IBM Software Group JSF EGL Advanced Topics Jon

Agenda - Topics § § Web Design Considerations EGL/JSF Productivity Considerations Specific JSF Intermediate – Advanced Development Techniques EGL/JSF Performance Topics About this session: 4 Not being recorded 4 Informal – “for what it’s worth” – and also a “work-in-progress” In § Primarily lessons learned, and keys to success 4 Many “things you have to consider” – Questions that have to be asked, as well as answers 4 More about production page issues – less about prototypes and pilot project work 4 Web-orientation, not Text UI – or COBOL Generation 4 Roll-up of last year’s JSF/EGL Web and Enterprise Modernization experience 4 You will probably know some – perhaps a lot of what’s covered 4 Hopefully you pick up a few new things that save you time & money 4 The Project Interchange File used in the demo are on the EGL Café Last update: 12/04/2007 2

® IBM Software Group JSF and EGL Development Productivity and Design Considerations © 2006

EGL/JSF Productivity As a “declarative development paradigm”, becoming productive with EGL is a combination of two things: 1. How to do, what you want to do 2. Doing that enough times that you become facile • • Where things are Development steps Drag & Drop Eclipse orientation Consider it like playing a musical instrument • What are the notes in an “A major” scale? • What are the fingerings? • Okay – I got it. Now I have to apply it to this Beethoven sonata If you are like me (an ex-mainframe developer – aka “dinosaur”) there is a lot to learn. But if you’ve learned through hands-on tutorials, and get the opportunity to use EGL full-time, you will get there – and become productive. Extremely productive. But only if you both know how to do what you want to do – and practice, will you learn to “think in EGL” (Jake Berberich, Xavier Consulting Group) – and learn to “see in JSF” Last update: 12/04/2007 4

Complex (Production) Applications and Productivity Three categories: 1. “Green field” (new) applications 2. Enterprise Modernization – of character-based applications 3. Enterprise Modernization of GUI (Power. Builder, VB, SQL*Forms, etc. ) applications All three • Represent significantly different problem-domains • Have different keys to success • Require different skills and backgrounds But all three have in common a solid grasp of: • EGL – language and tools • JSF – tools and development techniques …and an understanding of (“about” knowledge): • Web – Design and development • • • U. I. design principles for the web HTML – concepts (you will use the RBD tools in practice) Java. Script – how to find and use Java. Script (not write) Last update: 12/04/2007 5

Obtaining a “Solid Grasp” on the EGL, JSF and Development Domain – 1 of 2 Tools: • EGL: Tutorials: http: //www-949. ibm. com/software/rational/cafe/docs/DOC-2412 EGL Programmer’s Guide – Help System and: http: //www-949. ibm. com/software/rational/cafe/community/egl/documentation EGL Language Reference – Help System and: http: //www-949. ibm. com/software/rational/cafe/community/egl/documentation EGL Forum: http: //www-949. ibm. com/software/rational/cafe/community/egl? view=discussions • • Tutorials: http: //www-949. ibm. com/software/rational/cafe/docs/DOC-2412 JSF Forum: http: //www. ibm. com/developerworks/forum. jspa? forum. ID=378 JSF: Web Application “Development Domain”: Recommendation to bring in web-design/graphics specialists. If not, consider the following sites: § Links to design pattern examples: – – – • http: //www. welie. com/patterns/ - really excellent, detailed pattern site http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/User_interface - no list is complete without a wikipedia entry http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/User_interface_design - or two And of course this, for color-coordination • http: //www. wellstyled. com/tools/colorscheme 2/index-en. html Many excellent HTML, . CSS and Java. Script tutorials free on the web (just GOOGLE “Learn HTML”) – you’ll get more hits than you can shake a stick at Attend conferences: http: //www-949. ibm. com/software/rational/cafe/docs/DOC-2452 And of course, when all else fails e. Mail the EGL ECO-system team: • Sanjay Chandru, Mark Evans, Vijay Katoch, Jon Sayles, etc. Last update: 12/04/2007 6

Mastering the Tools and Development Domain – 2 of 2 Also check out other resources on the EGL Café. Especially the EGL Forum. Also use the Café to make connections with Business Partners and experts in EGL Last update: 12/04/2007 7

