Info Window

POWER WINDOW THE NEW IDEMPIERE INFO-WINDOW

by

REDHUAN D. OON

[email protected]

Doc Version 0.1

With Super Sub-Info Tabs

from Anthony Soosah (Xolali), GHANA

My effort sponsored by SYSNOVA of BANGLADESH

www.sysnova.com

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.sysnova.com

http://www.sysnova.com

MORE MAGIC FROM THE BEST ERP SOFTWARE IN THE WORLD

Get One View of Your Data Islands: What You Want To

See, How You Want To See It, What You Want It To Do, and

What Else Is Related To It

The 3 Laws of red1:Information is Free

YOU HAVE TO KNOW

People are NotYOU HAVE TO PAY

Contributors are PricelessYOU HAVE TO BE

BANGLADESHp r e s e n t e d b y

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble 5

Some Politics 5

Part of iDempiere 8

Movie Tutorials 8

Operations 9

WMS Example 9

Setting the Table Query 10

Columns Setting 11

Using Info-Window 12

Introducing Sub-Infos 14

Setting Up Sub-Infos 14

Using Sub-Infos 15

Developer Work 17

Coding the Process 17

PREAMBLE

Some Politics

An Info-Window is a display panel that contains Search criteria to select a set of data across dif-

ferent tables, resolved in an SQL JOIN statement. It differs from the traditional Compiere type of

Window-Tabs where each Tab displays a particular table. Even though Compiere has a View ta-

ble that is based on an SQL JOIN statement too, you still need to go to the Advanced Search tab

to specify your Search criteria. An Info-Window is more usable in a single-window or same-page

display. It is also meant to be hard-coded in its panel design thus giving a more customised and

dynamic look. Take a look at this traditional Order Info display below, that has existed since

Compiere days to get the idea.

After the selling off of Compiere to a closed-minded business group, the community needed to

continue the freedom to change the source as a temporal project which I headed for a while called

ADempiere. Then with the latest OSGi framework adoption, it is now known as iDempiere un-

der the more able stewardship of Carlos Ruiz and Low Heng Sin. During ADempiere days, e-

Evolution of Mexico introduced the Smart-Browser which is an abstraction of the Inf0-Window

with the addition of a process button. Over here in iDempiere, Heng Sin, not to be outdone, in-

troduced a more efficient Inf0-Window but without the process feature. Still, Heng Sin’s ap-

proach is versatile in that he does not completely deprecate the Compiere regime. Later on this.

So finally I introduced the process function to make it on par with Smart-Browser and quite the

same time noticed another innovation from Ghana, by Anthony Soosah (Xolali) that added sub

info-windows to the same Info-Window. Worried about breaking his work or vice versa, I took in

his code and changes and resynched and test to ensure all can work well in one base.

Power Window The New iDempiere Info-Window

Copyleft 2014 - Redhuan D. Oon, SYSNOVA Page5 of 17

With sparks of technical guru-ship from Low Heng Sin and the ever-fast final review and release

effort of Carlos Ruiz, both IDEMPIERE-1711 and IDEMPIERE-1045, as these add-ons are

tracked in our JIRA (http://jira.idempiere.com) as, we can finally enjoy a highly versatile Inf0-

Window as a work of the best a community can give.

This Info-Window has a unified single store of handling the Info-Window initial SQL JOIN, un-

like Smart-Browser that must access another separate View table. The single-store approach al-

lows the user to manage the SQL WHERE clause on the same page, during fast assembling or

maintaining of any Info-Window.

With the Process field been set, the singular radio-buttons of the Info-Window will turn to

check-boxes for multiple selection before the Process button is pressed to process the selected

records. If a single record in selected, in both modes, the Zoom look-up still works.

With Xolali’s sub infos, the Info-Window can become a building block of Info captures that re-

late to each other by any of its common key index. For example the sample below which I setup as

a sample setup in the Garden World sample of iDempiere is a Business Partner Info-Window

that relates the Sales Order sub info-window and the Invoice sub info-window via the BPartner

value.



http://jira.idempiere.com

http://jira.idempiere.com

As you can see from above, this Info-Window is only available in ZK HTML user interface and

not the Swing interface. This is because the two main maintainers of iDempiere regard Swing as

an old technology that has hardly evolved the last decade and the ZK Ajax is still a very open and

fast evolving technology.

I mentioned earlier how Heng Sin did not completely deprecate the old way of Info-Window but

set it more free and versatile. This is because you can still extend the base Info-Window class.

