Summary

Tag Name: <af:panelDashboard>
Java Class: oracle.adf.view.rich.component.rich.layout.RichPanelDashboard
Component Type: oracle.adf.RichPanelDashboard

panelDashboard features:

  • Arranges panelBox (or region with showHeader=always) components into a tiled layout of columns and rows. You can specify the number of columns as well as a CSS length value for the height of the rows.
  • Stretches the panelBox children to fit within the width of a column and the specified row height.
  • If all of the child panelBoxes cannot fit within the dimensions of the panelDashboard (e.g. due to the specified number of columns and row height), then the panelDashboard will provide a scroll bar so that the user can access the panelBox children that might not be initially viewable.
  • Supports being stretched so that you can place the panelDashboard inside of a panelSplitter.
  • Provides a dropListener attribute so that you can modify your component tree in response to a reorder gesture performed by the user because of componentDragSource tags inside of the panelBox children.
  • Provides methods on the RichPanelDashboard component class that you can use to perform an optimized render of the panelDashboard when you make "insert" or "detete" changes to its children (e.g. changing the rendered flag on a specific child) without requiring that the entire dashboard be redrawn:
    • prepareOptimizedEncodingOfInsertedChild()
    • prepareOptimizedEncodingOfDeletedChild()
  • Also, to help make your application feel more responsive to the user, an optional panelDashboardBehavior tag can be used on command components that perform optimized inserts into the dashboard. This tag will cause the dashboard to open up a new location for the child that you are about to insert. The benefit is that this opening up of space happens before your action event is sent to the server so the user will see immediate feedback while your action listener is busy modifying the component tree and preparing the dashboard for the optimized encoding of the insert. If you decide not to use this tag, there will be a slight delay while your action listener is processing before the use sees any change to the dashboard structure.
  • The af:panelDashboard tag accepts af:dataFlavor tags as children. You will want to use a data flavor if you want your dashboard's dropListener to handle component drag sources from elsewhere on the page (e.g. from a side bar near the dashboard) instead of only for the direct children of the dashboard. If this side bar represents a menu listing of possible dashboard children that the user can see, you may expose the non-rendered dashboard children as component drag sources in this list. If you do this, a user can then drag from the side bar and drop it into the dashboard at a precise desired drop location among the rendered dashboard children. Your dropListener that you have assigned to the dashboard component can then listen for this gesture, set the requested dashboard child to now be rendered, set its location to be the requested drop position, and perform an optimized render so that only the content for that child is sent to the browser which in turn, gets revealed to the user.

Geometry Management

  • This component can be stretched by a parent layout component that stretches its children. e.g. panelStretchLayout or panelSplitter if the dimensionsFrom attribute of this panelDashboard is set to "parent".
  • This component organizes its children components into a grid based on the number of columns and the rowHeight. The child components that can be stretched inside of the panelDashboard include:
    • <af:panelBox>
    • <af:region>
    If you try to put any other component inside of this component (except for af:dataFlavor which can be used to allow discriminants of external drops), then the component hierarchy is illegal.
There are other ways in which you can control the geometry of this component when it is not being stretched by its ancestor:
  • You can specify dimensionsFrom="children" for the panelDashboard to be as tall as the number of visible rows multiplied by the rowHeight setting. When using this "children" setting, the topHeight attribute will still be honored (unless percent units are specified) but any height assignment (e.g. inlineStyle or styleClass) on the panelDashboard must be omitted or else there would be a competing assignment for how tall the component will be.
  • You can also specify dimensionsFrom="parent" to make the panelDashboard get its dimensions from the inlineStyle and if not provided from there then from its parent component or if not provided from the parent then from the skin.
  • Using dimensionsFrom="auto" will choose either "children" or "parent" depending on whether the panelDashboard is being stretched by its parent.

Screenshot(s)

panelDashboard screenshot
A panelDashboard component containing 4 af:panelBox components.

