Ar*@!+$es to this. getting IBM connections to do what you want

UKLUG 2012 – Cardiff, Wales September 2012

Presenter: Mark MyersCompany: London Devloper Co-op

getting connections to do what you want

ICON UK 2013"Ar*@!+$es to this"

UKLUG 2012 – Cardiff, Wales

Who am I? – Mark Myers

• A Member of the London Developer Co-op (londc.com) A group of UK based developers

• Ben Poole• Julian Woodward• Mark Myers (me)• Robin Willis• Matt White

• Developer from a support background• 12+ years on Domino, 15+ years in IT• Speaker at 3x Lotuspheres, 4x UKLUGs, 1x ILUG,

1x BLUG


Why this presentation and why that title?

• IBM have given us a new platform. And with it a new framework.

• It still has a Beta feel about it, • Due to its constructions is very much a

patchwork with some areas working inconsistently and varying wildly between versions


Fair Enough but Still, why that title?

• Support are using a “hot brick” tactic on areas when you a forced to use undocumented features e.g. dojo.i18n.getLocalization

• Connections is designed for a certain use case and just like Domino before it clients are not sticking to it but you still need to deliver on their needs.

We can hack domino to do what ever we want. Time to do the same with connections


So what are we dealing with?

What is IBM Connections from a Developers point of view?


So what are we dealing with?

• An IBM Websphere server• With N number of ‘normal’ apps on it• Glued to a DB2 server (normally)

No need to get excited


A Websphere server with Connections 4.0 installed (amongst other things)


You can find out which URL’s match to which applications

You would of course never use a Java Decompiler such as the one found at http://jd.benow.ca/ to workout how these apps actually work


Loads of JDBC connections


I break customisation into 3 levels

• By GUI• By XML (not done in this presentation)• By Native app

Lets do this one


Tools (Your IDE)

• Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software (NEVER EVER!!) • http://www-03.ibm.com/software/

products/us/en/application/

• Myeclipse Blue• http://www.myeclipseide.com/blue/


Native Websphere App time!!

• When all else fails this option will let you do ANYTHING you want.

• A Necessity for Connections environments with no Domino servers

• Other than a few IBM quirks, the following is all standard java apps stuff, good to know and very very reusable


What are WAR and EAR files

• A .War file (Web application ARchive) is a file used to distribute a collection of JavaServer Pages, Java Servlets, Java classes, XML files, tag libraries, static Web pages (HTML and related files) and other resources that together constitute a Web application.

• An .Ear (Enterprise ARchive) is Basically a normal War file wrapped in a configuration wrapper.

• On the Ear file features remember you are on a shared server and you can not make any assumptions as to what is happening


Making a Native Connections App

Easiest way of ensuring compatibility is to select a

matching Runtime

In MyEclipse/RAD do “File” “New” Web Project

Just Accept defaults



In MyEclipse/RAD do “File” “New” Enterprise Application Project



Selecting this means that unless you wish to

customize the deployment you are done

Select the App(s) you want to be packaged in

this Ear



This gives you the following 2 project

structures



Select your EAR file project and do “File” “Export”


The Questions Domino Developers ask when starting Native Java Apps

• How do I connect to a database?• Where is my “when Opened in a browser”?• Agents!, I need them! Where are they?


The Great Database Chase• When we moved from Domino to Connections we

went from the easy going world of NOSQL and constantly being in a database context to Relational databases and defining our own contexts (most likely DB2)

• There are lots of different ways of linking your applications to databases (in Java)• Hibernate• JPA• EJB3

• I'm going to Use JPA (Java Persistence API) as I find it the best and most easy-going• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Persistence_API


Why Use all this? Why not read/write direct using SQL?• Eliminates all of the 'hand' mapping in Java from a

SQL ResultSet to a Java Object greatly reducing the amount of mapping work.

• Avoids low level JDBC and SQL code. You just deal with Java Classes

• Provides high end performance features such as caching and sophisticated database and query optimizations.

There are lots of fighting over if you should use a ORM (Object-relational mapping) framework such as JPA, but frankly, its quick, reliable and does not give you grief


The Great Database Chase

JDBC config on Server

JDBC config on Server

JDBC Mapped to

Persistence unitIn

Persistence.xml

JDBC Mapped to

Persistence unitIn

Persistence.xml

Persistence Unit used by

Entity Manager helper

Persistence Unit used by

Entity Manager helper

Entity Manager

used code to do stuff

Entity Manager

used code to do stuff

Entity Manager

Calls Entity Manaager

Entity Manager

Calls Entity Manaager


JDBC connections are setup on the WAS server

This actually provides the link to the database and you don’t need to deal

with Authentication


Setting up a WAS db2 connection

Open up the WAS admin console, and select “JDBS

Providers”



Make sure

“db2jcc.jar”

“db2jcc_license_cu.jar”

Are on the server, they should be if

Connections is on there



You can Check the location in

“Websphere Variables”



Create a Data source and link to the JDBC Provider



Create a Data source and link to the JDBC Provider

You will also want to select a

authentication alias



This will mean that the

application does not have to contain any

authentication details

(meaning the same app can be deployed to dev and live)


Persistence.xml

Now we can link our application to the database definition on the server

When dealing with websphere the transaction-type will

always be “RESOURCE_LOCAL”


EntityManagerHelper.java


Table/Class Data Access Object


Finally use the data in code


Don’t worry this is all done with wizards


Lets have a Look at the Datbase


Where is my “when Opened in a browser”?

