3 Getting Started with Mobile Application Development

3.2.1 How to Create a Workspace for a Mobile Application

You create an application using the application creation wizard.

To create a mobile application:

1. Choose File > New, and then select MAF Application. This opens the MAF Application wizard (see Figure 3-1).

   Figure 3-1 Creating a MAF Application

   
   

2. In the Application Display Name field, enter a name for the application, such as MobileApplication. This is the top-level structure of the MAF application. It is also sometimes called the assembly project, and holds all of the artifacts required for packaging and deployment of the application. Click Next.

   Figure 3-2 Specifying Application and Project Names

   
   

3. The next page of the wizard, shown in Figure 3-2, displays the Application Project Name and the View Project Name for the MAF application you are creating. By default, Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse uses the name you entered on the first page, but adds Application and View, respectively, to the projects.

   For example, if you had created a MAF application called Employee, the wizard creates the names EmployeeApplication and EmployeeView. You can change the names if desired. To accept the default names of the projects, click Next.

   Figure 3-3 Choosing the Deployment Targets

   
   

4. The Configure Deployment page of the MAF Application wizard, shown in Figure 3-3, lets you select the deployment targets you wish to use for the MAF application you are developing. The targets displayed on this page are those you specified when setting up your environment. For more information, see Section 2.3.1, "How to Configure the Development Environment for Target Platforms.".

   By default, the wizard creates one deployment target for each SDK you have defined. Select those you want to use.

5. Click Finish to complete the creation of the MAF application and its projects.

   A dialog is displayed asking you whether to change to the MAF perspective, as shown in Figure 3-4. Click Yes.

   Figure 3-4 Changing to MAF Perspective

   
   

3.2.2 What Happens When You Create an MAF Application

When you create an MAF application, Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse creates the following artifacts, which you access from the Project Explorer:

• The top-level or assembly project. This holds all of the artifacts required for packaging and deployment of the application.

• The application project. This contains a Data Control Manager which abstracts the device features and the application features.

• The view controller-type project. This contains the source folder (src) and the ViewContent folder.

Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse adds application-level and project-level artifacts, which you access from the Project Explorer shown in Figure 3-5. These artifacts include two MAF editors: one used for configuring the MAF application itself, such as its name, the application lifecycle listener (LifeCycleListenerImpl.java), the login server connections for the embedded application features, and another that describes which application features comprise the MAF application. These editors, which are called the MAF Application Editor maf-application.xml and the MAF Feature Editor maf-feature.xml, are described in Section 3.2.2.1, "About the Assembly-Level Resources" and Section 3.2.2.2, "About the View Project Resources."

Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse also creates the DeviceFeatures data control. The Apache Cordova Java API is abstracted through this data control, thus enabling the application features implemented as MAF AMX to access various services embedded on the device. Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse also creates the ApplicationFeatures data control, which enables you to build a springboard page. By dragging and dropping the operations provided by the DeviceFeatures data control into a MAF AMX page (which is described in Section 7.10, "Using the DeviceFeatures Data Control," you add functions to manage the user contacts stored on the device, create and send both e-mail and SMS text messages, ascertain the location of the device, use the device's camera, and retrieve images stored in the device's file system.

By default, some files are filtered from view in the Project Explorer. In order to see the generated artifacts required for packaging and deployment of the application, click the down arrow in the explorer toolbar and choose Customize View.

In the Available Customizations dialog, shown in Figure 3-6, deselect .* resources and click OK.

Now expand the assembly project node and .main.android or .main.ios node to view the package and deploy artifacts, as shown in Figure 3-7.

To filter these files from the view in the Project Explorer, reopen the customization dialog and select .* resources and click OK.

3.2.3 What You May Need to Know About Editing MAF Applications and Application Features

Creating an application results in the generation of the maf-application.xml file, which enables you to configure the mobile application and also the maf-feature.xml file, which you use to add, remove, or edit the application features embedded within the mobile application. Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse provides you with the MAF Application Editor for maf-application.xml and with the Mobile Features Editor for maf-feature.xml. These let you declaratively change these files. Figure 3-14 shows an example of the overview editor of the maf-application.xml file.

As shown in Figure 3-14, the MAF Application Editor is located in the Project Explorer under the application and MAF node. The maf-application.xml file is located under the application, adf, and META-INF nodes. You open this editor by double-clicking MAF Application Editor.

