more validator blues.

Alrighty, this is about validating date fields. It seems that the final Struts release, 1.1 as of now, needs to have a date pattern available to it to work. Ofcourse, i think this is good, as it adds flexibility on how users prefer their dates. This is what it'll look like in the validation.xml:

       <field property="searchDate" depends="date">

         <arg0 key="trackingForm.searchDate"/>

         <var>

           <var-name>datePattern</var-name>

           <var-value>MM/dd/yyyy</var-value>

         </var>

       </field> 

  ¶ 11:13 AM :: - commenting disabled atm -

  this is a follow-up to the validator issue in Struts. Let's recap the scenario: we created our validation (using the Validator framework) in Struts rel.1-1 beta, working perfectly fine until, you went to Struts final release 1.1. The message tags which reacts to action errors will not be working anymore, thus, you have the impression that the Validator framework was botched in the final release!

Solution: i'm not sure what's the meaning of it but, just don't include web.xml when building your web archive (war) file. In our case, we were using Ant to build it, so it would somehow look like this:

     <war 

    	destfile="${tempdir}/${warfile}.war" 

    	webxml="${xmldir}/web.xml"

    	basedir="${webdir}"

     excludes="**/web.xml" />

  ¶ 1:33 PM :: - commenting disabled atm -

  not-so-stinkin-shit news for the week: i am assigned to evaluate several admin table tools to make the lives of users easier by letting their nubby little fingers get a hold on administering databases, web-based at least. Anyway, i think this is good for me since i get to learn something new. It's bad for me because half my brain has already died and rummaging through documents is not exactly an interesting endeavor.

Although i have not delved deep into these things enough, i am making my nonsensical impressions already. And you can't do anything about it. Nya nya nya

*Naked Objects (www.nakedobjects.org) - funny how i should start with one that is not even web-based (and it is, heaven forbid, Swing!). The name itself sound fugly, add to the fact that this is more of a _framework_ than a tool. Yeap. Here you will have to create classes that inherits the NakedObject. I never had a good background on Swing (like who does?), and i'm not sure how this is supposed to be seen from a remote box (ok, i'll admit i hate having anything to do with connecting and databases)

*BW Wizard for Struts (www.strutswizard.com) - this one is what i am trying at the moment. It has a free trial version (if you want a commercial license it'll cost 99 smackeroos). What brought me to this one is that i caught the most sought after keyword -- 'fast'. Plus, it did say it has something to do with Struts, so more brownie points for them. Initial impression tells me that this is more generalized in function and can be used other than just being an admin table tool. Or maybe because admin table tools are actually generalized in function? I'm confused.

*DBForms (www.jdbforms.sourceforge.net) - not as intimately integrated to Struts than BW Wizard (or BW Wizard is simply louder in saying it has something to do with Struts), it says it has features like how informercials say a feather duster can also be used as toilet bowl scrub. At least it's open source and it has _made_ its purpose clear as an admin tool -- at least, that's what i saw in its examples. However, its documentation provides visual aids designed for a leprechaun -- either the fonts are very small, or the picture is big ... and the fonts are very small (at least those are not many). I also think this candidate demands a learning curve higher than the other two since it also touches on using its own set of custom tags and configurations.  ¶ 4:15 PM :: - commenting disabled atm -

  Dynaforms (i.e. DynaValidatorForm and their ilk) are basically hash maps or hash tables. However, there seems to be 'property sharing' when for example, you have two forms that have the same property name. Mine for instance, has a property of name 'action'. Now, mind you, i have two different forms here called by two different action classes. What happened was, when Action class A went to Action Class B, the 'action' property for the form in Action class A _appeared_ in the 'action' property of the form for Class B.

I'll figure this out ...  ¶ 4:19 PM :: - commenting disabled atm -

  Struts have problems between the beta release and the official release of 1.1

The validator to be specific. In the beta, it would work smoothly, but the release version botches it like hurried picnic meals. Now if i use beta, my StrutsTestCase (er ... test cases) will not be working. Darn.  ¶ 5:26 PM :: - commenting disabled atm -