The Web.xml is the core of your application configuration, just about everything is started from here


Agents!, I need them! Where are they?

• There are lots of different ways of providing this feature, and lots of pro and cons for each way.

• I am going to show you Quartz from http://quartz-scheduler.org/


Setting up a Scheduled Job

Down load the Quartz package from the website un zip it and copy the Jar files in the /webroot/WEB-INF/lib



In the Properties of the Project, in the Java Build Path, add the /webRoot/Web-INF/lib as a “class folder”



In your Web.xml add a new servlet, with the value<load-on-startup> = 1



Setup a new Class that the servlet will call



In the “init” method for the new servlet you have made, add one of the many varieties of Quartz Scheduler see http://quartz-

scheduler.org/documentation


Further Reading on Native Apps

As you are now just writing Native Java Apps + IBM quirks the number of available libraries and tools you can use is mind blowing

Some Recommended areas to read up on:•Jersey: The easiest way to do REST services in pure java. http://jersey.java.net/•Annotations http://javapapers.com/core-java/java-annotations/•Abdera: Best Atom Service reader and generator http://abdera.apache.org/


Questions?

If we have time then we can keep going!

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None Native integration (Domino)


Tools• DEV HTTP CLIENT

• https://plus.google.com/104025798250320128549/posts

• FireBug• https://getfirebug.com/


Example: Java Agent Atom FeedA few different Java feed parsing

libraries to choose from:• ROME – http://rometools.org • Apache Abdera –

http://abdera.apache.org • Apache Wink –

http://incubator.apache.org/wink All require several additional libraries

• Apache Commons libraries• Java StAX support• Etc.

Handles HTTP connections as well as parsing

Authentication too


© 2013 IBM Corporation

Example: Java Agent Get Atom Feed



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><author><name>I Am Funny</name></author><title type="text">Great Duck Joke</title><content type="text">Q: What has webbed feet and fangs? A: Count Duckula</content></entry>

Example: Java Agent Submit Back to Atom Feed

Most Atom services (particularly IBM) give examples of what XML they want rather than examples of the code you should use, so we will do the same

This is a IBM Connections Blog entry in raw XML:




An amazingly useful line when you are debugging or testing as it outputs the XML so you can check it against what you should be sending




Getting this URL is often the hardest part of dealing with Atom



Example: Useful Extra LinesAdd “registerTrustManager” and you can connect to SSL Ports

Nice simple login, you just need the user name, password and the root domain you are logging on to



Domino Integrating with IBM Connections

Before we start we need to get a database ready to call Java from XPages

Move to Package Explorer




In The WEB-INF directory

Right click and create a new folder




Call it “src” in lower case




Next add this folder to the projects build path

Right click on the root of the project and select “Properties”




On the “Source” tab click “Add folder” and add the folder you have created




You will see the Folder has moved

Right click and select “New” → “Other”

Then Select “Java” → “Class”



Create the new Java Class




OK, Java class created, lets get it some libraries




If you are not allowed to use the EXT directory on the server, the you will need to create a new “lib” folder







Update (or ask your administrator to) the java.policy file on your server to contain the following


grant {

permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "getClassLoader";

};



Now we will add the Atom client code function

You need to pass the session into this function as it can’t get its own

If you need to you can login here (as described previously)




Create a New Script Library




Set it as a Normal “Server JavaScript” Library




Pass the “sessionAsSigner” here to give yourself administrator rights

Create a SSJS function to call your Java and pass the results back




Domino Integrating with IBM Connections – Pulling it together

Create a Custom Control



Give it a Name




Now you can add a repeat control that calls the SSJS function, which in turn calls the Java


The Rest of the surrounding boring code is in the demonstration db




Create a New Xpage Library




Add the duckstates_cc custom control






Now that you have an XPage, you need to present it to Connections as a Open Social widget the easiest way of doing this is with a simple domino page.





Features like “dynamic-height” are harder to get working using this method (rather than a embedding the widget in connections) but if you have a static sized widget it is the simplest and quickest



And add it to your Connections installation

Integrating with IBM Connections



Integrating with IBM Connections


And to just round up:the Activity Stream

Its Just another Atom feed:

https://xxx.com/connections/opensocial/basic/rest/activitystreams/@me/@all

Excellent example: http://www.lbenitez.com/2012/05/how-to-

post-events-into-opensocial.html


The Activity Stream{ "generator": { "image": { "url": "/homepage/nav/common/images/iconProfiles16.png"}, "id": "demoapp", "displayName": "Demo Application", "url": "http://www.ibm.com/" }, "actor": { "id": "@me" }, "verb": "post", "title": “Example Title", "content": " You have created a new Activity Stream.", "updated": "2013-05-08T12:00:00.000Z", "object": { "summary": “rhubarb rhubarb", "objectType": "note", "id": “rr13", "displayName": " rhubarb rhubarb ", "url": "http:// rhubarb.com/rhubarb.xml", }, }


The Activity Stream

Working Post Example (for you to copy)


Questions?

How To Contact Me:Mark Myers

Email: [email protected] | Twitter: @stickfight | Skype: Stickfight | Blog: stickfight.co.uk

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Ar*@!+$es to this. getting IBM connections to do what you want