JDev 11.1.2: Differences in Table Behavior

 While building a simple ADF application in JDev 11.1.2 I encountered some strange runtime behavior. I built another application with the same behavior in exactly the same way in JDev 11.1.1.4 and there things worked smoothly. However, in JDev 11.1.2, the addRow and deleteRow functions didn't work as expected. In this post I will share my tough journey in founding out what was happening, and discuss the difference in behavior and the changes required to make it work in JDev 11.1.2.

When using the add row button (the green plus icon in the screen shot below) an error message for the required JobId dropdown list was shown immediately.

 

Some investigation using the Google Chrome Developer tools revealed that two requests instead of one are sent to the server, with apparently the second request causing the validation error to appear. (Although, the validation error is a client-side error, so still not sure how the second request can trigger the error.)

At first I thought this was caused by the partialSubmitproperty on the addRow button, which was set to true. Setting this property to false (or removing this property) fixed this problem, but caused table rendering to hang. Weird, but I didn't investigate that further. I decided to build the same app in JDev 11.1.1.4 which worked smoothly and then opened this app in JDev 11.1.2. After the auto-migration, I ran the app but much to my surprise the "Selection required" message didn't show up. I compared the page and page definition of both apps over and over again, and couldn't see any difference.  Eventually, I started comparing all the files in both projects. This lead me to the adf-config.xml file, located in the .adf directory under the root directory of the application, also visible under the Resources panel. In this file, one property existed in the JDev 11.1.2 application that was not present in the JDev 11.1.1.4 version:changeEventPolicy="ppr".

By removing this property, things started to work again, and only one request was sent again.

Note that the really tricky thing here is that when you upgrade an application from JDev 11.1.1.4 this property does not get added, but new JDev 11.1.2 apps will have this property setting, causing difference in behavior between a migrated app and a new app. At this point, my recommendation is to remove this property (or set it to none) for new JDev 11.1.2 apps. If memory serves me well, in some JDev 11.1.1.x version, dragging and dropping a data a table on a page, added thechangeEventPolicy="ppr" property to the iterator binding in the page def. In a later JDev 11.1.1.x release this property was gone again. Looks like it is back in a different form (this time in adf-config.xml), but still with undesirable implications. 

The next error I hit was in the delete confirmation dialog, when trying to delete a row. Regardless of which button I pressed (Yes or No), I got validation errors on the underlying new row, and the dialog was not closed, nor was the row removed.

 

Now, I think this error has to do with the ADF Faces optimized JSF lifecycle.  Since the table needs to be refreshed when the row is removed by clicking yes in the dialog, theaf:table component  requires apartialTriggerproperty that refers to the af:dialog element. With thispartialTriggerproperty in place the ADF JSF optimized lifecycle causes the table items to be submitted (and validated) as well when clicking the Yes or No button in the dialog. Now,I am speculating here, but may be this wasn't supposed to work at all in JDev 11.1.1.4, but it did because of a bug in the optimized lifecyle code, that has now been fixed in JDev 11.1.2...?

Anyway, what feels like the most logical and easy way for me to solve this issue, is setting theimmediate property on the af:dialog to true, so the dialog listener method would skip the JSF validation phase. However, the af:dialog element does not have such a property (logged enhancement request).  Two other solutions remain:

• No longer use the dialoglistenerproperty, but instead define custom Yes/No buttons using thetoolbar facet on theaf:dialog. On these buttons I can set theimmediate property to true, bypassing client-side and server-side validation.
• Do not specify the af:dialog as partial trigger on the af:table component, instead, add the table or a surrounding layout container element as partial target programatically after deleting the row. This is the solution I chose, since it only required one line of code in the managed bean class that deletes the row.

Links and references:

• Sample JDev 11.1.1.4 application
• Sample JDev 11.1.2 application
• Bug 12813544: adf-config setting changeEventPolicy=ppr causes premature table row validation
• Enhancement request 12813445: Add immediate property to af:dialog element

原文出处：http://blogs.oracle.com/jheadstart/entry/jdev_11_1_2_differences