This page is intended to be the root of Cookbook, FAQ, Tips, Tricks, HowTo, etc. (will perhaps be separated later).
You may find supplementary usefull informations at Old OFBiz wiki and Opentaps's OFBiz cookbooks part
Editing
There is a lot of stuff in this page (it was my error to put them all in one page, but there are also advantages to have it like that). So when you use the Rich Text mode, which is buggy in this free Confluence version we have, it breaks some parts that you will not be aware of if you are not used to edit with this Confluence version.
So please when editing don't use the Rich Text mode but rather the Wiki Markup mode, thanks
Tables of content
Accounting
- Misc. Accounting Links
- Billing Account
- If you get accounting related issues and are not interested in posting accounting transactions, see here
- Show prices with VAT included in eCommerce
- How are managed transactions in different currencies from the one of GL ?
Apache HTTPD (Apache Web server)
Ajax - Javascript - Json
- Disable Browser Cache for Module
- Integrate OFBiz with Yui-Ext
- An easy way to get a data structure from server to Javascript in client browser
Applications server
- How to run inside a non embedded application server
- Adding Lambda Probe in OFBiz for monitoring Tomcat
- How to make redirection inside an application server without using mod_rewrite
Barcodes
- The Barcodes in OFBiz are done with Barcode4j. See the Barcode XML format documentation for howto specify the format.
Birt
CAS
- Setting Up CAS with OFBiz (PDF) (This document speaks about OFBiz release 5, this release will never exist but will certainly be 9.3 or hopefully at least 9.x (x<=12)...)
Certificate
CMS
- Magnolia CMS Integration Guide (note though that the recommended way in OFBiz is still to use the content compoment...)
CSS
- OFBiz maincss.css Styles
- If you get this problem The horizontal menu in the right column is causing the HTML elements below it to drop down to the bottom of the screen
DataBase
- Derby
- Miscellaneous
- OFBiz's Data File Tools Some tips from Jacopo
- How to use EntityWhereString A tip from GrimTim
- How to troubleshoot SQL errors A tip from Chris Lombardi
- Tips for View Entities A tip from SkipDever
- How to connect to an External Database A tip from Adrian Crum
- How to save customised data for import as demo data A tip from Raj Saini
- Is it possible to delete products, categories, catalogs, etc., that are no longer needed?
- About lastUpdatedStamp, lastUpdatedTxStamp (transaction), createdStamp, and createdTxStamp
- Why primary keys are VAR_CHAR type in OFBiz ? A tip from David E. Jones
- MySQL
- Oracle
Development tips
- What is the best practice to modify an existing component or create a new one?
- What is considered the best practice in creating a custom web application with OFBIZ?
- How to Extend an existing component in customized application?
- How to manage your source differences?
- Which variables are available in screen context?
- Tips & Tricks while working with Groovy
- Deprecating entities
- Add a WAR file
Eclipse
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
- Setting up PostGIS spatially-enabled PostgreSQL database
- Connecting OFBiz to PostGIS spatially-enabled database
Groovy
Licences
Miscellaneous
- Sending mails to contact lists
- Issue with createAcctgTransAndEntries service
- Steps to process a Configurable Product
- How to display all information of a single party
Netbeans
- OFBiz in NetBeans 5.*
This page may be a bit outdated but most informations are still relevant. You should also look at the nbproject.zip file in https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-3 - OFBIZ in Netbeans 6
Bit of trial and error so if any one has a better way please inform me.
Payment
POS
- More about POS
- How to get rid of "Terminal is closed" message
- How to syncrhonise POS terminal(s) with a central database
Production Tips
- Monitoring and Maintaining the database
- Cleaning the database from unimportant data
- Users with disabled accounts are still able to login
- How to make redirection inside an application server without using mod_rewrite
Quick Start Guides
- Getting and Running OFBiz in 5 steps (look there are more Quick Start Guides under Jacopo's Wiki space)
RMI
- Got this error on client side?