The Info-Order you see above is actually such a case. This is a clever use of Java polymorphism to

make this so. This allow different implementations to reuse back the same base of Info-Panel

class. This is something an accomplished Java guru can achieve which I find absent in innards of

the present ADempiere’s Smart-Browser code.

The elegant design of the DefaultInfoFactory to InfoWindow to InfoPanel resulted in so few final

changes to bring about the Process feature that I worked on. When Carlos Ruiz finally reviewed

this for inclusion last week, after congratulating me, remarked how such few lines of code change

brought such a huge impact to the Info-Window. I in turn told him that we have to thank Heng

Sin who reduced my bad coding of changing 4 Java classes and more lines to only 3 classes and

less lines.

Written in Bangkok, in the midst of another spate of protest and snap elections that dots Thailand’s colourful politics.

February 3, 2014

Feb 1, I visited Siam Mall, one of the 7

sites across Bangkok, locked down by the Yellow-Shirt led sit-in protests, crippling what they called a fraudulent govern-

ment. The democrati-cally elected govt’s

only response was to call for a snap elec-

tions (Feb 2) of which the opposition has

frustrated, demand-ing electoral reform be set in place prior.



Part of iDempiere

Unlike my previous work, this one found itself into the core and is now an integral part of

iDempiere officially. It is set for the upcoming Version 3.0:

http://wiki.idempiere.org/en/NF3.0_Process_on_Info_Window

The JIRA tracker associated with this is:

http://idempiere.atlassian.net/browse/IDEMPIERE-1711

Movie Tutorials

I have made two movies to demonstrate the use of Info-Windows and also the Sub-Infos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHj7Nl2ZXp8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lp3n8jKBPw











OPERATIONS

WMS Example

I will be referring to the same sample I written in a previous documentation, WMS.pdf that de-

scribes the Libero Warehouse Management System (WMS) as a plugin. Ensuite, this plugin now

runs off this new Power-Window feature. Let’s go to that Info-Window definition again.

(Please see also: http://sourceforge.net/projects/red1/files/p2/WMS/WMS.pdf/download)

Notice that this time we have an extra field, Process. It can be assigned to any Process defined in

the Report & Process window. By selecting the OutBound process, we are all done to go and try

it out. But wait a minute, you may ask. How did you setup the Info-Window in the first place?

As nightfall will see a massive build-up prior to Elections day and possible violence, my friends advised that we should leave. I turned back to snap a shot here. You can see people coming in by foot as roads are not accessible due to traffic blockages. Most who came are middle class contributors to the GDP but robbed of controlling the corruptive schemings the ruling elite has hold sway for successive rounds of winning the elections by patronising the ru-ral electorate with hand-outs.



http://sourceforge.net/projects/red1/files/p2/WMS/WMS.pdf/download

http://sourceforge.net/projects/red1/files/p2/WMS/WMS.pdf/download

Setting the Table Query

We have good use of Info-Window in the WMS and we can now look at how that is really done.

(I am referring to older screenshots that has no Process selection. Otherwise they are the same.)

In the image below you can see the Table value as C_Order. This is important because it will be

the reference stored in T_Selection for the Process class to access.

The SQL FROM statement is defined here. It will access the main table and pull look-up infor-

mation from the JOIN tables. (Please refer to the Web for more information on how to make a

good JOIN statement. In principle it can give you whatever set of information you want from the

huge ERP database. It is so powerful that I do not understand why some people rebelled against

SQL as been outmoded or outdated. Perhaps they are referring more to the FORM way in a mod-

ern Facebook age of instant learning curve. Yes, it can be complex, but mastering it is very fulfill-

ing in the end as you can be very exact in your DB design and analysis.)

As you can see above, the Sql FROM box filled with the SQL string that comes after the FROM.

Note that you can set the JOIN values as if you are writing the SQL exactly from the point FROM.



Here the Sql FROM is pasted in text:

C_Order oINNER JOIN C_OrderLine ol ON (ol.C_Order_ID=o.C_Order_ID)INNER JOIN C_BPartner bp ON (bp.C_BPartner_ID=o.C_BPartner_ID)INNER JOIN C_BPartner_Location bpl ON (bpl.C_BPartner_Location_ID=o.C_BPartner_Location_ID)INNER JOIN C_Location l ON (l.C_Location_ID=bpl.C_Location_ID)INNER JOIN M_Product p ON (p.M_Product_ID=ol.M_Product_ID)INNER JOIN M_Product_Category pc ON (pc.M_Product_Category_ID=p.M_Product_Category_ID)

In the Sql WHERE box is:

IsSOTrx='Y' AND DocStatus='CO' AND NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM WM_InOutBoundLine WHERE WM_InOutBoundLine.C_OrderLine_ID = ol.C_OrderLine_ID)

Columns Setting

Next is the Column Tab which is important, as they will specify which column is to appear in the

results panel. Note also which item act as Query Criteria that appears in the upper panel of the

Info-Window.

