What's the best practice to get App Module on Jdev 10.1.3 using Struts/ADF?

Question

Hi,
I read Mr. Muench's post stating that the best way to execute an App. Module method is to make the method part of the client interface and then drag and drop it on a form as a button ...
In another post Muench says that a another way to get the App Module is using getDataProvider() method, I tried and found that this worked in:
// standard event handler interface
// on PageController class
public class MyFormPageController extends PageController
public void onUpdate(PageLifecycleContext ctx)
AMServImp am;
am = (AMServImpl)ctx.getBindingContext().getDefaultDataControl().getDataProvider();
am.myMethod( ... );
am.getTransaction().commit();
I really like the second option because is closer to what I used to do in 10.1.2 with an event handler receiving DataActionContex parameter. Besides, is not clear to me in the former method with the drag and drop how the form inputs are assigned to the method parameters ....
I would like to know however what is the best way and why ?
Any comments ?
-OM
Message was edited by:
omar71

Answer 1

According to JSR 227, which ADFm is implementing, the view/controller portions of your application aren't really supposed to be touching the business services, or even the data controls, at all. They're supposed to do all model manipulation entirely through the databindings.
This is just another bit of "code separation"--much like MVC code separation--that should make the application a bit easier to maintain. Your application module could change dramatically--maybe even be replaced by an EJB session bean--and all you have to do is change the .dcx file and your page model files, rather than searching through your code. Maintainability and readability is the advantage here; I don't think there could possibly be any slowdown by calling ctx.getBindingContext().getDefaultDataControl().getDataProvider(), since that's what the bindings would do anyway.
Well, of course there's the "ADF supports going this way declaratively", which is not to be sneezed at as an advantage.
As to how to put the form values in to the method binding: Look up the <af:setActionListener> tag (e.g., using full-text search in the help). You can nest that into your commandButton or commandLink tags and use it to set method parameters.
Best,
Avrom