Datalists out-of-the-box don't have a whole lot of functionality outside of simply capturing data. A simple way to help users is to add calculated columns that transform other columns or related data from the repository. In Alfresco 3.3 this functionality is straightforward and allows creating powerful datalists that even an Excel user could love.
For this demo we will create a part of a project management datalist that takes allows users to enter the following: Estimated to completion, estimated at completion, actuals and budget. From these inputs we will generate the variance, percent complete and percent expended.
Overview
- Create a node and type form filter
- Create a couple of new static fields
- Create a new context file to instantiate the filters
- Tell Share to display the fields in the forms
Create a form filter
Form filters derive from an AbstractFilter and must implement the four abstract functions in that class. Filters are called whenever the form service runs and will be pass either a node instance or a typedef. I created this implementation when I didn't understand the difference so I implemented both. I also liked that I could show zeros before the node was created.
public class ProjectStatusFilter extends AbstractFilter<Object, NodeRef> {
@Override public void afterGenerate(Object item, List fields,
List forcedFields, Form form, Map context) {
boolean typeDefCorrect = (item instanceof TypeDefinition && ((TypeDefinition) item)
.getName().equals(PmoModel.TYPE_PROJECT_STATUS_DL));
boolean nodeRefCorrect = (item instanceof NodeRef && AlfUtil.services()
.getNodeService().getType((NodeRef) item).equals(
PmoModel.TYPE_PROJECT_STATUS_DL));
if (typeDefCorrect || nodeRefCorrect) {
double varianceValue = 0d;
double percentComplete = 0d;
double percentExpended = 0d;
// If this is a node then do the calculations
if (nodeRefCorrect) {
NodeRef itemNode = (NodeRef) item;
/* Some calculations that aren't interesting */
}
ContentModelFormProcessor.generatePropertyField(
PmoModel.variancePropDef, form, varianceValue, AlfUtil
.services().getNamespaceService());
ContentModelFormProcessor.generatePropertyField(
PmoModel.percentCompleteDef, form, percentComplete, AlfUtil
.services().getNamespaceService());
ContentModelFormProcessor.generatePropertyField(
PmoModel.percentExpendedDef, form, percentExpended, AlfUtil
.services().getNamespaceService());
}
}
/* Left the other 3 fuctions for completeness */
@Override
public void afterPersist(Object item, FormData data, NodeRef persistedObject) {}
@Override
public void beforeGenerate(Object item, List fields,
List forcedFields, Form form, Map context) {}
@Override
public void beforePersist(Object item, FormData data) {}
}
The key to this is the ContentModelProcessor.generatePropertyField. In order for this to work we need to create a field to be passed in. I created these fields as anonymous classes and put them into the model interface.
Create new field definitions
I'll give one example, the others are simple variations. This is the class that is built when you do any content modeling, and the documentation and possible values are the same. Check the alfresco wiki for more information.
static final PropertyDefinition percentExpendedDef = new PropertyDefinition() {
@Override
public boolean isStoredInIndex() {
return false;
}
@Override
public boolean isProtected() {
return false;
}
@Override
public boolean isOverride() {
return false;
}
@Override
public boolean isMultiValued() {
return false;
}
@Override
public boolean isMandatoryEnforced() {
return false;
}
@Override
public boolean isMandatory() {
return false;
}
@Override
public boolean isIndexedAtomically() {
return false;
}
@Override
public boolean isIndexed() {
return false;
}
@Override
public String getTitle() {
return "Percent Expended";
}
@Override
public QName getName() {
return PROP_CALC_PERCENT_EXPENDED;
}
@Override
public ModelDefinition getModel() {
/* This is the name of a model that this type will belong to,
it's at the top of a model file for example
<model name="pmodl:risksDataListModel" xmlns="http://www.alfresco.org/model/dictionary/1.0">
*/
return AlfUtil.services().getDictionaryService().getModel(
MODEL_RISKS_DATA_LIST);
}
@Override
public IndexTokenisationMode getIndexTokenisationMode() {
return null;
}
@Override
public String getDescription() {
return null;
}
@Override
public String getDefaultValue() {
return null;
}
@Override
public DataTypeDefinition getDataType() {
return AlfUtil.services().getDictionaryService().getDataType(
DataTypeDefinition.INT);
}
@Override
public ClassDefinition getContainerClass() {
return null;
}
@Override
public List getConstraints() {
return null;
}
};Create a new context file to instantiate the filters
In the usual places (e.g. WEB-INF/alfresco/extension/custom-form-context.xml) create a new context file and instantiate the filter.
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC '-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN'
'http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd'>
<beans>
<bean id="projectStatusFilterNode"
class="com.ziaconsulting.forms.ProjectStatusFilter"
parent="baseFormFilter">
<property name="filterRegistry" ref="nodeFilterRegistry" />
</bean>
<bean id="projectStatusFilterType"
class="com.ziaconsulting.forms.ProjectStatusFilter"
parent="baseFormFilter">
<property name="filterRegistry" ref="typeFilterRegistry" />
</bean>
</beans>
Tell Share to display the fields in the forms
Using the standard method to modify a form in share using the form service tell the node and type forms to display. This means creating a share-config-custom.xml and adding a few extra elements to your currently configured data list.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<alfresco-config>
<config evaluator="model-type" condition="pmodl:projectStatus">
<forms>
<!-- Data Grid view -->
<form id="datagrid">
<field-visibility>
<show id="pmodl:projectName"/>
<show id="pmodl:projectStatus"/>
<show id="pmodl:budget"/>
<show id="pmodl:actuals"/>
<show id="pmodl:etc"/>
<show id="pmodl:eac"/>
<!-- New Calculated column -->
<show id="pmodl:pecentExpendedCalculated"/>
</field-visibility>
</form>
</forms>
</config>
<config evaluator="node-type" condition="pmodl:projectStatus">
<forms>
<!-- Data Grid view -->
<form id="datagrid">
<field-visibility>
<show id="pmodl:projectName"/>
<show id="pmodl:projectStatus"/>
<show id="pmodl:budget"/>
<show id="pmodl:actuals"/>
<show id="pmodl:etc"/>
<show id="pmodl:eac"/>
<!-- New Calculated column -->
<show id="pmodl:pecentExpendedCalculated"/>
</field-visibility>
</form>
</forms>
</config>
</alfresco-config>
Next Steps, upgrading to 3.4b
The upgrade to 3.4 isn't too bad. Alfresco changed the API and didn't bother to leave any hints about how to upgrade, but fortunately I was able to re-figure out how to do this. I'll publish the updates later this week.
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