ADF Taskflow constraints

• ADF Controller objects have the following constraints 
• JSF as the sole view layer technology 
• Depended on Oracle ADF Faces 
• ADF controller manages navigation and some extend the state management though JSF and servelet apis are there for state management of its own.
• ADF Model layer is used to implement the application's model layer 
• Depend on MDS 
• No supported migration path from struts or model 1 architectures.
•  Bounded TaskFlow 
• Exposed as page flow scope 
• Uses ADF Task flow as transaction boundaries 
• In order to access page flow scope before and after listener has to executed on restore view phase 
• Should perform all navigations through ADF controller flow rules instead of naviagation rules on faces-config.xml 

Convert JSF Pageflow to ADF taskflow

Create an JSF page flow as below

Right click and generate ADF taskflow

You get an option to generate either bounded or unbounded taskflow

The bounded task flow generated from the above step

Convert Bounded TaskFlow

Converting the bounded task flow with page fragments

All the jsff page will be converted to jspx pages . There will be an option to keep the existing page fragment also

The task flow with pages can be converted to the taskflow with page fragments

Bounded taskflow with page fragments can be converted to unbounded taskflow with pages

There is an option available to keep the page fragments

Extracting a Bounded TaskFlow

Create a bounded task flow as shown in the diagram.Ctrl+Click on the activities to select.Right click and extract task flow.

Extract the bounded task fow.

The new task flow extracted will look like

The original task flow will change like this

In the original taskflow following changes happened

• Selected activities removed 
• New taskflow added 
• Control flow cases added as above

Run configuration For ADF UI projects

Go to manage run configuration from jdeveloper Run menu.

Click on New and create a run configuration.

Select the task flow for default run target.

Click on the Task flow and select taskflow from the drop down

Go to the run menu and run the 'Copy of Default' configuration created

Save the run configuration and next time just run the required run configuration.

Run ADF Task Flows

Testing ADF task flow differs depend on the factors whether the taskflow is a bounded or unbounded task flow or task flow using page fragments or jspx pages.Jdeveloper supports break points on task flow activities.Taskflows also support hot re-deployment in Integrated weblogic what we have to do is right click and Make the task flow.

Bounded task flow using page fragments can be tested only by using a region in a jspx page.What we need to do is to drag and drop the bounded task flow into a region or dynamic region in a jspx page.
Bounded task flow with page can be run by right clicking the bounded task flow.

We can run individual pages in the bounded task flow also but the results are not guaranteed.

Bounded task flow with parameter

Create a bounded task flow and create an input parameter as below

Code for bt_param1.jspx

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>

<jsp:root xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page" version="2.1" xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"

          xmlns:af="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/faces/rich">

    <jsp:directive.page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8"/>

    <f:view>

        <af:document title="bt_param1.jspx" id="d1">

            <af:form id="f1">

                <af:panelGroupLayout id="pgl1">

                    <af:outputText value="#{pageFlowScope.param1}" id="ot1"/>

                </af:panelGroupLayout>

            </af:form>

        </af:document>

    </f:view>

</jsp:root>

Run the bounded task flow you will get a popup dialog for entering the parameter.

You can see the parameter printed in the bt_param1.jspx.

Running unbounded task flow 

You can select the view activity in a unbounded task flow right click and run 

Adding control flow rules to ADF Taskflow

Control flow rules decides the rule of navigation from one activity to another activity .Following are the activities and control flow elements in ADF task flow

You can drag and drop the activities to the task flow diagram and join them using the control flows.Shown below is a simple task flow with two view activities connected through a control flow case.Pictorial representation of the control flow can be viewed from the structure tab in the left bottom corner. We will go through the xml source of it later in the blog.

If you click on the overview tab of the editor it will display as below.

The jsff pages used for the task flow cf_view1.jsff and cf_view2.jsff
cf_view1:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>

<jsp:root xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page" version="2.1" xmlns:af="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/faces/rich">

  <af:panelGroupLayout id="pgl1">

    <af:outputText value="CF View1" id="ot1"/>

    <af:button text="button 1" id="b1" action="tocfView2"/>

  </af:panelGroupLayout>

</jsp:root>

cf_view2.jsff:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>

<jsp:root xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page" version="2.1" xmlns:af="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/faces/rich">

  <af:panelGroupLayout id="pgl1">

    <af:outputText value="CF View2" id="ot1"/>

  </af:panelGroupLayout>

</jsp:root>

Created a managed bean in the backing bean scope 

package test.view;

public class TestBean {

    private boolean check=true;

    public void setCheck(boolean check) {

        this.check = check;

    }

    public boolean isCheck() {

        System.out.println(" Check returns "+ check);

        //check=false;

        return check;

    }

    public TestBean() {

    }

    public void test() {

        // Add event code here...

        System.out.println("Test ..................");

    }

    public String  fromActionTest() {

        System.out.println("From fromActionTest.... ");

        String ret="tocfView2";

        return ret;

    }

    public String testingMethBinding() {

        System.out.println("testingMethBinding");

        // Add event code here...

        return "tocfView2";

    }

}

Create a page ctTest.jspx and drag and drop the taskflow as region.In the task flow set the from-action and if property of the control flow as below 

Depending on the check property and return type of testingMethBinding() the flow will go to the next activity. The return string should be the from-outcome to go to the next view activity in this case.Please closely look at the xml source of the task flow.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252" ?>

<adfc-config xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/controller" version="1.2">

  <task-flow-definition id="controlFlow">

    <default-activity>cf_view1</default-activity>

    <managed-bean id="__3">

      <managed-bean-name>TestBean</managed-bean-name>

      <managed-bean-class>test.view.TestBean</managed-bean-class>

      <managed-bean-scope>backingBean</managed-bean-scope>

    </managed-bean>

    <view id="cf_view1">

      <page>/cf_view1.jsff</page>

    </view>

    <view id="cf_view2">

      <page>/cf_view2.jsff</page>

    </view>

    <control-flow-rule id="__1">

      <from-activity-id>cf_view1</from-activity-id>

      <control-flow-case id="__2">

        <from-action>#{backingBeanScope.TestBean.testingMethBinding}</from-action>

        <from-outcome>tocfView2</from-outcome>

        <to-activity-id>cf_view2</to-activity-id>

        <if>#{backingBeanScope.TestBean.check}</if>

      </control-flow-case>

    </control-flow-rule>

    <use-page-fragments/>

  </task-flow-definition>

</adfc-config>

The priority of the evaluation of the control flow rule is as below 

1) from-activity-id,from-action,from-outcome

2) from-activity,from-outcome

3)from-activity