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Comment: Made setup of prices including VAT in e-commerce more explicit

This page is intended to be the root of Cookbook, FAQ, Tips, Tricks, HowTo, etc.
You may find supplementary useful informations at Old OFBiz wiki and Opentaps's OFBiz cookbooks part but note that this information may be outdated...

tip
Tip
titleTips

Tables of content

  • If you are looking for something that is not in the links below, try to do a search on this page. Sometimes people add a page under this one without putting a link to it. If you are in luck, the word you search is in the title of one of these pages... A better way might be to simply use the OFBiz wiki search ...

Tables of content

Table of Contents
maxLevel3
minLevel2


...


Accounting

Apache HTTPD (Apache Web server)

Applications server

Asset Maintenance

Audit

Barcodes

...

...

CMS

CSS

DataBase

Development tips

Development tips

Eclipse IDE

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Google

Groovy

Licences

Intellij IDEA IDE

Known issues

Licences

Load Balancing

Migration

Miscellaneous

...

POS (the POS is deprecated and has been put in Attic)

...

...

RMI

  • This RMI error on client side?, click to see the tip

    Code Block
    Caused by: java.util.MissingResourceException: Can't find bundle for base name cache, locale en_US



Reporting tools

...

Selenium

Soap / XML-RPC / REST

Attachments

Another approach deprecated since r892712
For those who are familiar with Spring, you may be interested by Apache CXF instead of AXIS2. You will find a quick comparaison between AXIS2 and CXF here deprecated since r892712r89271

SSL

...


Themes

Translation

Unsubscribe

  • To unsubscribe You certainly forgot how you subscribed, it's easy to forgot if you use a Nabble forum to subscribe.

Windows

Workflow Engines

XSL:FO (FOP)

ZK (work in progress)

A tuto (screencast) for a ZK view handler

...

There is also this tuto but from comments in user ML we recommend rather the way above

...

...

Anchor
HTTPD
HTTPD

How to use mod_proxy_ajp

You need to use a 2.2+ version of HTTPD. I used 2.2.6.

In httpd.conf (or in a file in sites-available on Debian/Ubuntu using a2ensite)

Uncomment (or compile with at least these modules using --enable on Debian/Ubuntu use a2enmod)

...

Code Block
ProxyRequests Off

<Proxy *>
        AddDefaultCharset off
        Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
</Proxy>

# Enable/disable the handling of HTTP/1.1 "Via:" headers.
# ("Full" adds the server version; "Block" removes all outgoing Via: headers)
# Set to one of: Off \| On \| Full \| Block
ProxyVia On

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
    #   General setup for the virtual host.
    ServerName www.example.com:443
    ServerAdmin you@example.com

    ProxyRequests Off
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    proxyPass / ajp://localhost:8009/

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteRule ^/(images/.+);jsessionid=\w+$ /$1

</VirtualHost>

include conf/httpd-ssl.conf
(or include ../apache2/httpd-ssl.conf if using a file in sites-available on Debian/Ubuntu using a2ensite)

In httpd-ssl.conf

replace (according to your setup, ie. keeping the right paths)

...

in the 443 VirtualHost. This will give acces to your svn repsoitory (supposed to be declared as <Location /svn>) only through https. If you need also access through https, do the same in the 80 VirtualHost.

Anchor
fieldTypeInDerby
fieldTypeInDerbyfield type in Derbyfield type in Derby

Change a field type in Derby

  1. Export the table to xml
  2. Drop the table
  3. Start OFBiz - table recreated with new structure
  4. Import xml data from #1

Advice from Adrian Crum.

Anchor
SQuirrel
SQuirrel

Browse a Derby database and more using SQuirrel

http://db.apache.org/derby/integrate/SQuirreL_Derby.html#N101C7
For the URL use something like jdbc:derby:c:/ofbiz/runtime/data/derby/ofbiz (of course using your right path)

Link from Sundeep Ray. There is an alternative to this solution : Running and Debugging OFBiz in Eclipse#Connectingthedatabase Browsing Derby Database in Eclipse

Anchor
cvv codes
cvv codes

Use CVV (also called CV2 and more acronyms) codes in OFBiz

As of rev. 585172 (date 2008-10-16) the changes mentioned below have been officially included in the OFBiz trunk.

https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-767#action_12476855

Anchor
gift card
gift card

Using gift-card in OFBIz

Steps to use GC with OFBiz demo data:
After you create GC for a party(e.g for DemoCustCompany) with
Card Number: 12345 and Pin Number:123, then:

...

