I am running Xpages in XPiNC.
My usual pattern for an Xpages app is to have a xpHome.xsp page that is set to be the first page that is opened. In this I page I set any scope variables that are at the application level, then head to the "real" first page.
Now I have run into a problem. My current database will send out emails when a status changes, and this will include a doc link to the document, which points to the correct Xpage to open. However, because the user is not going through the home page, then my applicationScope vars are being set.
I thought I could fix this by setting a semaphore in the initApp function - the last thing it would do is to place a "Y" in an applicationScope.semaphore field. So when I open my Xpage the first thing it does is check for that, and if it is null, then I call the initApp function.
For some reason this is not working. But even so I would like to find the equivalent of the old database script "Initialize" event. Something I can call whenever the db is opened for the first time.
How do others handle this problem?
Create a managed Java bean "app" which
works on application scope
sets all application parameters
offers all application parameters
Access the bean with app.xxx in EL or Javascript or call methods directly like app.getXxx() or app.doWhatEverYouWant() in JavaScript.
The bean "app" gets initalized automatically when one of the methods gets called first time.
You can find an example here for start or google for "XPages managed beans" for more Information.
Yes, you have to switch your current code partly to Java but it should be worth it in the long run.
If you want to or have to stay with JavaScript then initialize your application scope variables in a custom control which is included in every XPage like layout.xsp in beforePageLoad event.
Use an additional variable applicationScope.initialized. Check if applicationScope variables aren't initialized yet in JavaScript with
if (!applicationScope.initialized) {
... initialize your applicationScope variables ...
applicationScope.initialized = "yes";
}
Related
If I use
context.redirectToPrevious()
It works great, but If I call an xagent with or without state between opening the document and doing a close of the document. I end up navigating to the xagent.
And If I go directly to the view behind I loose opened categories in the view.
Is there a way to block an xpage to end up in the navigation/history tree?
There are two approaches that would work.
The first is to use client-side JavaScript to open the XAgent. How you handle that will depend on whether there are values set in the browser that you are passing to sessionScope for the XAgent to use. If not, you can just use client-side JavaScript to open the relevant XAgent page. If you do need values, there are two options:
Pass them as query string parameters to the XAgent instead of storing them as sessionScope variables.
Perform a partial refresh to store the values in sessionScope and open the XAgent page via client-side JavaScript either in the onComplete() event (will trigger every time) or using view.postScript(), passing the relevant CSJS as a string (will only trigger if validation is successful).
The second is to set the previous page in the beforePageLoad event and then use that value in context.redirectToPage().
I wanted to test to see if a session scope bean was in fact valid in a beforePageLoad event using SSJS. If I clear the session scopes using the Debug toolbar I get an error when trying to test the bean to see if it is null.
if (registrationBean == null){
The error is:
Error while executing JavaScript action expression
Script interpreter error, line=2, col=22: [ReferenceError] 'registrationBean' not found
Question is how to test the bean to see if it is instantiated??? If not, then I want to go to another XPage (redirect) to allow the user to enter the values that are used to populate the bean.
Or, is this only an issue because I used the Debug Toolbar to clear ALL session and application scopes?
Howard
Use a try/catch block. If you get the error, it's null.
I suspect it's only a problem because the applicationScope has been cleared. Usually the first attempt to reference the variable instantiates the object. However, clearing the whole of applicationScope can break a lot of XPages code in your application and should be avoided.
First, make sure that the bean is set up in faces_config.xml (but it seems this is the case). Then you should not be able to reference the bean before it is instantiated...
An easy way to see when the bean is instantiated is to put a System.out.println("....") in the constructor of the bean. That should bring you on the track. You could (should!) use the OpenNTF LogReader to see what is going on - this will show you any errors thrown by the page and bean.
And then of course clearing all the data via the debug toolbar may put the system in an "unknown" state - and you should probably try to reload the page subsequently to ensure it is well-defined/-instantiated.