Comparing this with the SmartBrowser over at ADempiere, I regard this Info-Window done by

Low Heng Sin as more usable as there is no need for an extra layer of View table to refer to as it is

done right in the Sql FROM with the described JOIN statements.



Using Info-Window

Having set all the above, we can go to the WMS Menu, and select the Info-Window, Order-

sToPicking.

Note that now the Process iconic button is now visible. However it is not enabled until you select

any number of records in the result panel. Pressing the ReQuery button, a result-set of records

shall appear. If they do not, then you have to check your Sql FROM and Sql WHERE values, as

well as the Column tab. If there are no items in Column tab, then it will definitely show nothing

in the target Info-Window.

Life goes on as Thais are used to the yo-yo political swings of the warring two factions (Yellow vs Red Shirts). Been a strong Buddhist nation, and never colonised, the Thais are hardly English speak-ing. However in the reign of King Chulalongkorn or Rama V (1853–1910), English was intoduced to the nation but nationalistic spirit swept that advan-tage away soon after his passing.



Now we go and click on the Process button.

The result is the usual Process dialog panel pop-up. Upon clicking OK or submit, we see a re-

sponse dialog box and the chosen records then disappeared from the result-set panel.

(This grand closing with a message box was done by Heng Sin in one of our lunch cafe meetings)

(Later in Developer Section, we will see how the process class handling is done from that side.)



Introducing Sub-Infos

It so happened, that while I was submitting this, Xolali in the chatroom prompted me to take a

look at his slightly earlier contribution that has yet to receive any peer reviewer, and so i down-

loaded it, tried it out and adjusted it to work within the same code base i was working on. It

turned out beautifully and I submitted a fresh patch off my changes for Carlos Ruiz to quickly

accept it, that these two are now in source and passed the nightly build. Here we shall go back to

the Info-Window screens, but now imbued with this yet another wonderful new feature.

Setting Up Sub-Infos

In the Info-Window, select the Business Partner Info record, then go to the Related Info Window

tab. Create a new related info with the Order Info and its related column as Business Partner.

Create another new one this time for relating the Invoice Info and with the same related column.

Here, both new records are shown in grid format .



Using Sub-Infos

Now we can go to the ZK UI to view the resulting changes done to the Business Partner Info win-

dow. (Info-Window as in many new features done by the main contributor, Heng Sin happens in

the ZK UI client and not the other using Swing technology which is not FOSS, having no im-

provement the last decade. ZK Ajax at the same time is at Version 7, which Heng Sin is migrating

our client to.)

Note that the Zoom button is in use above and about to launch another tab displaying the full

Business Partner window. I have tested manually that this does not break backward compatibility.



I have also tested this with a combi. The Info Window framework is robust that even when I

added a Related Info Window to the Process type of main Info Window it still maintain data op-

erational integrity as shown below.

Note also the right arrow down crumb control to slide off the lower sub panel.

I was training GrandLinux Solution Ltd Thailand on how to migrate from ADempiere to iDempiere. GSLT is founded by Sureeraya Limpaibul, seated nearest, in 2002 as a Compiere implemen-tation company. She is the first contributor on Thai localisation such as character display, lan-guage files and account-ing schema. Here in this 4

day class series, we even managed to prove her Budgetary system as a trial case to convert into a plugin. I am thinking of spending time after this to fully convert over and document it.



DEVELOPER WORK

Coding the Process

Because the InfoPanel class will embed your selected data with:

// store in T_Selection table selected rows for Execute Process that retrieves from T_Selection in code. DB.createT_Selection(instance.getAD_PInstance_ID(), getSelectedKeysCollection(),

The Process class for the Power Window is slightly different. Note the sample snippet below of

the SQL query at the doIt() method in the InOutBound example.

All you need is to access the T_Selection table again and ensure it is the same Process Instance

(AD_PInstance_ID), checked via getAD_PInstance_ID() from the SvrProcess. In the same T_Selec-

tion table is also the corresponding ID of the main record in this case its C_Order_ID.

The return statement in the form of return "@DocumentNo@ " + outbound.getDocumentNo();

will return whatever string content you passed into it for display as the final pop-up dialog box. In

this case it is the text Document No and the Outbound record new Document No as shown at the

end of page 13.



Documents

Info Window