Then you are ready to create order and to specify the GC as a payment method.

A tip from Rashko Rejmer


 

Anchoranchor
PatchingOnWindowsYui-ExtYui-Ext

Ajax : Integrate OFBiz with Yui-Ext

http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A-integrate-OFBiz-with-Yui-Ext-p11131937.html

A tip from Jason Wu

...

PatchingOnWindows

Patch on Windows

Creating patches
  • Using Eclipse => Subclipse (Create Patch, Apply Patch

...

Patch on Windows

Creating patches

  • Using Eclipse => Subclipse (Create Patch, Apply Patch context menu options, the clipboard one is the "easiest")
  • Using Toirtoise ToirtoiseSVN from Files Explorer (Create Patch, Apply Patch context menu options). Tortoise does not exist on Linux/Mac but there are some equivalent tools.
  • Making a diff with subversion on command line : svn di fileName > filename.patch

I let you find the tools with google :Eclipse/Subclipse, Tortoise, Subversion client, patch.exe, todos.exe, etc.

Applying patches
Tip

Note that below no longer works (or hardly) since Windows 7. I suggest rather to use Cygwin if you use a version below WIndows 10. I have personnaly installed with Git Bash. Bash comes embedded with WIndows 10.

To patch on Windows you have to download patch.exe. But you may encouter EOL problems with patch.exe. That's why I prefer to use Eclipse's "Apply Patch" option wich is great to use with clipboard. If you get issue with Subclipse and work on Windows you may try Tortoise's "Apply Patch" option. If I get problems with Tortoise I then use the patch command. Something to understand is that Tortoise actually use "SVN merge" so in certains cases problems arise. To avoid EOL problems with the patch command, I use a bat file patchdos.bat :

...

Anchor
WindowsService
WindowsService

Run OFBiz as a Windows service

  • You need JavaService.exeThis is freely available at http://javaservice.objectweb.org/.
    Documentation and example code are also available
    Unzip the JavaService-bin-1.2.x.zip (or JavaService-2.0.x.zip)

  • Where should the expanded files be located?
    Set up and run your script with the appropriate path. Ex:

    Code Block
    javaservice -install OFBiz %java_home%\jre\bin\server\jvm.dll -Xms256M -Xmx512M
-Djava.class.path=%java_home%\lib\tools.jar;%ofbiz_home%\ofbiz.jar
-start org.ofbiz.base.start.Start
-out %ofbiz_home%\logs\serviceLog.txt
-err %ofbiz_home%\logs\serviceErr.txt
-current %ofbiz_home%
-manual



    Note: If your java sdk is installed under a directory with a space in it, the service will install, but not start properly, unless you change java_home to the DOS 8.3 name. For example, if your java sdk is installed in C:\Program Files\Java\j2sdk1.4.2_xx then you would set java_home=C:\PROGRA~1\Java\j2sdk1.4.2_xx* Go to the win2k services app and you should now find a service 'OFBiz' set up to run manually (this of course can be changed to run automatically if so desired).


  • Alternatively, the service can be started with the command:net start OFBiz
  • And the service can then be stopped with the command:net stop OFBiz

...

Anchor
SomeSeleniumTips
SomeSeleniumTips

Some Selenium tips

Brett Palmer gave a presentation on Selenium testing for Ofbiz at ApacheCon 2008. The presentation is no longer available at the ApacheCon site, but is available at http://www.kenfuse.com/forum/material-regarding-seleniumxml.