Caused by: java.util.MissingResourceException: Can't find bundle for base name cache, locale en_US
- How to use RMI without SSL
- How to test easily if RMI is working (using a simple client)
- Somethings you should know about RMI
Searches
Selenium
Soap
- How to use SOAP
- A tutorial from Vincenzo Di Lorenzo, see Attachements
- A tutorial from Opentaps documentation (version 0.9v5), see Attachements
- Export Ofbiz services that use complex type parameters
You could also be interested by these links
Complex types
SSL
Translation
Windows
ZK (work in progress)
A tuto (screencast) for a ZK view handler
From Milind Parikh
A Chris Howe's comment taken from user ML
Just a quick comment on how you have the view-handler defined. Since you're wanting to have this distributed as a plugin, instead of placing the <handler name="zk" ... in the common-controller, simply put that line in your controller.xml file after the <include... statement. You'll probably also want to change the class name to however you're going to distrubte it (ie com.milindparikh.widget.screen.ZkViewHandler) and move the file into
the src directory of your component...and make sure the build routine is working properly.
There is also this tuto but from comments in user ML we recommend rather the way above
FAQ - TIPS - Cookbook - How to
How to use mod_proxy_ajp
You need to use a 2.2+ version of HTTPD. I used 2.2.6.
In httpd.conf
Uncomment (or compile with at least these modules using --enable)
#LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so #LoadModule proxy_ajp_module modules/mod_proxy_ajp.so #LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so
Set ServerAdmin, ServerName
Add something like
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 DocumentRoot "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs" ErrorLog logs/error_log TransferLog logs/access_log ServerName lamouline.myvnc.com ServerAdmin webmaster@les7arts.com ProxyRequests Off ProxyPreserveHost On proxyPass / ajp://localhost:8009/ RewriteEngine On RewriteRule ^/(images/.+);jsessionid=\w+$ /$1 </VirtualHost> include conf/httpd-ssl.conf
In httpd-ssl.conf
replace
<VirtualHost _default_:443> # General setup for the virtual host DocumentRoot "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs" ServerName www.example.com:443 ServerAdmin you@example.com ErrorLog "/usr/local/apache2/logs/error_log" TransferLog "/usr/local/apache2/logs/access_log"
by
<VirtualHost *:443> # General setup for the virtual host DocumentRoot "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs" ErrorLog "/usr/local/apache2/logs/error_log" TransferLog "/usr/local/apache2/logs/access_log" ServerName lamouline.myvnc.com ServerAdmin webmaster@les7arts.com ProxyRequests Off ProxyPreserveHost On proxyPass / ajp://localhost:8009/ RewriteEngine On RewriteRule ^/(images/.+);jsessionid=\w+$ /$1
It should work. On Windows the configuration is the same. Don't forget to edit url.properties file (change 8080 to 80 and 8443 to 443).
Additional notes for configuring mod_ajp_proxy
Sometime it is useful to let Apache Web Server to serve the static resources such as images, css, js etc for performance or other reasons.
In that scenario, you will need to mount the individual OFbiz application. For example:
Mounting Ofbiz application as show below will forward every request to Ofbiz including request for static resources such as images.
proxyPass / ajp://localhost:8009/
To mound individual application, use the below mentioned method. You will need to do this for all your application accept the one you want to be served by Apache Web Server e.g. /images
<Location /accounting/> ProxyPass ajp://localhost:9009/accounting/ </Location>
Configure the Images folder in the Apache as shown below:
<Directory /var/www/xxxx/images/> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory>
/var/www/xxxx/images directory is where Apache will look for your images.
Thanks to Raj Saini for this tip
Change a field type in Derby
- Export the table to xml
- Drop the table
- Start OFBiz - table recreated with new structure
- Import xml data from #1
Advice from Adrian Crum.
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 : http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/Running+and+Debugging+OFBiz+in+Eclipse#RunningandDebuggingOFBizinEclipse-Connectingthedatabase
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
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:
- Create Financial Account:
https://demo.hotwaxmedia.com/accounting/control/EditFinAccount
Fin Account Type Id = Gift Certificate
Status = Active
Fin Account Code = 12345
Fin Account Pin = 123 - Create Fin Account Transaction:
https://demo.hotwaxmedia.com/accounting/control/EditFinAccountTrans?finAccountId=10010
Fin Account Trans Type Id = Deposit
Amount = 1000 (this amount should be grated that the order total)
After that Fin Account available balance will be 1000. You can check this here:
https://demo.hotwaxmedia.com/accounting/control/EditFinAccount?finAccountId=10000 - field "Available Balance".
