The following topics introduce the new and changed features of ADF Faces and other significant changes, which are described in this guide. This document is the new edition of the document formerly titled Oracle Fusion Middleware Web User Interface Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework.
Oracle Fusion Middleware Release 12c (12.1.2) of Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) includes the following new and changed development features, which are described in this guide.
New Skyros skin. All images of components at runtime have been replaced to reflect the new Skyros skin. In addition, the following specific changes have been made:
Section 23.4.1.1, "How to Globally Set Graph Font Using a Skin" removed references to the blafplus-rich.desktop skin.
Facelets support. All chapters have been revised for Facelets.
New JDeveloper window names, context menu options, and other user interface changes in JDeveloper are reflected in all chapters of this guide.
Button and link components are now consolidated into the af:button and af:link components. All code examples in the book have been updated to reflect these new components.
New target tag allows you to explicitly state which target components you want executed and rendered when a specific event (or events) is fired by a component. This provides a more fine-grained ability to control partial page rendering. For more information, see Chapter 8, "Rerendering Partial Page Content."
The convertTimeZone converter can interpret four-digit year values when using a two-digit year pattern, in conjunction with the inputText and inputDate components. See Section 7.3.4, "What You May Need to Know About Date Time Converters."
New panelGridLayout, gridRow, and gridCell components. See Section 9.3, "Arranging Content in a Grid."
New panelDrawer and panelSpringboard components. See Section 9.10, "Displaying or Hiding Contents in Panels."
The new placeholder and usage attributes for input components:
For the inputText component, see Section 11.3.1, "How to Add an inputText Component."
For the inputColor component, see Section 11.5.1, "How to Add an inputColor Component."
For the inputDate component, see Section 11.5.2, "How to Add an InputDate Component."
Custom list of time zones can be configured for the inputDate component. See Section 11.5.4, "What You May Need to Know About Creating a Custom Time Zone List."
New animationInterval attribute on the inputNumberSlider and inputRangeSlider components. See Section 11.4.1, "How to Add an inputNumberSlider or an inputRangeSlider Component."
Support for an indeterminate (or mixed) state on the selectBooleanCheckbox component. See Section 11.6, "Using Selection Components."
Multiple file upload support on the inputFile component. See Section 11.9, "Using File Upload."
New codeEditor component that renders a widget for code editing. See Section 11.10, "Using Code Editor."
New allDayActivityOrder, hourZoom, and timeSlotsPerHour attributes for the calendar component. See Section 17.3.1, "How to Configure the Calendar Component."
The table and treeTable components can now navigate through "pages" of rows, rather than continuous scrolling. See Section 12.2.2, "Content Delivery."
The table and treeTable components now allow freezing of columns starting from the end column. See Section 12.3.2, "Formatting Tables."
The table and treeTable components can now have individual rows span multiple columns. See Section 12.3.3, "Formatting Columns."
New listView and listItem components provide a simplified, one-column table. See Section 12.10, "Displaying a Collection in a List."
New selected attribute for button and link components that, if set to true, styles the component as selected it renders. The iconPosition attribute for these components also supports additional values (top and bottom) to determine where the component renders an icon if one is specified. See Section 20.3, "Using Buttons and Links for Navigation."
Changes to navigationPane component:
Ability to determine the size of the tabs rendered by a navigationPane component. See Section 20.8.4, "What You May Need to Know About the Size of Navigation Tabs."
Display overflow of tabs like a conveyor belt. See Section 20.8.5, "What You May Need to Know About Navigation Tabs in a Compressed Layout."
New dynamicComponent allows the exact components to be rendered to be determined at runtime. See Chapter 21, "Determining Components at Runtime."
New timeline component that is an interactive data visualization tool that allows users to view events in chronological order and easily navigate forwards and backwards within a defined time range. See Chapter 27, "Using Timeline Components." Chapter 22, "Introduction to ADF Data Visualization Components" was also revised to add an introduction to this new component.
New treemap and sunburst components that display quantitative hierarchical data across two dimensions, represented visually by size and color. See the following:
HTML5 support. If the client's browser supports it, HTML5 is now the default image format, instead of Flash, for the following DVT components:
gauge. See Section 24.2.5, "What You May Need to Know About Gauge Image Formats."
graph. See Section 23.2.6, "What You May Need to Know About Graph Image Formats."
thematicMap. See Section 28.6.6, "What You May Need to Know About Thematic Map Image Formats."
HTML5 is also the default image format for all new DVT components, including sunbursts, timelines, and treemaps.
New positionHint and maxWidth attributes on the graph component. See Section 23.3.4, "How to Customize Graph Legends."
Data marker selection support on graphs. See Section 23.7.8, "Adding Data Marker Selection Support for Graphs."
New features on the pivotTable component:
Single-click editing. See Section 25.1.2.3, "Editing Data Cells."
Context menu options for column and header layer sorting. See Section 25.1.2.4, "Data and Header Sorting."
New page control alternative to scrollbars, and attributes available to set the start position for row and column data cells or headers. See Section 25.1.2.6, "Scrolling and Page Controls" and Section 25.2.6, "What You Many Need to Know About Displaying Large Data Sets."