Setting up Selenium RC server in Windows

  1. Download latest version of Selenium RC and extract in a folder named Selenium at (for instance) C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_03\bin
  2. From Command prompt run the following commands:
    • cd C:\PROGRA~1\Java\jdk1.6.0_03\bin
    • java -jar .\Selenium\selenium-server.jar -interactive

...

Anchor
NativeDatabaseTip
NativeDatabaseTip

How to troubleshoot SQL Errors

If you receive an SQL error in ofbiz, it doesn't show the error from the database itself. Instead, it shows a general error which isn't neccessarily clear. Run the SQL directly on the database get a more helpful error message.


Anchor
External DatabaseReadOnlyDatabaseExternal Database
ReadOnlyDatabase

How to connect to

...

a Database

...

on read only

If you need to connect OFBiz to a database without write access or you want just are sure that your users have a read acces, you can change on the entityengine.xml the helper to the class ReadOnlyHelperDAO on your data-source  like that

Code Block
languagexml
    <datasource name="localderby"
            helper-class="org.apache.ofbiz.entity.datasource.ReadOnlyHelperDAO"
            schema-name="OFBIZ"
            field-type-name="derby">...


Anchor
External Database
External Database

How to connect to an External Database

  1. Create entity definitions for the external database like you would for an OFBiz entity (except use the no-auto-stamp="true" attribute).
  2. Assign the entities to a different group (in entitygroup.xml), "myExternalDB" for example.
  3. Create a datasource for the external database (in entityengine.xml), named "myExternalDB" for example.
  4. Assign the "myExternalDB" datasource and the "myExternalDB" entity group to the the default delegator: <group-map group-name="myExternalDB" datasource-name="myExternalDB"/>
  5. Use the default delegator to access the external database.

Anchor
SendingMailsToContactLists
SendingMailsToContactLists

Sending mails to contact lists

In the marketing application, click on contact list, then find your list, then click on Comm Events and then Create New Contact List. Comm Event should land you here:
http://demo-trunk-ofbiz.apache.org//marketing/control/EditContactListCommEvent?contactListId=9000&DONE_PAGE=/marketing/control/ListContactList

based on the trunk demo server.

Set your from details and party roles (maybe N/A), fill your subject and content and click save.

When you're happy with it, change the status to "In-Progress" and click save again. The comm events should then start to trigger and the email flow, although you'll want to test it on a small list to start with. If the list is clean and processes through OK the status should automatically change to "Complete" when it is done but if there are badly formatted email addresses that can stick the status and you will need to manually mark as complete and you might review the logs to find the error.

At the time of this tip was wrote, the start and finish dates do not work as expected, leave them blank for your first testing.

A Ray Barlow's tip

Anchor
ImportCustomisedData
ImportCustomisedData

How to save customised data for import as demo data

Add a entity-resource entry of type "data" and reader-name as "ext" in ofbiz-components.xml of your application. For example:

Code Block
<entity-resource type="data" reader-name="ext" loader="main" location="data/GeoData_IN.xml"/>

And run the

Code Block
"run-install-extseed"

ant target instead of

Code Block
"run-install"

This should load your modified data along with the seed data and without any demo data.

Anchor
createAcctgTransAndEntries
createAcctgTransAndEntries

Issue with createAcctgTransAndEntries service

If you see errors like

Error:Error trying to begin transaction, could not process method: The
current transaction is marked for rollback, not beginning a new
transaction
and aborting current operation; the rollbackOnly was caused by: Service
createAcctgTransAndEntries threw an unexpected
exception/errororg.ofbiz.service.ServiceValidationException: The following
required parameter is missing: OUT
createAcctgTransAndEntries.acctgTransId (The following required
parameter
is missing: OUT createAcctgTransAndEntries.acctgTransId) calling
service
balanceInventoryItems in receiveInventoryProduct

If you are not using the Accounting module much and specifically the GL section, than go to accounting ~> ofbiz-component.xml and comment the entry for secas_ledger.xml in that file, restart the server and try again. This should solve your problem.

A Mridul Pathak's tip

Anchor
BestPracticeModifyOrCreate
BestPracticeModifyOrCreate

What is the best practice to modify an existing component or create a new one?