Then you are ready to create order and to specify the GC as a payment method.
A tip from Rashko Rejmer
Ajax : Disable Browser Cache for Module
A tip from Krzysztof Podejma
Ajax : Integrate OFBiz with Yui-Ext
http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A-integrate-OFBiz-with-Yui-Ext-p11131937.html
A tip from Jason Wu
Patch on Windows
Creating patches
Using Eclipse => Subclipse (Create Patch, Apply Patch context menu options)
Using Toirtoise from Files Explorer (Create Patch, Apply Patch context menu options)
Making a diff with subversion on command line : svn di fileName > filename.patch
I let you find the tools (Eclipse/Subclipse, Tortoise, Subversion client, patch.exe, todos.exe with google ;o)
Applying patches
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 Tortoise's "Apply Patch" option in a 1st step. Tortoise is the best SVN and CVS UI existing, either on Linux or Windows. Besides Tortoise comes from Tigris too.
Then if I get problems with Tortoise (or Eclipse's "Apply Patch" option wich is near Tortoise for patching but less supple for this option and far more ingeneral) I 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 :
todos %1
patch -p0 < %1
where todos is and exe to download (search with Google). Of course you will have to deal with path. But at this stage I guess it's easy...
I just learned from https://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=508633 that the "--binary" option may be used in that case, did no try yet...
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: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
Advice from enki_ at users.sourceforge.net. There is an alternative to this solution : How to Run OFBiz as Windows Service with Java Service Wrapper
- If you want to do the same on Linux
Some Selenium tips
Due to some license issues with external libraries used in Selenium we cannot include this in the Apache trunk. However, a new component has been created which is free to download and use, but lives in an ofbizext repository.
https://svn.hotwaxmedia.com/svn/ofbizext/selenium Drop this in hot-deploy. If you want to know more, please look at https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-680
1) For running "successive" test cases I used browser "Refresh" button but I think there might be some better option to handle this. Is there any option exists in Selenium IDE ?
If you want to chain execution of different tests, there is the notion of test suite. A list of tests to run one after the other (see http://labs.libre-entreprise.org/plugins/scmcvs/cvsweb.php/ofbizNeogia/neogia/manufacturing/webapp/manufacturing/tests/ManufacturingTestSuite.html?rev=1.9;content-type=text%2Fplain;cvsroot=neogia)
Otherwise if you just want to replay the same test in a loop, I'm not aware of a such feature in selenium. Bur if the loop is finite, you can achieve a similar result by using a test suite that refers x times the same test.2) Suppose I have a condition to create the new user each time. As I can put the value of user login say "user1" for the first time but when this test case runs second time it generates error (It hangs up in between). So Is there any option to put a "counter" or Javascript code
in the Test cases so I could create the "user2" when this test case runs second time ?
The general problem behind you issue is how to run a test multiple times wihtout risking duplicated primary keys or having to remove all data created by the test.
One solution is to always create business objects with different identifiers. Selenium provides a nice feature to do that: you can define variables during the test execution and use them anywhere in the test script after their creation.
Here an example based on one of my test (http://labs.libre-entreprise.org/plugins/scmcvs/cvsweb.php/ofbizNeogia/neogia/manufacturing/webapp/manufacturing/tests/TestCreateNomenclature.html?rev=1.6;content-type=text%2Fplain;cvsroot=neogia)
<!-- create a variable named uid that contains an unique identifier --> <tr> <td>store</td> <td>javascript{(new Date()).getTime() % 10000}</td> <td>uid</td> </tr>
<!-- use of the variable named uid to fill a form entry --> <tr> <td>type</td> <td>partyId</td> <td>user-${uid}</td> </tr>
3) What is the difference between click and clickAndWait ? I would like to understand why I'm getting different behaviors from click and clickAndWait functions. Here is the scenario: I want to perform the login and then verify some text on the page (what should be pretty straight forward...) My first approach was using the clickfunction + pause function. Something like below:
<tr> <td>click</td> <td>submit</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>pause</td> <td>3000</td> <td></td> </tr>
The approach above worked fine and I was able to proceed with my test. However, I was looking the clickAndWait functionality and, per my understanding, this function should have a simlar behavior to my code above.. then I wrote the following:
<tr> <td>clickAndWait</td> <td>submit</td> <td></td> </tr>
The code above is getting a "Permission Denied" message. I already check the URLs and I'm not launching a different domain (before I click I have http://domain/Login/ and after the submission I have http://domain/App/).