Code Example(s)

<af:panelDashboard id="theDashboard"
                   binding="#{demoDashboard.theDashboard}"
                   columns="3" rowHeight="175px"
                   dropListener="#{demoDashboard.handleReorder}">
  <af:panelBox id="box1" text="Box 1">
    <af:componentDragSource/>
    <af:outputText value="Here is some content" id="ot1"/>
  </af:panelBox>
  <af:panelBox id="box2" text="Box 2">
    <af:componentDragSource/>
    <af:outputText value="Here is some content" id="ot2"/>
  </af:panelBox>
  <af:panelBox id="box3" text="Box 3">
    <af:componentDragSource/>
    <af:outputText value="Here is some content" id="ot3"/>
  </af:panelBox>
  <af:panelBox id="box4" text="Box 4">
    <af:componentDragSource/>
    <af:outputText value="Here is some content" id="ot4"/>
  </af:panelBox>
</af:panelDashboard>

Supported Client Events for Client Behaviors

  • click
  • contextMenu
  • dblClick
  • mouseDown
  • mouseMove
  • mouseOut
  • mouseOver
  • mouseUp
  • propertyChange (default)

Events

Type Phases Description
org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.event.AttributeChangeEvent Invoke Application,
Apply Request Values		 Event delivered to describe an attribute change. Attribute change events are not delivered for any programmatic change to a property. They are only delivered when a renderer changes a property without the application's specific request. An example of an attribute change event might include the width of a column that supported client-side resizing.

Attributes

Name Type Supports EL? Description
attributeChangeListener javax.el.MethodExpression Only EL a method reference to an attribute change listener. Attribute change events are not delivered for any programmatic change to a property. They are only delivered when a renderer changes a property without the application's specific request. An example of an attribute change events might include the width of a column that supported client-side resizing.
binding oracle.adf.view.rich.component.rich.layout.RichPanelDashboard Only EL an EL reference that will store the component instance on a bean. This can be used to give programmatic access to a component from a backing bean, or to move creation of the component to a backing bean.
clientComponent boolean Yes Default Value: false

whether a client-side component will be generated. A component may be generated whether or not this flag is set, but if client Javascript requires the component object, this must be set to true to guarantee the component's presence. Client component objects that are generated today by default may not be present in the future; setting this flag is the only way to guarantee a component's presence, and clients cannot rely on implicit behavior. However, there is a performance cost to setting this flag, so clients should avoid turning on client components unless absolutely necessary.
columns int Yes Default Value: 3

the number of columns the width of the dashboard will be divided into
customizationId String Yes This attribute is deprecated. This attribute will be removed in the next release. Use the 'id' attribute instead.

This attribute is deprecated. The 'id' attribute should be used when applying persistent customizations. This attribute will be removed in the next release.
dimensionsFrom String Yes Valid Values: auto, children, parent
Default Value: parent

determines how the component will handle geometry management. This specifies where the dimensions of the decorativeBox come from:

  • auto - either "children" or "parent", depending on the container the decorativeBox is inside; if the decorativeBox is being stretched by its ancestor then "parent" will be used, otherwise "children" will be used
  • children - the decorativeBox will get its dimensions from the children (topHeight will still be honored so the contents of this facet will be constrained to those dimensions unless percent units are specified and then the default value will be used instead). Note that any height assignment (e.g. inlineStyle or styleClass) on the decorativeBox must be omitted or else there would be a competing assignment for how tall the component will be.
  • parent - the decorativeBox will get its dimensions from the inlineStyle and if not provided from there then from its parent or if not provided from the parent then from the skin