From an old thread by Chris Howe and David Jones. Note that it's now easier to use the create-component ant target (just try "ant -p" to know more) or the Gradle createComponent Gradle task for newer project.

Chris Howe: Lets say that I want to create an application that most closely matches the ecommerce app. I should start with copied versions the following files only.

Code Block
ofbizhome/speciapurpose/myapp/build.xml
ofbizhome/speciapurpose/myapp/ofbiz-component.xml
ofbizhome/speciapurpose/myapp/webapp/myapp/WEB-INF/controller.xml
ofbizhome/speciapurpose/myapp/webapp/myapp/WEB-INF/web.xml
ofbizhome/speciapurpose/myapp/webapp/myapp/index.jsp

from this I should edit the following
+build.xml:+find "ecommerce"
replace with "myapp"

+ofbiz-component.xml:+find "ecommerce"
replace with "myapp"

+web.xml:+change display name and description from "ecommerce"
to "myapp"

Then change speciapurpose/component-load.xml to load
"myapp"

This should give you an exact duplication of functionality of the

  1. Create entity definitions for the external database like you would for an OFBiz entity (except use the no-auto-stamp="true" attribute).
  2. Assign the entities to a different group (in entitygroup.xml), "myExternalDB" for example.
  3. Create a datasource for the external database (in entityengine.xml), named "myExternalDB" for example.
  4. Assign the "myExternalDB" datasource and the "myExternalDB" entity group to the the default delegator: <group-map group-name="myExternalDB" datasource-name="myExternalDB"/>
  5. Use the default delegator to access the external database.

...

Sending mails to contact lists

In the marketing application, click on contact list, then find your list, then click on Comm Events and then Create New Contact List. Comm Event should land you here:
http://demo-trunk-ofbiz.apache.org//marketing/control/EditContactListCommEvent?contactListId=9000&DONE_PAGE=/marketing/control/ListContactList

based on the trunk demo server.

Set your from details and party roles (maybe N/A), fill your subject and content and click save.

When you're happy with it, change the status to "In-Progress" and click save again. The comm events should then start to trigger and the email flow, although you'll want to test it on a small list to start with. If the list is clean and processes through OK the status should automatically change to "Complete" when it is done but if there are badly formatted email addresses that can stick the status and you will need to manually mark as complete and you might review the logs to find the error.

At the time of this tip was wrote, the start and finish dates do not work as expected, leave them blank for your first testing.

A Ray Barlow's tip

...

How to save customised data for import as demo data

Add a entity-resource entry of type "data" and reader-name as "ext" in ofbiz-components.xml of your application. For example:

Code Block
<entity-resource type="data" reader-name="ext" loader="main" location="data/GeoData_IN.xml"/>

And run the

Code Block
"run-install-extseed"

ant target instead of

Code Block
"run-install"

This should load your modified data along with the seed data and without any demo data.

...

How to run inside a non embedded application server

Have a look at framework/appserver/README file. You might be also interested by Run OFBiz under outside Application Servers (WASCE 2.0.0.1, Geronimo 2.0.3, Tomcat 5.5 and 6, JBoss 4.2.2)

...

Issue with createAcctgTransAndEntries service

If you see errors like

Error:Error trying to begin transaction, could not process method: The
current transaction is marked for rollback, not beginning a new
transaction
and aborting current operation; the rollbackOnly was caused by: Service
createAcctgTransAndEntries threw an unexpected
exception/errororg.ofbiz.service.ServiceValidationException: The following
required parameter is missing: OUT
createAcctgTransAndEntries.acctgTransId (The following required
parameter
is missing: OUT createAcctgTransAndEntries.acctgTransId) calling
service
balanceInventoryItems in receiveInventoryProduct

If you are not using the Accounting module much and specifically the GL section, than go to accounting ~> ofbiz-component.xml and comment the entry for secas_ledger.xml in that file, restart the server and try again. This should solve your problem.

A Mridul Pathak's tip

...

What is the best practice to modify an existing component or create a new one?