Green Field – New Applications Considerations § Use the out-of-the-box tooling and techniques: 4 You can – spend endless hours and days trying to make JSF do things that are only possible with gobs of customized, hand-written Java. Script and HTML 4 Conversely you can design and develop your application using the JSF components as they exist in the tooling: § Benefits: – – Productivity – by at least one magnitude of order (far) fewer errors Easier to maintain and enhance Increased learning on your part – more scales, more practice! 4 Recommendation: § Introduce the JSF components to: – Users – Web designers and graphic artists § Explain benefits and R. O. I. of designers doing initial work on. JTPLs and page prototypes using JSF and EGL JSFHandlers (see upcoming topic) § Some of those who’ve gone this route: 4 http: //www-01. ibm. com/software/success/cssdb. nsf/CS/WJBN-7 DPR 5 T? Open. Document&Site=rational&cty=en_us http: //www-01. ibm. com/software/success/cssdb. nsf/CS/WJBN-7 DPR 5 T? Open. Document&Site=rational&cty= 4 http: //www-01. ibm. com/software/success/cssdb. nsf/CS/WJBN-73 UQN 7? Open. Document&Site=rational&cty=en_us Last update: 12/04/2007 8

Enterprise Modernization – Character-Based Applications § Considerations: 4 U. I. bar is set fairly low (relative to GUI apps) § § Small # of fields per/screen – consistent with mainframe high-transaction systems Small amount of data sent/received Same stateless model as the web Simple controls and page design starting point (literals/input/output fields) 4 Other U. I. concerns § § Need for user re-training (if deep U. I. re-design) Need for hot-key and PF-Key emulation 4 Often large # of screens § Make every attempt to cookie-cut: – – – Template pages – for U. I. and consistency Data. Items – for centralized and non-duplicate effort EGL statement templates, macros and Snippets – for business logic/JSFHandler development 4 Must decide on overall application U. I. page pattern and design approach. Current (du jour) model: § Tab page – used to roll up 1 – n (we’ve seen as many as 19) character-based screens into one web page view – § Different tab protocols though – we discuss this later in the slides Menu screens – become inline JSF menus 4 Performance § § § Character-based apps typically delivered sub-second response time This can be difficult to achieve with Java/JSP technology We discuss performance later in the slides 4 Reuse of production RPG/COBOL business logic very attractive § But consider need for – and cost of mainframe refactor/reengineer of code and processes (see next slide) Last update: 12/04/2007 9

Three Ways of Modernizing Applications Wrapping Re-engineering Redeveloping Use of screen-scraping to package "pseudo-services" Business logic is modularized and separated from presentation Business logic of services is redesigned from scratch Data Model Mixed Business Logic and Presentation Logic Business Logic Wrapper Interface Presentation Logic Orchestration Interface Source: Gartner Last update: 12/04/2007 10

Enterprise Modernization – GUI (client/server) Applications § Considerations: 4 U. I. bar often set fairly high: § § § Large # of fields/screen Complex layout – we will be covering this later in the session Complex controls: – § § Tree controls Complex user-event model Large amount of data Stateful …vs… Stateless model – often transaction management becomes an issue Often requirement to realize the existing production U. I. VERY CLOSELY – This can be difficult or even impossible some times, with any Web/HTML-based technology 4 Often small # of custom (and complex) screens § § Not necessarily a “good” thing, as the reuse factor for templates, etc. is diminished And the complex screens can be VERY complex: – – Layout User/event handling 4 Performance § While GUIs typically were not sub-second response time, the “fat client” application model allowed for enormous #s of rows: – – 20, 000 90, 000 rows per/database access not atypical This is not a good model for the web (ya think? ) 4 Reuse of production SQL business logic very attractive § Harvest using techniques in Foundation Tutorials Last update: 12/04/2007 11

Keys to Success Two perspectives: § Overall 4 Across disciplines § U. I. 4 Specific to EGL/JSF development Overall Keys to Success 4 Develop with “scaffolding” approach: § Build from the bottom up – – – § Test at each level: – – § Cause …and… Effect Simplifies problem determination Scaffolding approach allows/encourages: – – § Start with Business object and Data Access Layer Test library/service functions with EGL programs Then interface to client (“handler”) resources Functional decomposition (aka “Divide and Conquer”) Reuse – of all project elements Most importantly – Development using the scaffolding approach gives you control over a complex process 4 Use the tools you’ve bought – and don’t be afraid to nose around: § Many useful features of EGL/JSF – not even covered in the classroom training 4 Use the techniques in the EGL Best Practices Power. Point: § http: //www-949. ibm. com/software/rational/cafe/docs/DOC-2482 Last update: 12/04/2007 12

Web Site Navigator – U. I. Key to Success Web Site Navigator Last update: 12/04/2007 13