/John
I have a strange thing occurring; as usual, I can't post code, unfortunately, so I'm describing the problem in case anyone can suggest a possible cause.
I have an xpage with a custom control included on it; the custom control handles document locking and changing to edit/read-only modes via links. The document locking is done by setting an applicationScope variable based on the UNID. To make it more friendly for other users on the system, I run a function periodically on the page to check whether the document is locked or not and update a link/label/tooltips appropriately (e.g. if locked by another user, then the "Edit" button is disabled; when the lock is released, it's re-enabled). This is done by calling an "xagent" through a standard, simple dojo-based ajax call.
For some reason, the behavior of the system gets erratic after 45 seconds to a minute. I'm checking the lock status every ten seconds or so, so it's not happening with the first call. I'm displaying a list of records associated with the document; each record is a row in a repeat. When I first go into edit mode, the controls are all displayed as they should be, i.e. editable. If the user changes a particular value with a combobox, it updates the whole row with a partial refresh. When things get erratic, I noticed that the row starts refreshing in read-only mode, which suggests to me that the document is changing edit mode. The only time I knowingly change edit mode is if a "Cancel" or "Save" button is pressed. (The locking mechanism itself doesn't have anything to do with the edit mode.)
It certainly seems like the ajax call I'm making is at the root of this. But I've stripped the xagent and the client-side code down to practically nothing, and it's still happening. I can't see what would be causing this behavior. Can anyone hazard a guess? Thanks....
Maybe check if the server log file has warnings like:
WARNING CLFAD####W: State data not available for /page because no control tree was found in the cache.
If you're seeing those warnings, it could be that the server can no longer find the current XPage page instance in the cache. In that case the page will revert to the initial state, like when the page was first opened. That might be why the document goes to read-only mode.
The session cache of server-side page instances only holds 4 pages when xsp.persistence.mode=basic, or it holds 16 instances when xsp.persistence.mode=file or fileex.
If you load 4 xagent page instances, then that will fill the cache, and it will no longer be able to find the page instance for the current XPage you are viewing. So the XPage will stop performing server-side actions, and partial refresh will always show the initial state of that area of the page.
To avoid that problem, in the xagent page you can set viewState="nostate" on the xp:view tag, so that page instances are not saved for the xagent page, as described here:
https://tobysamples.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/no-state-no-problem/
Or else you can create and reuse one page instance for the xagent, so only one is created. That is, on the first call to the XAgent, have the xagent return the $$viewid value for the xagent page instance (#{javascript:view.getUniqueViewId()}), and then in subsequent requests to the xagent use that $$viewid in the request, to restore the existing xagent page instance instead of creating new instances that will fill the cache. So the subsequent xagent requests will be like so:
/myApp.nsf/xagent1.xsp?$$viewid=!aaaaaaaa!
It's hard to troubleshoot without code, but here are a few thoughts:
How are you checking document locking? Via a client-side JavaScript AJAX call or an XPages partial refresh? If the latter, what is the refresh area? If the former, what is the refresh area you're passing and the return HTML? Does it always occur when you're in edit mode on a row and the check happens, or independently of that? The key thing to check here is what the check for locking is doing - is it checking the server and returning a message outside the repeat, or checking the server and returning HTML that overwrites what's currently on the browser with defaults, e.g. the document mode as read mode.
What network activity is happening between the browser and the server and when? Is something else overwriting the HTML for the row, so resetting the row to read mode.
It's unlikely to be random, the key is going to be identifying the reproduceable steps to identify a common scenario/scenarios and cause.
EDIT
Following on from your additional info, is there a rendered property on the Edit link? If that calculates to false in earlier JSF lifecycle phases, the eventHandler is not available to be triggered during the Invoke Application phase. Because the eventHandler also includes the refreshId, there is no refreshId and refreshMode, so it defaults to a full refresh with no SSJS running. See this blog post for clarification http://www.intec.co.uk/view-isrenderingphase-and-buttons/.