From an old thread by Chris Howe and David Jones. Note that it's now easier to use the create-component ant target (just try "ant -p" to know more)

Chris Howe: Lets say that I want to create an application that most closely matches the ecommerce app. I should start with copied versions the following files only.

Code Block
ofbizhome/speciapurpose/myapp/build.xml
ofbizhome/speciapurpose/myapp/ofbiz-component.xml
ofbizhome/speciapurpose/myapp/webapp/myapp/WEB-INF/controller.xml
ofbizhome/speciapurpose/myapp/webapp/myapp/WEB-INF/web.xml
ofbizhome/speciapurpose/myapp/webapp/myapp/index.jsp

from this I should edit the following
+build.xml:+find "ecommerce"
replace with "myapp"

+ofbiz-component.xml:+find "ecommerce"
replace with "myapp"

+web.xml:+change display name and description from "ecommerce"
to "myapp"

Then change speciapurpose/component-load.xml to load
"myapp"

This should give you an exact duplication of functionality of the copied ecommerce application without the hundreds of thousands of lines of code. Then by simply copying/creating the files that need to be changed and changing the requests and views in controller.xml you will have your new application, but still benefit from svn updates. What is the potential downside of this?

...

Anchor
BestPracticeCustomWebApp
BestPracticeCustomWebApp

What is considered the best practice in creating a custom web application with OFBIZ?

A David Jones's tip

One approach is to simply copy an entire component into a new directory and start hacking away at it until it fit your needs. This is a fine practice if you never have plans of bringing it up to date with a current revision or version. OFBIZ is currently making about 40 commits a week. By the time you complete your customizations, you are out of date.

...

Which one is right? It depends on on how much changes you are making. Modifying the following files will allow you to "customize" an application, whereas starting from scratch using an existing application as a template is better for a "custom application."

The Five Files

  • application\...\webapp\...\WEB-INF\controller.xml
    • <web-app>
      • change the <display-name>
      • change the <description>

...

Now if you were to start OFBIZ and point your browser to mydomain.com/myapp you would see an exact duplicate of the application that you were modeling.

...

The goal with the differences app is to create all of the customizations that you need without touching original OFBIZ code. That way when you update to more current versions, you're less likely to encounter significant conflicts. It makes your application close to being "turn-key".

The Decorator

Most likely the first thing your're going to want to customize is the decoration (the header, which screens are in the leftbar if you want to display a right bar, how the body is displayed, which UILabels you use, etc). For this you need to do two things. (As of revision 5539 you can only do this if your views are using the ecommerce application, it shouldn't be long before all of the applications support this)

...

Now your application is an exact copy of the model application with your customized decoration. The reason it's an exact copy is because you have essentially the same controller.xml files in both applications. All of the requests call the same views, which call the same screens, which in turn call the same actions and widgets. So now you want to make some more changes.

Customize Screens

  • controller.xml
    • <view-map>
      • change the name if necessary
      • change the location to a *Screens.xml file inside custom application
  • Screens.xml
    • create a new screen
    • remember they can call .bsh, .ftl, and forms from other applications
    • if you want to use a custom .ftl or .bsh be sure to us a similar directory structure as the original file so you can make easy comparisons when you update.

...

Anchor
ExtendExistingComponent
ExtendExistingComponent

How to Extend an Existing Component

Scenario: You can extend any of the existing applications via a custom component in the hot-deploy directory.  In the following example we are extending the Marketing component via our custom component called mycomponent.

...

Anchor
HowToSetSSL
HowToSetSSL

Configuring SSL

There are two main techniques in configuring SSL, through Apache (recommended), and through the JVM directly.

Apache

Configuring SSL through Apache is probably the preferred method, and is well documented.

JVM

It's also possible to have the SSL certificate in your JVM environment. The certificate is usually found in the $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/security directory.

...

You will need to use the Java keytool utility to add certificates from other SSL sites (e.g. www.mywebsite.com) . Here is a pretty good tutorial on getting your SSL certificate setup

...

Anchor
RMI
Anchor
RMI-Error-on-client
RMI-Error-on-client

RMI error on client side

Add the $OFBIZ/framework/base/config dir to the jar as a <resource> in your build file (Maven's pom.xml example, to be adapted for ant)

...