Persistent header layer labels when displaying large data sets. See Section 25.1.2.7, "Persistent Header Layers."
Split view configuration of the data in large data sets. See Section 25.1.2.8, "Split View of Large Data Sets."
Header cell word wrapping with long header titles. See Section 25.1.2.10, "Header Cell Word Wrapping."
Active Data Service (ADS) support. See Section 25.1.2.11, "Active Data Support (ADS)."
Declarative styling attributes for header and data cells. See Section 25.2.4, "Configuring Pivot Table Display Size and Style."
Mobile device support. See Section 25.2.7, "What You May Need to Know About Pivot Tables on Touch Devices."
Pivot filter bar. See Section 25.4.2, "Using a Pivot Filter Bar with a Graph."
Support for printable pages. See Section 25.5.4, "Displaying Pivot Tables in Printable Pages."
Drag and drop support for hierarchyViewer component. See Section 36.8.3, "Adding Drag and Drop Functionality for DVT Hierarchy Viewers, Sunbursts, and Treemaps."
The popup component is now a valid root for the showPrintablePageBehavior tag. See Section 37.2, "Displaying a Page for Print."
Only postback values of editable components when those values have changed since the last request. See Section A.2.3.16, "Postback Payload Size Optimization."
Display or hide ADF version information on an HTML page. See Section A.2.3.19, "Version Number Information."
Support for Oracle Traffic Director by the ADF Faces Caching Filter (ACF). See Section A.2.3.21, "ADF Faces Caching Filter."
Invalid browser notification. See Section A.2.3.23, "Internet Explorer Compatibility View Mode."
Session timeout when a warning dialog is displayed. See Section A.2.3.24, "Session Timeout Warning."
Removal of dynamic URL parameters in URLs. See Section A.2.3.26, "Clean URLs."
Ability to disable the splash screen displayed when loading a page. See Section A.2.3.27, "Page Loading Splash Screen."
Globally control over how certain layout components and tables handle being stretched. See Section A.2.3.29, "Geometry Management for Layout and Table Components."
Content delivery network (CDN) support. See Appendix A, "Using Content Delivery Networks."
Increased support for tablet and mobile devices. See Appendix D, "Creating Web Applications for Touch Devices Using ADF Faces."
For Release 12c (12.1.2), this document has been updated in several ways, to include corrections and clarifications. In addition, the following significant changes or additions have occurred in these sections:
Chapters now include a "Use Cases and Examples" section.
All Introduction sections in chapters have been renamed to "About..."
Revised Section 7.4, "Creating Custom ADF Faces Converters" for clarity.
Updated code examples in Section 7.4.1, "How to Create a Custom ADF Faces Converter."
Removed obsolete text in Section 7.5.1, "How to Add Validation."
Moved the "Displaying Images in a Carousel" section from the "Using Output Components" chapter to "Using Tables, Trees, and Other Collection-Based Components." See Section 12.11, "Displaying Images in a Carousel."
Revised Chapter 19, "Displaying Tips, Messages, and Help" for clarity and to remove obsolete content.
Revised Chapter 32, "Internationalizing and Localizing Pages" to describe the configuration you make in an adf-config.xml file if you want to override a resource bundle in a customizable application. See Section 32.3.8, "What You May Need to Know About Overriding a Resource Bundle in a Customizable Application."
Revised Chapter 22, "Introduction to ADF Data Visualization Components" to remove obsolete content regarding embedded fonts for the graph and gauge components. In addition, the DVT components that support the Active Data Service (ADS) are listed.
Revised various sections in Chapter 23, "Using Graph Components" to:
add more use cases.
correct errors in code examples and procedures.
reflect pre-existing components contained in the graph component.
add procedure for creating a time selector. See Section 23.7.3.3, "How to Add a Time Selector to a Graph."
Revised various sections in Chapter 24, "Using Gauge Components" to:
correct errors in code examples and procedures.
reflect pre-existing components contained in the gauge component.
move content from Section 24.4.3, "How to Format Gauge Text" ti Section 24.4.4, "How to Specify a Gauge Text Resource."
describe how to use skinning keys for various functionality.
Removed the following sections from Chapter 24, "Using Gauge Components"
"How to Specify the Layout of Gauges in a Gauge Set"
"What You May Need to Know About Configuring Gauge Set Display"
Revised Section 33.3.3, "ADF Data Visualization Components Accessibility Guidelines" to document guidelines for the treemap and sunburst components.
Revised various sections in Chapter 29, "Using Hierarchy Viewer Components" to:
correct errors in code examples and procedures
describe how to use skinning keys for various functionality.
Removed obsolete section in Chapter 29, "Using Hierarchy Viewer Components": "How to Configure a Hierarchy Viewer to Invoke a Context Menu."
Consolidated drag and drop features for graph and gantt components into Section 36.8, "Adding Drag and Drop Functionality for DVT Components."
Revised Section 37.3, "Creating Emailable Pages" to add to the list of supported email clients and to add information about the table and treeTable components.
Revised Section A.2.3.11, "Test Automation" to document coding errors that will produce assertion failed errors only after test automation is enabled.
Added new appendix to document troubleshooting the application user interface. See Appendix G, "Troubleshooting ADF Faces."