On a page I have some fields that I want to be "readonly" (in my meaning they can't be accessed but they will store values, read earlier question in this matter if issues...).
I use a client JS setting these attributes on page load:
$(".readonly").attr('readonly', true);
If I have a partial update on any of these fields the attribute is lost and the field is accessible.
What is the best practice to overcome this and make it work?
Every partial refresh has a oncomplete method bound to it. What you could do is add code to the oncomplete method so the item is being set readonly again. Another, better, approach would be not to change the attribute clientside but to have hidden fields which are used to store the data.
When you have an event bound to for instance an Link control you can change the oncomplete code by clicking in your source pane on the event tag. When you browse the events section in the properties pane you will see the onComplete, onError, onStart properties. You can add your own clientside script in these properties.
Before trying to overcome the "problem" You shoud try to understand what exactly partial refresh do and where the state of application is kept.
Unfortunately partial refresh is replacing current html content (or rather part of it) with a newly created one and only form fields that has backing controls will keep state.
I suggest You should try setting readonly property on controls which You would like to make readonly (if there is some logic here You can always use ssjs).
Optionally You can try to preserve the state on the client side by using csjs global variables but this is rather hard to manage.
And one more thing - try to use the technology to solve the problem(xpages) and try not to hack Your way through with use of stuff that You accidentally know (jquery).
I would agree with jjtbsomhorst on using onComplete event. But another alternative could be setting the readonly property via code like this:
var textField:com.ibm.xsp.component.xp.XspInputText = getComponent("inputText1");
var readOnlyAttr:com.ibm.xsp.complex.Attr = new com.ibm.xsp.complex.Attr("readonly", "readonly");
var list:java.util.ArrayList = new java.util.ArrayList();
list.add(readOnlyAttr);
textField.setAttrs(list);
You could call this on the afterPageLoad event of the XPage. But I really don't know whether this would be the best way to about!
I hope someone can help me solve a very serious problem we face at the moment with a business critical application losing data when a user works in it.
This happens randomly - I have never reproduced this but the users are in the system a lot more than me.
A document is created with a load of fields on it, and there are 2 rich text fields. We're using Domino 8.5.3 - there are no extension lib controls in use. The document has workflow built in, and all validation is done by a SSJS function called from the data query save event. There is an insane amount of logging to the sessionscope.log and also this is (now) captured for each user in a notes document so I can review what they are doing.
Sometimes, a user gets to a workflow step where they have to fill in a Rich Text field and make a choice in a dropdown field, then they submit the document with a workflow button. When the workflow button is pressed (does a Full Update) some client side JS runs first
// Process any autogenerated submit listeners
if( XSP._processListeners ){ // Not sure if this is valid in all versions of XPages
XSP._processListeners( XSP.querySubmitListeners, document.forms[0].id );
}
(I added this to try and prevent the RTF fields losing their values after reading a blog but so far it's not working)
then the Server-side event runs and calls view.save() to trigger QS code (for validation) and PS code to run the workflow agent on the server.
95% of the time, this works fine.
5% of the time however, the page refreshes all the changes made, both to the RFT field (CKEditor) and the dropdown field are reloaded as they were previously, with no content. It's like the save hasn't happened, and the Full Update button has decided to work like a page refresh instead of a submit.
Under normal circumstances, the log shows that when a workflow button is pressed, the QuerySave code starts and returns True. Then the ID of the workflow button pressed is logged (so I can see which ones are being used when I am reviewing problems), then the PostSave code starts and finally returns true.
When there is a problem, The QuerySave event runs, returns true if the validation has passed, or false if it's failed, and then it stops. The ID of the workflow button is also logged. But the code should continue by calling the PostSave function if the QuerySave returns true - it doesn't even log that it's starting the PostSave function.
