With Jahia 7, we’ve introduced the Spring Web Flow framework to ease developers work and dynamic data manipulation. This session is an introduction to Web Flow, how it is integrated in Jahia, how to use it with examples of usages in Jahia 7 detailed.

1. MVC in Jahia 7
Using Spring Web Flow
Sergiy Shyrkov - Senior Software Engineer
Jahia Solutions Group SA
(sergiy.shyrkov@jahia.com)
© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

2. Who Am I
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

3. Who Am I
Sergiy Shyrkov
Senior Software Engineer
sergiy.shyrkov@jahia.com
@Jahia since 2007
Web project development for 12+ years
Integration of frameworks and external services
Spring, Spring MVC – a solid integration basis
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

4. Outline
Why Spring Web Flow
What is Spring Web Flow
How is it integrated in Jahia
Examples and demo
What can be done with it
Summary and next steps
Questions
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

5. Why Spring Web Flow – Drivers (1)
Main drivers:
Customer feedback about the need for
more powerful:
form processing and automatic data
binding
validation
business logic
Server and Site settings refactoring in
Jahia 7
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

6. Why Spring Web Flow – Criteria (2)
Criteria:
Seamless integration into Jahia rendering system
Automatic data binding and form processing
Support for complex / custom validation
Advanced control over “page navigation”
Easy to learn and use
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

7. Why Spring Web Flow – Result (3)
Spring Web Flow (SWF) comes into play:
matched our goals
comes from the Spring landscape (bean definitions, MVC,
type converters, binding, etc.)
control layer on top of MVC (Spring MVC, JSF, Struts, etc.)
→ content views based on Web Flow in Jahia
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

8. What Is Spring Web Flow (1)
“Spring Web Flow builds on Spring MVC and allows
implementing the "flows" of a web application. A flow
encapsulates a sequence of steps that guide a user
through the execution of some business task.”
(source: http://projects.spring.io/spring-webflow/)
History:
Started as an extension of Spring MVC by Erwin Vervaet in 2004
1.0 release in October 2006
2.3.2 release in January 2013
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

9. What Is Spring Web Flow (2)
Introduced flow concept
Extended application scopes
Essential language elements: flow, view-state, transition,
end-state, ...
Actions (<evaluate>): can be executed on various flow
points
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

10. How Is It Integrated in Jahia (1)
Rendering concepts:
Content node needs a template (full page view)
Template will define which elements to display and where
to display them: areas
Area renders a content node using a view
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

11. How Is It Integrated in Jahia (2)
Request rendering flow:
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

12. How Is It Integrated in Jahia (3)
To render a content node Jahia needs a script file(s)
called a view:
jnt_news/html/news.link.jsp
jnt_news/html/news.jsp
News item
(jnt:news)
default
jnt_news/html/news.large.jsp
large
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

13. How Is It Integrated in Jahia (4)
View (script) types:
JSP (javax.servlet.RequestDispatcher)
JSR-223: Groovy, Velocity, FreeMarker, etc.
(javax.script.ScriptEngineManager)
Web Flow (javax.servlet.RequestDispatcher)
dispatching to a dedicated controller (/flow/*)
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

14. How Is It Integrated in Jahia (5)
What Jahia does for you:
detects and registers/unregisters flow definitions in
modules
proper dispatching to controller, URL mappings, handler
mapping, view resolution, message source resolution
(i18n), etc.
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

15. How Is It Integrated in Jahia (6)
What you need to use it:
have a Spring beans file (1)
a view (folder) of type “flow” (2)
flow definition file – flow.xml (3)
flow view template files
action handlers
validation
i18n resources
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

16. Example – Job Application (1)
Flow-based view for job application (job.showcase-apply.flow):
(visualized by Spring Tool Suite 3.4.0.RELEASE)
Featuring:
form binding (model, <form:*/> tags)
file upload (Spring's MultipartResolver)
JSR-303 validation
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

17. Example – Job Application (2)
Second view for application review (job.showcase-review.flow):
(visualized by Spring Tool Suite 3.4.0.RELEASE)
Example of classical drill-down use case:
overview → details → action → overview
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

18. Example – Job Application (3)
Demo
https://github.com/shyrkov/jahia-spring-webflow-showcase
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

19. Jahia Server / Site Settings (4)
Demo
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

20. What Can Be Done With It
Flow-based data processing
Validation
Complex business logic
External data / service integration
...
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

21. Summary and Next Steps
Summary:
Our goals met and needs covered :-)
New powerful mechanism for data processing
Next steps
It is a “first iteration”
Gather feedback
...
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA

22. Questions
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23. Thank you!
Sergiy Shyrkov - Senior Software Engineer
Jahia Solutions Group SA
(sergiy.shyrkov@jahia.com)
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© 2002 - 2014 Jahia Solutions Group SA