Design first, then develop – U. I. Key to Success Considerations: • • Page Designer is an excellent development/construction tool But, obtain better productivity when working from a visual model With apologies to Gary Larsen Last update: 12/04/2007 14

. JTPL Pages – U. I. Key to Success Considerations: • Create and design your. JTPL(s): Based on in-house. CSS • • • If necessary – start with an IBM-supplied. JTPL • Especially be cognizant of font-sizes for “busy” Client/Server app re-writes . JTPL (page) should contain/consist of: Static layout – for common page patterns • • Text, Graphics, buttons, breadcrumbs, banners “Common-elements” JSF layout (that is – dynamic content used on all pages that “inherit” from the. JTPL): • • • If wanting to use hx: form properties (set focus to field, map Enter to click, etc. ) remove the <hx: form> and </hx: form> tags from the. JTPL • • DIV/Tables - Note: Be sure to account for target browser screen resolutions JSF menus, Date, Page identifier, Read/only server-side data, User info, etc JSFHandler (EGL) for. JTPL should contain: • Authorization • FORWARD TO URL • Role-based business logic • • • http: //www. stop. Trying. To. Hack. In. jsp - in on. Construction, etc. Attributes set in the. JTPL areas Data access routines common to page startup Dynamic properties set – hide/show menu entries, for given user views, etc. • Create. JTPL “test page” – with prototyped data (see next slide) • Run on server, and Obtain sign-off on the. JTPL Last update: 12/04/2007 15

Prototype. JSP Pages – U. I. Key to Success Considerations: • • Create your pages based on the templates • In the JSFHandlers: Use the “Explicit Design” – development approach to laying out pages: • • Add EGL basic. Records (for U. I. binding) Create functions (routines) to value the basic. Records • • • This is assuming the data access layer is not complete – or that you can’t use something like Derby to prototype Run on the server Validate the U. I. – layout, dimensions, etc. Last update: 12/04/2007 16

Effective Use of the JSF/EGL Tooling Macro Templates Last update: 12/04/2007 17

Example – Use of the JSF/EGL Tooling – Macros and Templates Last update: 12/04/2007 18

Example – Use of the JSF/EGL Tooling – Macros and Templates Last update: 12/04/2007 19

® IBM Software Group JSF and EGL Intermediate – to – Advanced Development Techniques

Use Case Patterns § Page Patterns 4 Organization Patterns § Tab page - advanced intermediate to advanced techniques § Frameset style Tab page § Read/Update Pages 4 Master Detail Options § Multiple pages § Inline Frames 4 Menu and page real estate options § Tree Control § Accordion Palette § Section 4 Popup options § JSF Tab Panel § Java. Script Popup 4 AJAX and Java. Script § Complex AJAX page § Firing Java. Script from EGL (server-side) logic § Laying out complex pages § JSP Page Performance topics 4 Programmatic Paging 4 JSF Performance (General) Last update: 12/04/2007 21

Tab Pages Very popular and prevalent page pattern and U. I. model • Ubiquitous for GUI-Client/Server re-development to EGL • And attractive first phase in modernizing E. M. / green screen applications • And for Green Field (brand new) designs Common model for: • Master/Detail – U. I. requirements • Framework-emulation Many options for Tab pages: • Tabs on top/Tabs on left • Icons in tab panels • Tab control’s U. I. completely customizable, via: tabpanel. css + stylesheet. css • AJAX support can be embedded into tabs (see example later in this slide deck) • Can use Java. Script to “click” – jump to a particular bfpanel • Tab height can be programmatically specified from EGL • Can embed tabs within tabs • Can use tabs – “creatively” (see scrolling. DT. jsp Many bfpanel options: • Java. Script events: • • onenter/onexit • Allows you to fire any server-side event (EGL function) when user’s click a panel Can hide/show a bfpanel From EGL JSFHandler – can detect which bfpanel has been clicked Can embed icons in bfpanels • And programmatically change the icons Last update: 12/04/2007 22

Tab Pages tab. Page. jsp Last update: 12/04/2007 23

Simulated Tab Pages – Buttons on Inline Frame When you need to render fixed information inside a “tabbed” metaphor, consider using the following design: • • • Header Buttons (and Command Buttons with images) – that open a JSP page inside of an in-Line frame Fixed information Inline frame Footer Allows you to: • • • Modularize application design Simplify development (parallel) Make individual JSP pages and JSFHandlers smaller If update, must consider commit Last update: 12/04/2007 24

Simulated Tab Pages – Buttons on Inline Frame frameworkpage. jsp Last update: 12/04/2007 25