Anchor
HowToUseRMIWithoutSSL
HowToUseRMIWithoutSSL

How to use RMI without SSL

By default, since OFBIz is under the Apache Software Fundation Licence, OFBiz comes with RMI using SSL. Before it was possible to use RMI without SSL. But due to licence constraint some code has been removed. If you need, for testing for instance, to use RMI without SSL follow this tip:
In framework/base/config/ofbiz-containers.xml comment out this snippet during tests

...

Anchor
HowToTestIfRMIIsWorking
HowToTestIfRMIIsWorking

How to test easily if RMI is working (using a simple client)

Simply run the testRmi service from Webtools (not sure this is sufficient...)
OR
Unzip somewhere on you disk this attachment. From there I guess it's pretty simple.

Anchor
SomethingsYouShouldKnowAboutRMI
SomethingsYouShouldKnowAboutRMI

Somethings you should know about RMI

  • On Windows, do not have any spaces between any directories on your path, or the RMIDispatcher will not start
  • On Linux, the RMI server may not know its own IP address and might get "lost." This will cause java.net.SocketException?: Socket is not connected (Error connecting to 127.0.0.1). This error message is generated on the RMI server but it will be displayed on the RMI client. The answer is to force rmi server's IP address into the JVM environment.

...

Anchor
SourceDifferences
SourceDifferences

How to manage your source differences

The first three links use the vendor branch principle

...

Anchor
PostingAccountingTransactions
PostingAccountingTransactions

If you get accounting related issues and are not interested in posting accounting transactions

  1. If you are not interested in posting accounting transactions to the GL then you can disable (i.e. comment out) the first eca rule in accounting/servicedef/secas_ledger.xml

    Code Block
    <eca service="createAcctgTransAndEntries" event="commit">
    <condition field-name="acctgTransId" operator="is-not-empty"/>
    <action service="postAcctgTrans" mode="sync"/>
</eca>



  1. Configure an Error Journal to post there the accounting transactions that are incomplete
    You can create the error journal in this way:
    1. Go to Accounting >>General Ledger >>Setup >>Journals and create a new journal
      https://localhost:8443/accounting/control/SetupGlJournals?organizationPartyId=Company
    2. Go to Accounting >>General Ledger >>Setup >>Accounting Preferences and select the journal in the "Error Gl Journal Id":
      https://localhost:8443/accounting/control/PartyAcctgPreference?organizationPartyId=Company
    3. All the "incomplete" transactions will be visible here:
      https://localhost:8443/accounting/control/ListUnpostedAcctgTrans?organizationPartyId=Company

Anchor
obsolete
obsolete

Is it possible to delete products, categories, catalogs, etc., that are no longer needed?

This question has been already asked many times. You should find more information in Nabble
The main idea is that in OFBiz we don't delete but use end dates to mark obsolescence.

...

If you really need to do it, think about these 4 points before...

Anchor
PricesWithVATPricesIncludingVATPricesWithVAT
PricesIncludingVAT

Show prices with VAT included in eCommerce (B2C)

For that you must :

...


In order to show the prices including VAT in the store for consumers, you need to take following steps:

  1. in the accounting component:
    1. adjust the data for the appropriate Tax Authority so that 'Include Tax in Price' = 'Y'
    2. associate the appropriate product categories under the 'Categories' tab of the Tax Authority
    3. set the appropriate product rate (for Value Added Tax)
    4. optionally set the flag for 'Tax Promotions'
    5. optionally set the flag for 'Tax Shipping'
  2. in the catalog component for the appropriate store (in the section 'TAX':
    1. set the flag 'Show prices with VAT tax included' to 'Y'
    2. set the appropriate Vat Tax Auth Geo ID
    3. set the appropriate Vat Tax Auth Party ID

For now you can't set a different VAT rate for shipping, see last comment of

Jira
serverASF JIRA
serverId5aa69414-a9e9-3523-82ec-879b028fb15b
keyOFBIZ-4160

...