I think the right solution is to use clickAndWait command instead of click+pause because it always success contrary to click+pause (we dont known the page response time). I see no reason why you don't observe the same behavior with clickAndWait. Maybe it's because your are testing the login page that can be a little tricky to test due to the session handling.
To be sure to always start a test in a clean session, my tests always do the same actions :
1. logoff
2. login
3. check error
Here, an example of my standard login procedure under selenium from (http://labs.libre-entreprise.org/plugins/scmcvs/cvsweb.php/ofbizNeogia/neogia/manufacturing/webapp/manufacturing/tests/TestProcessRouting.html?rev=1.2;content-type=text%2Fplain;cvsroot=neogia)
<!-- Begin of standard login procedure --> <tr> <td>open</td> <td>/manufacturing/control/logout</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>type</td> <td>USERNAME</td> <td>admin</td> </tr> <tr> <td>type</td> <td>PASSWORD</td> <td>ofbiz</td> </tr> <tr> <td>select</td> <td>locale</td> <td>value=fr</td> </tr> <tr> <td>clickAndWait</td> <td>submitButton</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>assertElementNotPresent</td> <td>//div[@class='errorMessage']</td> <td></td> </tr> <!-- End of standard login procedure -->
Advices from Peter Goron
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.
How to connect to an External Database
- Create entity definitions for the external database like you would for an OFBiz entity (except use the no-auto-stamp="true" attribute).
- Assign the entities to a different group (in entitygroup.xml), "advertpro" for example.
- Assign the "mysql-advertpro" datasource the the default delegator: <group-map group-name="myExternalDB" datasource-name="myExternalDB"/>
- Use the delegator to access the external database.
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)
<resources> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/base/config</directory> </resource> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/base/dtd</directory> </resource> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/datafile/dtd</directory> </resource> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/entity/dtd</directory> </resource> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/entityext/dtd</directory> </resource> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/minilang/dtd</directory> </resource> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/security/dtd</directory> </resource> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/service/dtd</directory> </resource> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/widget/dtd</directory> </resource> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/workflow/dtd</directory> </resource> <resource> <directory>../../../framework/applications/content/dtd</directory> </resource> </resources>
A Ryan's (from Sourcelab) tip
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:
https://demo.hotwaxmedia.com/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:
<entity-resource type="data" reader-name="ext" loader="main" location="data/GeoData_IN.xml"/>
And run the
"run-install-extseed"
ant target instead of
"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 a thread by Chris Howe and David Jones
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.
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?
David Jones: Yes, this is the best practice... Being able to do this is part of the design and intention of the screen widget. BTW, the hot-deploy directory may be easier to use than the speciapurpose directory, but of course you can mount a component from anywhere (the following paragraph explains with more details)
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.
Another approach is to make a different web app. This is where you copy the five essential files from a similar application that is being maintained by the project, make minor modifications to them.
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>
- <web-app>
- application\...\webapp\...\index.jsp
- change nothing
- applicaton\build.xml
- <project>
- change the name
- <target name="init">
- change value of property "desc"
- change value of property "name"
- <target name="classpath">
- ensure all fileset dir are correctly relative to the location of your app
- <project>
- application\ofbiz-component.xml
- <ofbiz-component>
- change the name
- <webapp>
- change the name
- change the title
- change the location
- change the mount point
- <ofbiz-component>
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.
From there you need to understand how a page is rendered. It is more detailed than this, but this explanation will suffice for the majority of simple customizations.
- Client makes a request
- request (among other things) calls a view (controller.xml)
- view calls a screen (controller.xml)
- screen (Screens.xml) calls some actions and widgets (.bsh, *Forms.xml, *.ftl, etc)
- the page is rendered to the client.
