).
That fixes it.
If I may recommend, WebKit is far superior to khtml now, even konqueror will be using webkit by default next release.
Check QtWebkit.

ie useragent wxWidgets

Im currently using ie as an active x com thing on wxWidgets and was wanting to know if there is any easy way to change the user agent that will always work.
Atm im changing the header but this only works when i manually load the link (i.e. call setUrl)
The only way that will "always work," so far as I've been able to find, is changing the user-agent string in the registry. That will, of course, affect every web browser instance running on that machine.
You might also try a Google search on DISPID_AMBIENT_USERAGENT. From this Microsoft page:
MSHTML will also ask for a new user
agent via DISPID_AMBIENT_USERAGENT
when navigating to clicked hyperlinks.
This ambient property can be
overridden, but it is not used when
programmatically calling the Navigate
method; it will also not cause the
userAgent property of the DOM's
navigator object or clientInformation
behavior to be altered - this property
will always reflect Internet
Explorer's own UserAgent string.
I'm not familiar with the MSHTML component, so I'm not certain that's helpful.
I hope that at least gives you a place to start. :-)
I did a bit of googling today with the hint you provided head geek and i worked out how to do it.
wxWidgets uses an activex rapper class called FrameSite that handles the invoke requests. What i did was make a new class that inherits from this, handles the DISPID_AMBIENT_USERAGENT event and passes all others on. Thus now i can return a different user agent.
Thanks for the help.
Head Geek already told you where in the registy IE will look by default.
This is just a default, though. If you implement [IDocHostUIHandler::GetOptionKeyPath](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa753258(VS.85%29.aspx) or [IDocHostUIHandler2::GetOverrideKeyPath](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa753274(VS.85%29.aspx), IE will use that registry entry instead.
You'll probably want to use SysInternal's RegMon to debug this.