Anchor
certificates
certificates

Certificate for RMI

You need to have the ofbizrmi.jks and ofbiztrust.jks setup at both ends. For testing, the easiest way is

...

Thanks to Andrew Sykes

Anchor
TxStamp
TxStamp

About lastUpdatedStamp, lastUpdatedTxStamp (transaction), createdStamp, and createdTxStamp

They are the timestamps that the entity engine automatically maintains for all entities, unless you use no-auto-stamp=true in the entity definition. But by default all entities will have these four fields.

...

Anchor
CurrencyExchangeRate
CurrencyExchangeRate

How are managed transactions in different currencies from the one of GL ?

Accounting transactions originated by events in different currencies from the one of GL are automatically converted using the currency exchange rate of the date of the transaction.
The "company base currency" is set in the partyAcctgPreference. You have to enter a record in the CurrencyUomDated entity.
If this information is available then you'll notice that the AcctgTransEntry will have two different amounts in the fields amount/currencyUomId and origAmount/origCurrencyUomId

...

Anchor
primaryKeysAreVAR_CHARType
primaryKeysAreVAR_CHARType

Why primary keys are VAR_CHAR type in OFBiz

  1. The performance overhead is minimal on modern database systems (see EnterpriseDB guys know what they are talking about, they are offering Postgres commercial support)
  2. Character strings give significant flexibility, especially when it is common to migrate data from other systems that have characters in their IDs.
  3. Being able to prefix IDs is used in a number of places in OFBiz, including prefixes for entire systems when data transfers between them are done to separate ID spaces.

Anchor
XSL_FO
XSL_FO

Is there any WYSIWYG editors for XSL:FO ?

Anchor
localeXSD
localeXSD

Using locale XSD files instead of OFBiz remote (at http://ofbiz.apache.org/dtds) for validation and content completion

This has (at least) 2 advantages :

...

For that look for *-catalog.xml files in OFBiz and use them in your favorite XML editor. For instance in Eclipse /Oxygen : Menu Windows/Options Preferences/Oxygen/XML/XML Catalog

More details here

Anchor
hideProductsIneCommerce
hideProductsIneCommerce

How to hide products in eCommerce ?

If a View Allow category is configured only the products in that category will be visible when this catalog is active. Other products will not show up in search results, category browsing, and if someone tries to view the product by ID it will report that no product is found for this ID. There is a performance impact associated with the use of this category, so alternatives might be desirable in certain circumstances. In general for easier maintenance it is best to have this set to the same category as the Default Search category.
But in general for Catalog Setup you shoud refer at this section of the Apache OFBiz Business Setup Guide

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ServerHardwareforOfbizhosting
ServerHardwareforOfbizhosting

Performance : Server Hardware for Ofbiz hosting

Because customizations can dramatically change the performance
characteristics of OFBiz it is a good idea to always do performance
and load testing once development is complete.

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FontsInFOP
FontsInFOP

Using TTF fonts in FOP

You can use TTF fonts in fo.ftl files. You need to use file "framework/webapp/config/fop.xconf". This file contain following code that responsible for font family, change font family according to the requirement, exemple

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ValidationInForms
ValidationInForms

Validation in forms

  1. include a js code like below:

    Code Block
    Event.observe(window, 'load', function() {if ($('formId'))  validateNewUser = new Validation('formId', {immediate: true});}



  2. And in the respective form use the suitable class for form fields

    Code Block
    <field ... widget-style="required"> ... </field>
<field ... widget-style="validate-email"> ... </field>
<field ... widget-style="validate-url"> ... </field>



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DifferenceBetweenEventAndService
DifferenceBetweenEventAndService

What is the difference between Event and Service?