Ways to Manage Page Real Estate – JSF Panel Sections panel. Section. jsp Can collapse/expand entire areas of screen real estate Very simple tooling Browser-invoked Last update: 12/04/2007 26

Page Pattern – Pages That Are Either Read …or… Update General Principles It is a common page pattern to allow (certain) users to see read/only controls on pages (i. e. disabled/read only input controls, or just plain output controls), and other users to either see update-able controls (i. e. enabled input controls). The design and development question becomes – what is the best method of providing this functionality? The standard options are: 1. Create multiple pages: § § 2. Use Java. Script to do disable/enable controls: § § 3. Pros – One page. Performance – as all of the run-time functionality occurs in the browser Cons – Maintenance and development costs are very high. Need to learn, write, test, maintain custom Java. Script – need Java. Script code for every control to be disabled/enabled Use JSF tooling – Separate output/input controls. Hide as appropriate with JSF rendered property § § 4. Pros – Have complete control over each page Cons – The server will have to load a new page/URL. Maintenance and development costs are duplicated Pros – One page. Easy development/Enabling using JSF rendered/EGL boolean variables. Cons – Server-side performance. Design-time view can be cumbersome, with duplicated individual controls, or a completely duplicated HTML table-full of controls inside a JSF Group Box/JSP. Basically, you will have two separate controls for each field on the screen. Use JSF tooling – Single controls. Disable/Enable with JSF properties § § Pros – One page. Easy development/Enabling using JSF disabled/read-only and style. Class properties Cons – Server-side performance (slight). Will need to code EGL JSFHandler logic to enable/disable all controls. Also, the look and feel of disabled controls is not the same as output fields. Last update: 12/04/2007 27

Master Detail – Multiple Pages Typical “drill-down” pattern. Similar work-flow to mainframe applications Last update: 12/04/2007 28

Master Detail – Inline Frame Consolidate information in one browser Last update: 12/04/2007 29

Master Detail – data. Table With Details – in. Line Form Consolidate information in one browser Simple approach (all in the tooling) Not much in the way of U. I. /Layout options form allcustomers. Edit. Panel. jsp Data. Table Properties Last update: 12/04/2007 Also – probably select Row Action to update individual row 30

Master Detail – data. Table With Details – Row Select Collapse/Expand Combine data. Table (list) with detail information - in. Line More complex development But total control over layout/U. I. options form allcustomers 6. jsp Last update: 12/04/2007 31

Menu Controls – Tree Controls Tree Control very popular menu-type control • Especially for Client/Server redevelopment efforts Can: • Populate Tree control with dynamic Contents – using EGL dynamic arrays • Have up to seven “LEVELS” of nesting • Respond to user click – and fire off Java. Script for browser-events • Customize icons • Programmatically Last update: 12/04/2007 32

Tree Controls tree. Page. jsp Note – Tree controls depend on EGL “nested arrays” for their hierarchical content. section later on this slide-deck on that topic. Last update: 12/04/2007 33 See the

Menu Controls – Accordion Menu (“Palette”) Control Accordion Menu (“Palette”) another very popular approach to preserving real-estate on a page Requires custom: • . CSS • HTML • Java. Script Can embed EGL server-side values inside individual palette “drawers” Not available from the JSF tooling! Last update: 12/04/2007 34

Accordion Menu (“Palette”) Control Not yet documented. In the project: accordian. Palette. jsp Last update: 12/04/2007 35

Complex Page Design – HTML Tables/Div tags – 7 Tips and Techniques *** Bill Andreas This section on is presented courtesy Bill Andreas – a world-class thought leader on the topic of JSF and U. I. page design 1) Always set cell-padding, cell spacing and cell margins to zero on all tables and generally on most divs used in conjunction with tables 2) Make sure all tables always have a width. Use percentage widths sparingly. If you use heights (e. g. , 100%) you may need to add Java. Script that is triggered on page resizes to force some things to be the right size. § I have only find you need to do this for Firefox and only when you have a table cell that has a height that's a percentage AND where that table cell contains a div (or rarely a table) that has a height of 100% (i. e. , it should be the height of the containing cell). Firefox screws this up. The Java. Script needed to correct this is simply to look up the container cell's actual height and set the contained things height to that explicit height. – E. g. , say "div 1" with a height of 100% is inside a cell that has a percentage height. § Then code of this sort (in the onload and onsize events of the body tag) can be used to tidy up the page: var obj = document. get. Elementby. Id("div 1"); if (obj && obj. parent. Node. tag. Name. to. Upper. Case()=="TD") { var ht = obj. parent. Node. offset. Height; obj. style. height = ht + "px"; } 3) Make sure as many columns as possible have an explicitly-specified width. 4) To ensure columns (particularly big "wide" columns used to do general page layout) have a minimum width that works, tuck an invisible gif 1 pixel high and nnn pixels wide (where nnn is the minimum width) in the top of the column. Why? 4 Because in HTML when you set a width on a column, this is not actually an explicit width (e. g. , td width="200") does not mean the column is 200 pixels wide. 4 If, however, there is a non-breaking entity in the column (such as an img tag), then the column will always be AT LEAST as wide as that entity (no matter what). 4 So if you are making a table that's to be used for "layout", you may want to put a placeholder image in a cell to ensure the cell is always at least that wide. Last update: 12/04/2007 36

