Can't modify/remove a field from an ActivityNode using sbt - ibm-connections

Question

I created an ActivityNode (an Entry) and I can add custom fields with the
setFields(List<Field> newListField)
fonction.
BUT
I am unable to modify these fields. (In this case I try to modify the value of the field named LIBENTITE)
FieldList list = myEntry.getTextFields();
List<Field> updatedList = new ArrayList<Field>();
//I add each old field in the new list, but I modify the field LIBENTITE
for(Field myField : list){
if(myField.getName().equals("LIBENTITE")){
((TextField)myField).setTextSummary("New value");
}
updatedList.add(myField);
}
myEntry.setFields(updatedList);
activityService.updateActivityNode(myEntry);
This code should replace the old list of fields with the new one, but I can't see any change in the custom field LIBENTITE of myEntry in IBM connections.
So I tried to create a new list of fields, not modifying my field but adding a new one :
for(Field myField:list){
if(!myField.getName().equals("LIBENTITE")){
updatedList.add(myField);
}
}
Field newTextField = new TextField("New Value");
newTextField .setFieldName("LIBENTITE");
updatedList.add(newTextField );
And this code is just adding the new field in myEntry. What I see is that the other custom fields did not change and I have now two custom fields named LIBENTITE, one with the old value and the second with the new value, in myEntry.
So I though that maybe if I clear the old list of Fields, and then I add the new one, it would work.
I tried the two fonctions
myEntry.clearFieldsMap();
and
myEntry.remove("LIBENTITE");
but none of them seems to work, I still can't remove a custom field from myEntry using SBT.
Any suggestions ?

Answer 1

I have two suggestions, as I had (or have) similar problems:
If you want to update an existing text field in an activity node, you have to call node.setField(fld) to update the field in the node object.
Code snippet from my working application, where I'm updating a text field containing a (computed) start time:
ActivityNode node = activityService.getActivityNode(id);
node.setTitle(formatTitle()); // add/update start and end time in title
boolean startFound = false;
// ...
FieldList textfields =node.getTextFields();
Iterator<Field> iterFields = textfields.iterator();
while (iterFields.hasNext()) {
TextField fld = (TextField) iterFields.next();
if (fld.getName().equals(Constants.FIELDNAME_STARTTIME)) {
fld.setTextSummary(this.getStartTimeString()); // NOTE: .setFieldValue does *not* work
node.setField(fld); // write updated field back. This seems to be the only way updating fields works
startFound=true;
}
}
If there is no field with that name, I create a new one (that's the reason I'm using the startFound boolean variable).
I think that the node.setField(fld) should do the trick. If not, there might be a way to sidestep the problem:
You have access to the underlying DOM object which was parsed in. You can use this to tweak the DOM object, which finally will be written back to Connections.
I had to use this as there seems to be another nasty bug in the SBT SDK: If you read in a text field which has no value, and write it back, an error will be thrown. Looks like the DOM object misses some required nodes, so you have to create them yourself to avoid the error.
Some code to demonstrate this:
// ....
} else if (null == fld.getTextSummary()) { // a text field without any contents. Which is BAD!
// there is a bug in the SBT API: if we read a field which has no value
// and try to write the node back (even without touching the field) a NullPointerException
// will be thrown. It seems that there is no value node set for the field. We
// can't set a value with fld.setTextSummary(), the error will still be thrown.
// therefore we have to remove the field, and - optionally - we set a defined "empty" value
// to avoid the problem.
// node.remove(fld.getName()); // remove the field -- this does *not* work! At least not for empty fields
// so we have to do it the hard way: we delete the node of the field in the cached dom structure
String fieldName = fld.getName();
DeferredElementNSImpl fldData = (DeferredElementNSImpl) fld.getDataHandler().getData();
fldData.getParentNode().removeChild(fldData); // remove the field from the cached dom structure, therefore delete it
// and create it again, but with a substitute value
Field newEmptyField = new TextField (Constants.FIELD_TEXTFIELD_EMPTY_VALUE); // create a field with a placeholder value
newEmptyField.setFieldName(fieldName);
node.setField(newEmptyField);
}
Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Just so that post does not stay unanswered I write the answer that was in a comment of the initial question :
"currently, there is no solution to this issue, the TextFields are read-only map. we have the issue recorded on github.com/OpenNTF/SocialSDK/issues/1657"