  • Events are used for validation and conversion using map processor, while services are used for business logic like CRUD operation
  • Service returns Map
  • Event returns String.
  • Services are loaded with the server, any changes in definition (not implementation if in MiniLang) needs a reload
  • We can call service inside event. But we cannot call event inside service.
  • An event is specific local piece functionality normally used in one place for one purpose and called from its location.
  • A service is a piece of functionality which can be located anywhere on the network, is most of time used in several different places and is called by its 'name'
  • In case of events you have access to HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse objects and you can read/write whatever you want. In case of services, you have access only to service parameters.
  • Services perform transaction rollback if any error occurs, not events. Note though that if an event is implemented by a simple-method, since by default simple-methods are executed inside a transaction unless the simple-method is flagged to not use a transaction, an error will also rollback the event.

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HowToChangeTheDefaultMessages
HowToChangeTheDefaultMessages

How to change the default messages

The messages that come in different pages in OFBiz are configured using several configuration files. The best parts of message display framework under OFBiz are as follows:

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creatingViewEntityUsingEntityViewEntity
creatingViewEntityUsingEntityViewEntity

Note on creating a view-entity using entity or view-entity from other components

If you need to use an entity or view-entity from other components to construct a view-entity, be cautious on how the sequence of the components are loaded. This is because the view-entity will be loaded when you start OFBiz, and if the component entity xml is loaded AFTER your component, your view-entity would not be able to pick up the relevant information from the other component.

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WhenAndWhenNotRecompiling
WhenAndWhenNotRecompiling

When and when not restarting

This is a big, and often not enough known OFBiz great feature.
Most of the time you don't need to restart when you change things in dev mode (dev mode depends on the content of cache.properties file, see here how to set it).

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If the caches are on (ie not on dev mode), it's the same (you don't need to recompile) but you need to clear the caches. See at ...webtools/control/FindUtilCache You might even clear only the cache where things changed (production performance).

 


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BewareOfHTTPETag
BewareOfHTTPETag

Beware of HTTP ETag

The ETag header is causing an issue with browser cache not being updated when the server has been updated. Actually a weak ETag, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag

Seems like tomcat’s DefaultServlet will only serve weak ETag’s even though tomcat7+ does have code for strong ETag but is never used and there is no documentation on how to set it

A possible solution is to remove If-None-Match request header and ETag response header in apache http server

RequestHeader unset If-None-Match

Header unset ETag

.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag

Seems like tomcat’s DefaultServlet will only serve weak ETag’s even though tomcat7+ does have code for strong ETag but is never used and there is no documentation on how to set it

A possible solution is to remove If-None-Match request header and ETag response header in apache http server

RequestHeader unset If-None-Match

Header unset ETag


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SQLQueriesDurations
SQLQueriesDurations

How to measure SQL queries durations

If a query takes more than 150 ms its duration is shown in log. To change that look for:

Debug.logTiming("Ran query in "

in GenericDAO.java


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DifferenceListInScreen
DifferenceListInScreen

What is the difference between [+0] and [] in a widget screen file?

[] If the list does not exist, create a new list and append item to it. If the list exist, append item to the end of the list

[+0] If list does not exist, create a new list and append item to it. If the list exist, insert item at the beginning of the list


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WorkflowEngine
WorkflowEngine

What's the recommended workflow engine in OFBiz? Is it Shark?

OFBiz gave up on Workflow Engines. Shark was implemented last but never really used in OFBiz. Instead of using a Workflow Engine, OFBiz uses an Event Driven Architecture (EDA), so ECAs (SECA, EECA, MECA) are used in OFBiz to drive the Workflow. ECA is the acronym of Event Condition Action. SECAs are for Services (triggered on services conditions), EECAs are for Entity (triggered on entities conditions), MECAs are for Mail.


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dash_vs_en_dashes
dash_vs_en_dashes

Dash vs "en dash" in Gradle commands

When you use a command like

gradlew "ofbiz --load-data readers=seed,seed-initial,ext,ext-demo"

Beware that copying this command in Microsoft Word will automatically transform the double dash in "en dashes" (Unicode 0x2013: "–" from Unicode Map€“)
Other cases not related to Word were also reported.So when this command does not work check that you are really using dashes!

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windows10
windows10

If you have problems to buid OFBiz on Windows 10 try this:

from Turn windows feature on or off ->Windows subsystem for Linux->Restart and retry

An Anamaria Petrica's tip