Complex Page Design – HTML Tables/Div tags – 7 Tips and Techniques – continued 5) Use a mix of tables and absolutely positioned divs that in turn contain tables (to layout our "form-like things"). § Use a 1 -3 level set of nested HTML tables to break the page up into sections (e. g. , header, footer, left-nav column, main body, . . . ) § Inside each of the main areas, use absolutely positioned div tags to contain the content. § In those divs, if need be, use additional (nested) tables that contain detailed content. 6) Try to keep the nesting of any set of tables to three or less… primarily for efficiency, as nested HTML tables notoriously slow down a page -- the deeper the nesting the slower the page. But also, avoiding this (4 or more level HTML table nesting) does minimize browser differences in rendering. 7) Don't use table columns (td's) to do line breaking in data tables with "lengthy data". Put a fixed-width div in the column and have the div contain the data (so the div does the line breaking instead of the td). Note that I do not use the line wrap cell contents" checkbox in the JSF tooling, but instead hand code: <td><div style="width: 200 px">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas lacus urna, ornare nec, adipiscing sit amet, tempus ut, risus. Vestibulum aliquam lectus sed libero. </div></td> …instead of… <td width="200”>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas lacus urna, ornare nec, adipiscing sit amet, tempus ut, risus. Vestibulum aliquam lectus sed libero</td> § You'll get better quality line breaks and the table will hold it's column widths better. Note that this "div wrapping" of content in a cell, is often used throughout tables instead of using explicit widths on columns. 4 For example, compare: <table><tr><td><div style="width: 50 px">data column 1</div></td><div style="width: 150 px">data column 2</div></td></tr></table> <table><tr><td width="50">data column 1</td><td width="150">data column 2</td></tr></table> § The first (using divs) will give you more accurate column widths than the second. It will, however require more markup (each row has to include the divs), so might be marginally slower. Note that when you turn on "vertical scrolling" in an hx; data. Table. Ex, the JSF tooling does the above for you automatically (render div-based widths instead of td-based widths) Last update: 12/04/2007 37

® IBM Software Group AJAX and Java. Script Thanks to Muneer Sai’d © 2006

AJAX – Advanced Usage – Search on. Key. Up Typical “drill-down” pattern. Similar work-flow to mainframe applications Note – this technique and how to build the page is covered in the EGL-JSF-v 71. ppt Last update: 12/04/2007 39

Java. Script – Firing off Java. Script From EGL Typical “drill-down” pattern. Similar work-flow to mainframe applications Last update: 12/04/2007 40

® IBM Software Group Java. Script – Right-click over a Page, and How to Programmatically Respond to any Key in the Browser You may need to support page right-clicking, trapping the event either to fire something off, or disable it. Here’s one way to do this, using Java. Script. Also – you might need to trap for anytime the user presses ANY given key – example: a number, or a character, or something like Pg. Up/Pg. Dn, etc. © 2006 IBM Corporation

Java. Script to Trap For User Right-Click At the end of the. JSP page’s source file, copy and paste the statements in the Notes section of this slide. 4 Note (from the screen capture) that the onmousedown event for a Link on a field in a JSF data. Table calls a click(); function 4 The click(e) function checks to see if it’s a right-click, and if so, opens a modal dialog window (which was another workshop in this course). 4 You could do anything there, instead, including pass parameters from the clicked row to the modal window, supplying context. § The Notes section also contains a link to a web article on trapping for clicked events Last update: 12/04/2007 42

Java. Script to Trap For Pg. Up/Pg. Dn You can employ the same kind of Java. Script coding technique to trap for any keyboard/ASCII character. Here’s an example of someone that wanted to fire off call when the user pressed Pg. Up or Pg. Dn The project shows this, with page. Down. jsp § The Notes section also contains this source Last update: 12/04/2007 43