If the oracle.adf.view.rich.geometry.DEFAULT_DIMENSIONS context-param is set to "auto" in the project's web.xml, the default value for this attribute will be "auto". Otherwise, the default value will be "parent".
dropListener javax.el.MethodExpression Only EL A method reference to a callback with the signature oracle.adf.view.rich.dnd.DnDAction method(oracle.adf.view.rich.event.DropEvent dropEvent) called when a drop occurs on the component. Since the panelDashboard will automatically adjust the positions of its children in the browser, this method should return DnDAction.NONE if your handler is successful in adjusting the position of the reordered children since this will cause the panelDashboard to be left as is. If you return DnDAction.MOVE, the panelDashboard will be redrawn. You may wish to use org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.change.ReorderChildrenComponentChange and ChangeManager().addComponentChange() if you wish to preserve a new ordering of the children. Ideally, you should use an MDS ChangeManager to persist the change longer than the user's session so that the use does not have to repeatedly make the same reorder gesture every time your application is used. The dropEvent.getDropSiteIndex() method will give you the location that the user desires the dragged component to end up at. Use dropEvent.getTransferable().getData(DataFlavor.UICOMPONENT_FLAVOR) to get the dragged component.
id String No the identifier for the component. Every component may be named by a component identifier that must conform to the following rules:
  • They must start with a letter (as defined by the Character.isLetter() method) or underscore ( _ ).
  • Subsequent characters must be letters (as defined by the Character.isLetter() method), digits as defined by the Character.isDigit() method, dashes ( - ), or underscores ( _ ). To minimize the size of responses generated by JavaServer Faces, it is recommended that component identifiers be as short as possible. If a component has been given an identifier, it must be unique in the namespace of the closest ancestor to that component that is a NamingContainer (if any).
inlineStyle String Yes the CSS styles to use for this component. This is intended for basic style changes. The inlineStyle is a set of CSS styles that are applied to the root DOM element of the component. Be aware that because of browser CSS precedence rules, CSS rendered on a DOM element takes precedence over external stylesheets like the skin file. Therefore skins will not be able to override what you set on this attribute. If the inlineStyle's CSS properties do not affect the DOM element you want affected, then you will have to create a skin and use the skinning keys which are meant to target particular DOM elements, like ::label or ::icon-style.
partialTriggers String[] Yes the IDs of the components that should trigger a partial update. This component will listen on the trigger components. If one of the trigger components receives an event that will cause it to update in some way, this component will request to be updated too. Identifiers are relative to the source component (this component), and must account for NamingContainers. If your component is already inside of a naming container, you can use a single colon to start the search from the root of the page, or multiple colons to move up through the NamingContainers - "::" will pop out of the component's naming container (or itself if the component is a naming container) and begin the search from there, ":::" will pop out of two naming containers (including itself if the component is a naming container) and begin the search from there, etc.
rendered boolean Yes Default Value: true

whether the component is rendered. When set to false, no output will be delivered for this component (the component will not in any way be rendered, and cannot be made visible on the client). If you want to change a component's rendered attribute from false to true using PPR, set the partialTrigger attribute of its parent component so the parent refreshes and in turn will render this component.
rowHeight String Yes Default Value: 100px

the height of the rows of the grid layout as a CSS length. If dimensionsFrom resolves to "children", percent units are not allowed and the default value is used instead.
shortDesc String Yes the short description of the component. The shortDesc text may be used in two different ways, depending on the component.

For components with images, the shortDesc is often used to render an HTML alt attribute for the image. Please see the accessibility guidelines section for correct alt text usage of the shortDesc attribute.

shortDesc is also commonly used to render an HTML title attribute, which is used by user agents to display tooltip help text. In this case the behavior for the tooltip is controlled by the user agent, e.g. Firefox 2 truncates long tooltips. For form components, the shortDesc is displayed in a note window. For components that support the helpTopicId attribute and are not using the shortDesc as image alt text, it is recommended that helpTopicId is used instead of shortDesc as it is more flexible and provides more accessible descriptive text than the use of the title attribute.
styleClass String Yes a CSS style class to use for this component. The style class can be defined in your jspx page or in a skinning CSS file, for example, or you can use one of our public style classes, like 'AFInstructionText'.
unsecure java.util.Set Yes A whitespace separated list of attributes whose values ordinarily can be set only on the server, but need to be settable on the client. Currently, this is supported only for the "disabled" attribute. Note that when you are able to set a property on the client, you will be allowed to by using the the .setProperty('attribute', newValue) method, but not the .setXXXAttribute(newValue) method. For example, if you have unsecure="disabled", then on the client you can use the method .setProperty('disabled', false), while the method .setDisabled(false) will not work and will provide a javascript error that setDisabled is not a function.
visible boolean Yes Default Value: true

the visibility of the component. If it is "false", the component will be hidden on the client. Unlike "rendered", this does not affect the lifecycle on the server - the component may have its bindings executed, etc. - and the visibility of the component can be toggled on and off on the client, or toggled with PPR. When "rendered" is false, the component will not in any way be rendered, and cannot be made visible on the client. In most cases, use the "rendered" property instead of the "visible" property.
Not supported on the following renderkits: org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.core