AJAX on AppFuse

Steps in setting up DWR on AppFuse:

1. Add DWR jar in /lib/dwr-1.0
2. Add to /lib/lib.properties:

#
# DWR - https://dwr.dev.java.net/ (Direct Web Remoting)
#
dwr.version=1.0
dwr.dir=${lib.dir}/dwr-${dwr.version}
dwr.jar=${dwr.dir}/dwr.jar

3. Add to /properties.xml:

<!-- Web -->
<path id="web.compile.classpath">
 ...
 <pathelement location="${dwr.jar}"/>
</path>

4. Add to /build.xml:

<target name="package-web" depends="compile-web,jsp-2" description="Package WAR">
 ...
 <war destfile="${webapp.dist}/${webapp.war}"
       webxml="${webapp.target}/WEB-INF/web.xml" compress="true">
   ...
   <lib file="${dwr.jar}"/>
 </war>
</target>

5. Add DWR servlet in /metadata/web/servlets.xml:

<!-- dwr servlet -->
<servlet>
 <servlet-name>dwr-invoker</servlet-name>
 <display-name>DWR Servlet</display-name>                
 <servlet-class>uk.ltd.getahead.dwr.DWRServlet</servlet-class>
 <init-param>
   <param-name>debug</param-name>
   <param-value>true</param-value>
 </init-param>
</servlet>

6. Add DWR servlet mapping in /metadata/web/servlet-mappings.xml:

<!-- dwr mapping -->
<servlet-mapping>
 <servlet-name>dwr-invoker</servlet-name>
 <url-pattern>/dwr/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

7. Exclude DWR from sitemesh in /web/WEB-INF/classes/decorators.xml:

<excludes>
 <pattern>/dwr/*</pattern>
</excludes>

8. Add DWR configuration, /WEB-INF/dwr.xml:

<dwr>
 <allow>
   <convert converter="bean" match="com.octasoft.fp.*"/>
   <create creator="spring" javascript="userManager">
     <param name="beanName" value="userManager"/>
     <include method="getUser"/>
     <include method="getUsers"/>
   </create>
 </allow>
</dwr>

Here we use DWR provided Spring creator, and utilizes userManager for remoting. Also, we use default-deny policy for the service.

To browse and test DWR-enabled Spring beans: http://server:port/fpweb/dwr/index.html.

Note:
It might be required to delete the existing web.xml in \build\fpweb\WEB-INF\ in order to successfully add in DWR servlet into web.xml.

Use case
Verifying user by username before authentication on loginForm.jsp; on verification, user’s nickname is shown:

<script src="/appfuse/dwr/engine.js" type="text/javascript"></script>   
<script src="/appfuse/dwr/util.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/appfuse/dwr/interface/userManager.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script>
DWREngine.setErrorHandler(doNothing);
var nickname = "";
function doNothing() {
 return false;
}
function getNickname() {
 if (nickname == "") { 
     userManager.getUser(popUser,document.loginForm.j_username.value);
   document.loginForm.j_password.focus();
   return false;
 } else {
   return validateForm( document.loginForm, false, true, true, false, 1)
 }   
}

var popUser = function(user) {
 if (user == undefined) {
   return false;
 } else {   
   DWRUtil.setValue("nick", "Hello, " + user.nickName);
   nickname = user.nickName;
 }   
}
</script>
<form method="post" name="loginForm" id="loginForm"
      action="<c:url value="/authorize"/>" onsubmit="return getNickname();">
 <div id="nick"></div>
 <input name="j_username" type="text" id="j_username"/>
 <input name="j_password" type="password" id="j_password"/>
</form>

 
¶ 4:07 PM