® IBM Software Group Filling Nested Arrays With Values From Tables This Learning Module describes the use of EGL and data access operations to fill nested arrays. It coincidentally shows how to turn a nested array data structure into a nested JSF data. Table. © 2006 IBM Corporation

Another OPTIONAL Workshop – Filling a Nested Array of Records From the Database Problem - Need to fill a nested array of records. Example “Detail report of a customers orders” Customer > Orders > Order. Items > Item Development choices: 4 Table join - to do the database access. With an additional iteration (for loop) over the join record, to parse out individual array records in the hierarchy 4 Multiple cursor operation: 1. get customers. . . for each customer 2. get orders. . . for each order 3. get Order. Items, etc. § § Be suspicious of dichotomous thinking, (making things black & white) there's probably not a one -size-fits-all answer. Setting aside development time, performance trade offs include: 4 Table join - would be better DBMS performance - but could lead to worse Server Performance 4 Multiple cursors - would be better server performance But if DB 2 is remote, what’s the penalty for all those cursor set opens/loops/closes) § Let’s try this out, and see how it would be to develop Last update: 12/04/2007 45

OPTIONAL Workshop – Filling a Nested Array of Records From the Database – 1 of 5 Steps: 1. Open Customer. egl (it’s under: EGLSourceeglderbyr 7. data 2. Scroll to the end of the file 3. From the Notes section of this slide, copy and paste three new record declarations found into Customer. egl – as new basic. Records 4. Save and close Customer. egl In preparation for the next slide – do the following: 4. Open Customer. Lib. egl EGLSourceeglderbyr 7. access 5. Scroll to the end of the file 6. From the Notes section in the next slide, copy and paste the function which is shown on the next slide somewhere inside the Library part of the file 7. Save, Generate (Ctrl/G) and Close Customer. Lib. egl Last update: 12/04/2007 46

OPTIONAL Workshop – Filling a Nested Array of Records From the Database – 2 of 5 4. Open Customer. Lib. egl EGLSourceeglderbyr 7. acces s 5. Scroll to the end of the file 6. From the Notes section, copy and paste the function inside the Library part of the file – as a new call-able function 7. Save and… 8. Generate (Ctrl/G) Read the comments carefully, to understand the various elements of this nested array population logic Last update: 12/04/2007 47

OPTIONAL Workshop – Filling a Nested Array of Records From the Database – 3 of 5 From Project Explorer: Create a new. JSP page under Web. Content, named: 1. From Page Designer, “Edit Page Code” 2. From the Notes section, copy and paste the replacement code for the boiler-plate handler 3. Read the new code to understand its functionality 4. Save 5. Return to the. JSP in the Content Area Last update: 12/04/2007 48 customer. Purchase. Order. Page. jsp

OPTIONAL Workshop – Filling a Nested Array of Records From the Database – 4 of 5 From Page Designer/Page Data: § Drag & Drop cust. Search. ID onto the page Make it an input field § Drag & Drop the customer. Purchase. Order. Search() function on top of the Submit button § Optionally add an HTML Horizontal Rule § Drag & Drop the cust record onto the page, below the submit button § Optionally make all of the fields Readonly (output) Last update: 12/04/2007 49

OPTIONAL Workshop – Filling a Nested Array of Records From the Database – 5 of 5 Run the page on the server Try different customer IDs Note: If time permits, work with your instructor to add some pizz-azz to the output: Last update: 12/04/2007 50

® IBM Software Group JSF and EGL Page Performance Best Practices – Java Generation This topic presents a number of ways to make your web pages faster, more efficient and more usable. Thanks to Yury Kats, Steve Dearth and Mark Evans for their input and assistance. © 2006 IBM Corporation

Programmatic Paging For the following types of applications: • High volume transaction systems • High database access applications – especially where users can execute potentially run-away queries Considerations: • • • No JSF pager controls Requires RBDMS/Table unique key (column(s) that guarantee unique row access) Intermediate-level complexity procedural logic Two parts: 1. JSFHandler: • • • Get next N rows Get prev N rows Track previous “starting position” in an array 2. Optional JSF controls: • • data. Table displaying N rows Fetch “more” rows Many “variations on this theme” available: • • • Start with Select Count(*) for total # of rows. Display total count, and allow users to specify: Continue, Bail, etc. May want to position to 1 st set of rows, last set of rows, etc. Integrate with AJAX Last update: 12/04/2007 52