And to make matters worse, after the failure to call the PostSave code, the next thing that is logged is the beforePageLoad event running and this apparently reloads the page, which hasn't got the recent edits on it, and so the users loses all the information they have typed!
This has to be the most annoying problem I've ever encountered with XPages as I can find no reason why a successful QuerySave (or even a failure because mandatory fields weren't filled in) would cause the page to refresh like this and lose the content. Please please can someone help point me in the right direction??
It sounds as if in the 5% use cases, the document open for > 30mins and the XSP session is timing out - the submit causes the component tree to be re-created, and the now empty page returned back to the user. Try increasing the time out for the application to see if the issue goes away.
I would design the flow slightly different. In JSF/XPages validation belongs into validators, not into a QuerySave event. Also I'd rather use a submit for the buttons, so you don't need to trigger a view.save() in code. This does not interfere with JSF's sequence of things - but that's style not necessarily source of your problem.... idea about that:
As Jeremy I would as a first stop suspect a timeout, then the next stop is a fatal issue in your QuerySave event, that derails the runtime (for whatever reason). You can try something like this:
var qsResult = false;
// your code goes here, no return statements
// please and if you are happy
qsResult = true;
return qsResult;
The pessimistic approach would eventually tell you if something is wrong. Also: if there is an abort and your querySave just returns, then you might run in this trap
function noReturn() {return; } //nothing comes back!
noReturn() == true; --> false
noReturn() == false; --> false
noReturn() != false; --> true!!!!
What you need to check: what is your performance setting: serialize to disk, keep in memory or keep latest in memory? It could be you running foul of the way JavaScript libraries work.
A SSJS library is loaded whenever it is needed. Variables inside are initialized. A library is unloaded when memory conditions require it and all related variables are discarded. so if you rely on any variable in a JS Function that sits inside a SSJS library between calls you might or might not get the value back, which could describe your error condition. Stuff you want to keep should go into a scope (viewScope seems right here).
To make it a little more trickier:
When you use closures and first class functions these functions have access to the variables from the parent function, unless the library had been unloaded. Also functions (you could park them in a scope too) don't serialize (open flaw) so you need to be careful when putting them into a scope.
If your stuff is really complex you might be better off with a backing bean.
Did that help?
To create a managed bean (or more) check Per's article. Your validator would sit in a application bean:
<faces-config>
<managed-bean>
<managed-bean-name>workflowvalidator</managed-bean-name>
<managed-bean-class>com.company.WfValidator</managed-bean-class>
<managed-bean-scope>application</managed-bean-scope>
</managed-bean>
</faces-config>
Inside you would use a map for the error messages
public Map<String,String> getErrorMessages() {
if (this.errorStrings == null) { // errorStrings implements the MAP interface
this.loadErrorDefinitions(); //Private method, loads from Domino
}
return this.errorStrings;
}
then you can use EL in the Error message string of your validators:
workflowvalidator.errorMessage("some-id");
this allows XPages to pick the right one directly in EL, which is faster than SSJS. You could then go and implement your own custom Java validator that talks to that bean (this would allow you bypass SSJS here). Other than the example I wouldn't put the notes code in it, but talk to your WfValidator class. To do that you need to get a handle to it in Java:
private WfValidator getValidatorBean() {
FacesContext fc = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
return (WfValidator) fc.getApplication()
.getVariableResolver()
.resolveVariable(fc, "workflowvalidator");
}
Using the resolver you get access to the loaded bean. Hope that helps!
My experience is that this problem is due to keeping page in memory. Sometimes for some reason the page gets wiped out of memory. I'm seeing this when there is a lot of partial refreshes with rather complex backend Java processing. This processing somehow seems to take the space from memory that is used by the XPage.
The problem might have been fixed in later releases but I'm seeing it at least in 8.5.2.
In your case I would figure out some other workaround for the CKEditor bug and use "Keep pages on disk" option. Or if you can upgrade to 9.0.1 it might fix both problems.