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)
- Change the location of the mainDecoratorLocation in web.xml
<context-param> <param-name>mainDecoratorLocation</param-name> <param-value>component://ecommerce/widget/CommonScreens.xml</param-value> <description>The location of the main-decorator screen to use for this webapp; referred to as a context variable in screen def XML files.</description> </context-param>
- Create a screen with name="main-decorator" in the file you specified in the mainDecoratorLocation property (I imagine you'll want to copy an existing decorator screen and modify it rather than start from scratch)
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
- <view-map>
- 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.
That's really all there is to it. If you call new services from the requests, make sure you create your file in component://myapp/servicedef/services.xml and make sure it gets loaded in the ofbiz-component.xml file. Same with ECAs. Need new classes, create them in your src directory and don't forget to build them with ant. Keep in mind two things and maintanence of your custom application will be easier and less error prone.
- REUSE REUSE REUSE. (If you don't change it, you don't have to maintain it, so don't change things just to change them)
- Only change copies of the OFBIZ files that are in your custom application
How to Extend an existing component in customized application?
Scenario : For any customized application under hot-deploy if it is needed to extend the existing component then changes in following files are required.
(For instance we are extending the Marketing component.)
1) Inside webapp of your customize application create a folder for component name. (marketing/WEB-INF)
2) Add controller.xml, web.xml
3) In controller.xml file include the <include location="component://marketing/webapp/marketing/WEB-INF/controller.xml"/>
4) In ofbiz-component.xml (hot-deploy/customize_project/)
add following code :
<webapp name="marketing" title="Marketing-Customized" server="default-server" location="webapp/marketing" base-permission="OFBTOOLS,MARKETING" mount-point="/marketing"/>
(extending marketing component here.)Now here the basic setup for extend the component is completed, now you can add component specific request and view in controller.xml here. And create screens in the extanded componint. Note : Please add if some of the information is missing here.
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.
The default file that ships with OFBiz is called cacerts.
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
The basic steps are described here
Getting an SSL Certificate
Here are some Certificate vendors (this list is from 2005)
- Verisign
- Thawte - Thawte Certificate ~ $350 / 2 yrs
- Comodo
- GeoTrust
- FreeSSL - Professional (Not actually Free by the way)
- CACert.org
Budget Plans
- FreeSSL - StarterSSL ~ 39 per year
- Comodo - InstantSSL (Second Tier requiring multiple Certs be installed)
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/limited-containers.xml replace (or better comment out during tests)
<property name="client-factory" value="org.ofbiz.service.rmi.socket.ssl.SSLClientSocketFactory"/> <property name="server-factory" value="org.ofbiz.service.rmi.socket.ssl.SSLServerSocketFactory"/> <property name="ssl-client-auth" value="true"/>
by
<property name="client-factory" value="org.ofbiz.service.rmi.socket.zip.CompressionClientSocketFactory"/> <property name="server-factory" value="org.ofbiz.service.rmi.socket.zip.CompressionServerSocketFactory"/> <property name="ssl-client-auth" value="false"/>
- Unzip in framework\service\src\org\ofbiz\service\rmi\socket\zip the content of this attachment
How to test easily if RMI is working (using a simple client)
- Unzip somewhere on you disk this attachment. From there I guess it's pretty simple.
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 envrionment (http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jsp?forum=58&thread=288759&tstart=0&trange=15):
The canonical server-side solution appears to be to tell the server its IP on startup:
-Djava.rmi.server.hostname=111.222.333.444
or, more flexibly, something like:
-Djava.rmi.server.hostname=`ifconfig eth0.1:1|grep "inet addr:" | sed "s/inet addr://" | awk '{print $1}'`
Here's another little tidbit, if the -Djava.rmi.server.hostname isn't working and the exception is still being generated on the client (from the server) on linux try changing the order of the host names in the /etc/hosts file so that the 127.0.0.1 appears last. This is apparently due to a bug in the InetAddress.getLocalHost() method.
- Make sure that rmiregistry is not running on your RMIDispatcher/JOTM/jndi port before starting Open for Business
How to manage your source differences
The first three links use the vendor branch principle
An alternative using SVK and not the vendor branch principle : How to use SVK for creating local SVN repositories (a Vinay Agarwal'tip)
A discussion about this topic on user ML proposing a simpler alternative way, extract :
- I keep two main patch files - basic_development.patch and basic_production.patch. Both patch files change the OFBiz configuration to work with our network environment, each one using settings chosen for the task - development or production. Only one patch is used at a time.
