JSF/ADF Application Visual Drawing Tool Integration

Question

Can any one recommend a visual drawing tool that can be integrated into a JSF/ADF application that is data aware (something like Visio)? I need to generate an UI with printed outputs that is very graphically rich and is based on underlying data. I believe I could use Viso's SDK but, would like to use a more Java friendly tool.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi,
These concepts are quite long to ellaborate (a few chapters long on the Developer Guide :) ). Here are my thoughts about your questions, i'll try my best:
1) All queries to the database like this one you have to do through a View Object. In your project, you can select new -> view Object, and type in your SQL in the text area. In this particular case, you can do something like "SELECT * FROM user WHERE username = :uName". Then in the next screen you define a Bind Variable with the same name, in this case "uName". Then you have to create an Application Module in the same way (new -> Application Module), binding your new View Object to it. As soon as you do it, you will see that your Data Control Palette on the right side of JDev has a new entry. From there it's a matter of dragging and dropping the methods on the UI.
2) In a similar way, all updates to the DB go through View Objects. As you used the wizard, you will notice that there are some Entity Objects in your project, one for each table in the DB. You can create a View Object based on one or more Entity Objects to allow updates. Whenever you change any attribute on the VO that maps to an attribute in an EO this change is posted to the DB. This said, you can simply drag and drop the View Object from the Data Control Palette to your page and it will retrieve and update data.
There are tons of concepts behind all i said, this is only a glimpse of what ADF BC and Faces do. I recommend reading the Dev Guide that comes with Jdev, you can find it on the menu (help -> table of contents) and also do some tutorials (help -> start page) that are the simplest things you can do with ADF.
Hope it Helps!
Thiago