Programmatic Paging For the following types of applications: • High volume transaction systems • High database access applications – especially where users can execute potentially run-away queries Last update: 12/04/2007 53

Overview § Performance is a broad subject, especially in a context of a complex framework such as EGL/JSF applications running under WAS. 4 Note that – every application server will pose its own unique idiosyncratic challenges to performance § There a lot of variables and a lot of points to look at. § In general, one could split any EGL/JSF based application into four layers in terms of addressing performance: 1. Session Management 2. JSF and Application Design 3. WAS Tuning 4. EGL tuning Last update: 12/04/2007 54

1. Session Management § Especially for high-volume applications, limit the use of: 4 Pages in session scope 4 Large amounts of discrete session data – especially objects such as EGL arrays and records, etc. ) § It is understood that this will increase the complexity of the JSFHandler business logic. 4 Increasing costs associated with development, testing and maintenance, and increasing the risk of … And that there is often a trade-off in request-scope pages, where the system must re-load them from the server, and they must re-read the database, etc. § So an accurate "Transaction/Page Throughput or Usage Model" is necessary to: 4 Identify candidates for tuning 4 Justify increased development/testing and maintenance cost/benefits Last update: 12/04/2007 55

2. JSF and Application Design – 1 of 4 (General Principles) § This is a very big topic - and unfortunately, full of caveats – and is invariably related to understanding page/transaction throughput, etc. However, in general: 4 Limit the number of displayed cells/per data. Table whenever possible ***Notes § A cell is a row/column intersection of a data. Table. § There are many reasons for this: – JSF saves and restores the entire data. Table state, throughout the lifecycle – There is a relatively high cost to create the individual data. Table cells (each cell becomes its own Java object new instance). § If your pages run the risk of emitting hundreds or thousands of cells, due to runaway user queries consider: – JSF paging …or… EGL or SQL programmatic paging 4 Use AJAX to improve performance - so processing is done in small chunks 4 For large result sets (where you’re displaying over 100 rows) use JSF features - especially every-row-data. Table-features such as Input. Row. Select, calendar pickers, Spinners, Inline forms, etc. only when necessary - as they tend to be (very) expensive forms 4 Consider breaking very large page designs up into several smaller pages with links between 4 Especially important in designing large tab-layout pages, with lots of data (and JSF components) on each tab. § For requirements like this, consider using HTML inline frames and doing any/all data access "on panel-enter" 4 Use HTML <DIV> tags whenever possible for page layout § Reserve HTML tables for tabular data display Last update: 12/04/2007 56

2. JSF and Application Design – 2 of 4 (Benchmark Design) Disclaimer: What follows on the next slide are NOT empirical umbers, obtained in an “Underwriter’s Laboratory” setting. They should be viewed as relative metrics – to learn about the costs associated with different JSF controls and data. Table row volume § Configuration – UDB 9. 1 (running locally) 4 SQL Table join was used to produce server-side result set (see slide ***Notes for code) § Implicit EGL / SQL query executed: – 20 columns of data per row – 588 rows per result set § Two additional EGL for loops iterated over the result set to produce a much larger array – and to provide some additional EGL / Java processing for benchmarking (see next slide for row set breakdown) – Individual tests focused on JSF data. Table population - between 200 and 5, 588 rows in the JSF data. Table – Did not test all permutations of JSF options against largest data. Table row-size – You will be able to extrapolate from other results § The results of the EGL/JSF server-side processing (SQL query and for/loops) to produce the EGL dynamic array was always less than 1 second 4 Version 7. 1 RDB 4 All tests measured to the second, run twice, and averaged – if any difference (rarely happened) 4 Tomcat v 5. 5 with EGL Debugging § The server was restarted between each run to ensure no page caching § All runs from same (local) machine – so no “network” performance contributing factors § Benchmark data should be interpreted “relative” to JSF design options 4 T 61 Think. Pad § § 2. 16 GHZ 2 Gigabytes memory Windows XP Tomcat, DB 2 and RDB v 7. 1 were the only applications open and running throughout the benchmark 4 Information Explorer 6. 0. 29 was used – as (Mozilla’s) Firefox browser returns interim row results – making it almost impossible to detect task completion (although it was more user-friendly for large data. Tables) Last update: 12/04/2007 57

2. JSF and Application Design – 3 of 4 (data. Table and. JSP) § The page design included various permutations of a JSF data. Table and controls (see next slide for performance details) 4 4 4 4 4 Output fields Input fields Row categorization Input row selection (checkbox) Row click Paging JSF Widgets (calendar controls, etc. ) data. Table border Alternate row colors Last update: 12/04/2007 58