Section 4.3, "About the Mobile Application Configuration File maf-application.xml" describes the components of the maf-application.xml page.

As illustrated in Figure 3-15, the MAF Feature Editor is located in Explorer under the view project and MAF node. The maf-feature.xml file is located under the view project, src, and META-INF nodes. You open this editor by double-clicking MAF Feature Editor, or by double-clicking maf-feature.xml. You use this file to compose the content for the MAF application.

Like the MAF Application Editor for editing the maf-application.xml file, Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse presents the MAF components used for building the elements of the maf-features.xml configuration file in the MAF Feature Editor. The elements of maf-features.xml are described in Section 4.9, "About the Mobile Application Feature Configuration File."

3.2.4 About the MAF Application Editor and MAF Feature Editor

OEPE's MAF Feature Editor and MAF Application Editor are the primary tools you use to interact with a MAF application while you are creating it. These two editors interact with each other, and with the files that comprise the application you are developing, in a way that can affect your choices while editing.

When you use the MAF Application Editor to make changes to maf-application.xml, OEPE opens not only that file, but other files related to that application. These might include any registered feature files (edited with MAF Feature Editor) and plugins. To view some of these files in the MAF Application Editor, expand the Outline and select Registered Features. In addition, files in the Features folder (if any) may also be affected. Figure 3-16 shows the MAF Application Editor open to the Registered Feature listing, which the tooltip shows is connected to the file maf-feature.xml.

If you double-click on maf-feature.xml in the Registered Features pane of the MAF Application Editor, OEPE opens the file in the MAF Feature Editor, as expected. The interaction between these two files (and others as applicable) while you are editing, however, deserves attention.

When you go to the MAF Application Editor and save your application file, OEPE checks to determine whether the related feature file has been changed externally in the file system. If it has, OEPE displays a confirmation dialog informing you that the related file has been changed relative to the contents of the editor. You have the chance at this point to choose one of the following options:

• Reload the editor. This copies the changes from your file system into the MAF Application Editor, overwriting any changes you may have made to the file.

• Not reload the editor. This saves the maf-feature.xml file and overwrites the contents of your file system.

OEPE performs a similar check if you select File > Save All. In addition, the File > Close All function checks to see whether you have files open in the MAF Application Editor and MAF Feature Editor, and checks for conflicts in those open files before closing. This helps prevent data loss.

3.2.5 Creating a MAF AMX Page

As described in Chapter 5, "Creating MAF AMX Pages," the MAF AMX components enable you to build pages that run identically to those authored in a platform-specific language. MAF AMX pages enable you to declaratively create the user interface using a rich set of components. Figure 3-17 illustrates the declarative development of an MAF AMX page, which involves selecting options in the Palette and adding them to the MAF AMX page.

These pages may be created by the application assembler, who creates the MAF application and embeds application features within it, or they can be constructed by another developer and then incorporated into the MAF application either as an application feature or as a resource to an MAF application.

The project in which you create the MAF AMX page determines if the page is used to deliver the user interface content for a single application feature, or be used as a resource to the entire MAF application. For example, a page created within the application controller project, as shown in Figure 3-21, would be used as an application-wide resource.

MAF enables you to arrange MAF AMX view pages and other activities into an appropriate sequence through the MAF task flow. As described in Chapter 5, "Creating Task Flows," an MAF task flow is visual representation of the flow of the application. It can be comprised of MAF AMX-authored user interface pages (illustrated by such view activities, such as the WorkBetter sample application's default List page and the Detail page in Figure 3-18) and nonvisual activities that can call methods on managed beans. The non-visual elements of a task flow can be used to evaluate an EL expression or call another task flow. As illustrated by Figure 3-18, MAF enables you to declaratively create the task flow by dragging task flow components onto a diagrammer. MAF provides two types of task flows: a bounded task flow, which has a single point of entry, such as the List page in the WorkBetter sample application, and an unbounded task flow, which may have multiple points of entry into the application flow. The WorkBetter sample application sample application is This sample application is available from File > New > MAF Examples.

MAF provides a number of dialogs and wizards to add MAF pages, reusable portions of MAF AMX pages called MAF page fragments, and application features. Figure 3-19 shows the menu options available from the File menu.

Additional options are available from File > New > Other (see Figure 3-19). In the New dialog, expand Oracle then expand Mobile Application Framework