- I keep all of my custom development in a single folder under the ofbiz/applications folder. I avoid touching the trunk code at all costs - except for the configuration patches mentioned above.
- To keep my local copy updated, I do an SVN revert (to reverse the changes made by the patch), then an SVN update, then re-apply the patch. My custom development folder is untouched by the SVN commands, because SVN doesn't "know" about the folder.
This works really well and it doesn't involve any complicated merging - since the configuration files changed by the patches seldom change in the trunk.
If you get accounting related issues and are not interested in posting accounting transactions
- 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
<eca service="createAcctgTransAndEntries" event="commit"> <condition field-name="acctgTransId" operator="is-not-empty"/> <action service="postAcctgTrans" mode="sync"/> </eca>
- Configure an Error Journal to post there the accounting transactions that are incomplete
You can create the error journal in this way:- Go to Accounting->General Ledger>Setup->Journals and create a new journal
https://localhost:8443/accounting/control/SetupGlJournals?organizationPartyId=Company - 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 - All the "incomplete" transactions will be visible here:
https://localhost:8443/accounting/control/ListUnpostedAcctgTrans?organizationPartyId=Company
- Go to Accounting->General Ledger>Setup->Journals and create a new journal
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.
Four main reasons :
- Data are still there in case of audit
- Disk space should not a be problem
- DB indexes are managing quite well huge data volumes.
- Easier with all entities associations
If you really need to do it, think about these 4 points before...
Show prices with VAT included in eCommerce
For that you must :
- In your store, set the field "Show Prices With Vat Tax"=Y
- Set the field "Vat Tax Auth Geo Id" with the corresponding VAT Geo (it's a default value, remember the VAT is applied in function of the client Geo)
- Set the field "Vat Tax Auth Party Id" with a correctly set Tax Authority (see below how to set it in accouting)
- In accouting, set your Tax Authority (and any you will need)
- "Include Tax In Price"=Y
- Create the "Categories" that will include products with VAT included (this is not mandatory, it allows to limit the scope)
- Set the "Product Rates" you need. Note that you can Tax Promotions and Shipping if needed
Certificate
You need to have the ofbizrmi.jks and ofbiztrust.jks setup at both ends. For testing, the easiest way is
- to create a certificate,
- export it to the trust store ,
- and then just copy both these files to the other instance.
For production, remember that the truststore of the "client" would hold the public key exported from the keystore of the "server". Conversely the truststore of the "server" would hold the public key exported from the keystore of the "client". Making the keystore and truststore identical on both sides makes life a bit easier for testing, but make sure you toughen things up before you go into production!!!
Thanks to Andrew Sykes
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.
The transaction stamps are when the transaction was begun that the change is part of, and the stamps are within that transaction, although they are an absolute value. But to order the actual records that changed within the transaction. The entity engine does do things for these stamp fields when it maintains them, by the way, that ensure that within a transaction each updated or created stamp, depending on whether it's a create or updated, is unique for that transaction.
So it'll keep track of the last one and always increment it by one, even if it's been less than a millisecond since the other record went through. As long as you don't have more than a thousand records going into the database per second in a single transaction then you shouldn't have problems with overflowing it too much.
But it is important that those are unique, so we can order all the records by these stamps and basically reproduce the transaction to send it over to the other server. Even reproducing the transaction we can't always eliminate problems with foreign keys. Anyway that's the intention here, to reduce problems with foreign keys as much as possible and recreate the data changes on the remote server when the synchronization goes through
Adapted from Advanced Framework Transcription PDF
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
The modification is done by the createAcctgTransEntry service.
From a discussion between Jacopo and Hans on dev ML
Why primary keys are VAR_CHAR type in OFBiz
- The performance overhead is minimal on modern database systems (see EnterpriseDB guys know what they are talking about, they are offering Postgres commercial support)
- Character strings give significant flexibility, especially when it is common to migrate data from other systems that have characters in their IDs.
- 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.