2. JSF and Application Design – 4 of 4 (Benchmark Conclusions) § Large #s of rows can be displayed all at once in the browser giving reasonable (or at least linear) response time – if you are using default JSF input or output fields without additional JSF functionality 4 5, 588 rows/10 columns of output fields: 8 seconds 4 2, 588 rows/10 columns of output fields: 4 seconds § Large #s of columns can also be displayed in reasonable response time 4 200 columns/Input fields in a data. Table: 7 seconds § Large #s of rows X Large #s of columns displayed all at once in the browser (> 2, 000 rows): 4 Caused slow response time 4 Non-linear response time …vs… # of cells (delay goes up geometrically past certain internal threshold) 4 Take care when mixing with data. Table-level components: § § Row Categorization Row Selection (clicked-event on a row) 4 Be especially careful when adding JSF field-level components to large data. Tables: § § Calendar widgets Spinners for numeric data Input Selection (row checkboxes) Inline forms § Input fields are more expensive than output fields § JSF component-costs are cumulative – adding more JSF functionality (more widgets, etc. ) increases response time (Best Practice) Alleviate of the above with JSF Paging or with EGL/SQL Programmatic Paging 4 20 rows/per page offered excellent response time even thousands of rows to display, and multiple JSF widgetst/per row § § Initial page rendering was less than 3 seconds – unless adding multiple JSF field-level components (and even then ~5 second response time) Most subsequent U. I. actions were sub-second § EGL/SQL server-side processing a non-factor (at least in this benchmark) – up to thousands of rows 4 If user queries could return tens or hundreds of thousands of rows recommend EGL/SQL programmatic paging 4 Otherwise, JSF Paging yielded very acceptable results Last update: 12/04/2007 59

3. Application Server Tuning § Application Server tuning is a critical component of any system performance effort. § There are numerous IBM Redbooks (some free, some for-pay) and Developer Works articles (free) on Web. Sphere and application server tuning. § But suffice it to say that, your WAS system administrator should not be the lowestpaid team member on-staff. § Obviously don't forget to turn off such development niceties, as: 4 vgj. trace options 4 Write. Std. Out(XXX) for debugging 4 Etc. Last update: 12/04/2007 60

4. EGL Tuning – 1 of 2 § EGL tuning falls into two sub-topics: 4 SQL performance tuning 4 EGL language coding best practices § SQL performance 4 The current RBD-EGL. ppt contains a number of specific tips and techniques for improving individual SQL statement efficiency. 4 In general, these all require an in-depth understanding of the physical database design (indexes, clustering, cardinality, etc. ), coupled with DBMS-optimizer knowledge, the ability to read EXPLAIN outputs, as well as having an accurate transaction/usage model – calibrated to relational structures § Not cheap information to come by. § In general - the major use of SQL performance tuning efforts is in limiting the # of rows returned to arrays bound to data. Tables by utilizing Programmatic Paging. § Note also the following hierarchy of most – to least efficient application/SQL access: 4 Stored Procedures 4 Static SQL 4 Dynamic SQL … Not surprisingly – this hierarchy could also represent a most-to-least work model Last update: 12/04/2007 61

4. EGL Tuning – 2 of 2 § EGL performance is typically "micro-tuning" compared to the previous topics § Some things to consider include: 4 Whenever logically-feasible, put long running data and host-access logic in pre. Render (not on. Construction) functions § on. Construction has hooks into the JSF emit/render cycle – making pre. Render a better option 4 There are some numeric handling and conversion best practices: § Use SMALLINT/BIGINT if you can. § Variables without decimals are faster than variables with decimals. § In COBOL, a calculation that uses NUMs is faster than one that uses NUMCs, and a calculation that uses DECIMALs is faster than one that uses PACFs. 4 If a piece of code is inside a loop and it always results in the same value, pull it out of the loop and put the result in a local variable. - For example, change: for (i int from 1 to size(<array>) by 1)… to: sz int = size(<array>); for (i int from i to sz by 1)… Last update: 12/04/2007 62

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Using JSF to Scroll Through Pictures § Simple to program (just update an array or set of images server-side) § Example invokes AJAX for smoother page transition § Run-Time (HTML) Image Scrolling – pic. Scroller. jsp Last update: 12/04/2007 64

Using JSF for HTML Drag ‘n Drop § Sometimes found in Client/Server applications § Better supported through Rich UI § Run-Time (HTML) Drag and Drop – test. DND. jsp Last update: 12/04/2007 65