Help with concepts...

[Peter Felts]

I'm learning OfBiz and I'm at the point where I've gone through the basic tutorials provided by opensourcestrategies.com, but now I've got some conceptual questions that I'm hoping the ofBiz community could help me with. Any insight into these topics would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

1) I am used to programming web interfaces in PHP. In a typical PHP application I would store transaction data in an object or array. Lets say that we've got an order object which is not to be placed in the database until the order has been placed. In PHP I would serialize a the object as a session variable, load it at the beginning of each script, then reserialize it before posting to another page. My first conceptual OfBiz question is this: what is the standard method of storing temporary data such as this? Do I store everything in a DB during simple UI transactions?

2) Where can I learn about the entity data types and how they map to data types in the particular database system I'm using?

Thanks everyone.

[hans_bakker]

Hi Peter,
for your first point, please have a look at the shoppingCart within
OFBiz which is an example how to create an order but only save at the
end of the creation process.
Your second point, as an application programmer in OFBiz you do not care
about what database or the data organization within the database. The
webtools option allows you to have a look at the entities and their
fields and you can look into any table/entity....
If you still want to know...have e a look in
the /framework/entity/config/entityengine.xml file....

Regards,
Hans



On Thu, 2008-01-24 at 17:14 -0800, Peter Felts wrote:

> I'm learning OfBiz and I'm at the point where I've gone through the basic tutorials provided by opensourcestrategies.com, but now I've got some conceptual questions that I'm hoping the ofBiz community could help me with. Any insight into these topics would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
>
> 1) I am used to programming web interfaces in PHP. In a typical PHP application I would store transaction data in an object or array. Lets say that we've got an order object which is not to be placed in the database until the order has been placed. In PHP I would serialize a the object as a session variable, load it at the beginning of each script, then reserialize it before posting to another page. My first conceptual OfBiz question is this: what is the standard method of storing temporary data such as this? Do I store everything in a DB during simple UI transactions?
>
> 2) Where can I learn about the entity data types and how they map to data types in the particular database system I'm using?
>
> Thanks everyone.
>
>
>

--
AntWebsystems.com: Quality OFBiz services for competitive rates.....

[hans_bakker]

and then for the particular dataBase look in
the /framework/entity/fieldtype directory.


On Fri, 2008-01-25 at 09:19 +0700, Hans Bakker wrote:

> Hi Peter,
> for your first point, please have a look at the shoppingCart within
> OFBiz which is an example how to create an order but only save at the
> end of the creation process.
> Your second point, as an application programmer in OFBiz you do not care
> about what database or the data organization within the database. The
> webtools option allows you to have a look at the entities and their
> fields and you can look into any table/entity....
> If you still want to know...have e a look in
> the /framework/entity/config/entityengine.xml file....
>
> Regards,
> Hans
>
>
>
> On Thu, 2008-01-24 at 17:14 -0800, Peter Felts wrote:
> > I'm learning OfBiz and I'm at the point where I've gone through the basic tutorials provided by opensourcestrategies.com, but now I've got some conceptual questions that I'm hoping the ofBiz community could help me with. Any insight into these topics would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
> >
> > 1) I am used to programming web interfaces in PHP. In a typical PHP application I would store transaction data in an object or array. Lets say that we've got an order object which is not to be placed in the database until the order has been placed. In PHP I would serialize a the object as a session variable, load it at the beginning of each script, then reserialize it before posting to another page. My first conceptual OfBiz question is this: what is the standard method of storing temporary data such as this? Do I store everything in a DB during simple UI transactions?
> >
> > 2) Where can I learn about the entity data types and how they map to data types in the particular database system I'm using?
> >
> > Thanks everyone.
> >
> >
> >

--
AntWebsystems.com: Quality OFBiz services for competitive rates.....

[BJ Freeman]

1) the concept is reversed. you use the widgets and ftl's  for UI. They
are entity aware. The visual is controlled by css, after the basic
generation. Once an entity or entity view is defined the page will
generate the data. if you change the entityview you don't have to change
the UI. The new data gets added by defualt.

2) start here for info.
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/OFBiz+Documentation+Index
as far as integration of legacy systems that keep running with other
input, I suggest you create a Delegator that incorporates youre datasource.
then have ofbiz webtools create the entities for you.
after dressing them up a bit put your entities you you application.
you can then use services to keep the two in sync thru secas

BTW this is not an official ofbiz stance but just my opinion.

Peter Felts sent the following on 1/24/2008 5:14 PM:

> I'm learning OfBiz and I'm at the point where I've gone through the basic tutorials provided by opensourcestrategies.com, but now I've got some conceptual questions that I'm hoping the ofBiz community could help me with. Any insight into these topics would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
>
> 1) I am used to programming web interfaces in PHP. In a typical PHP application I would store transaction data in an object or array. Lets say that we've got an order object which is not to be placed in the database until the order has been placed. In PHP I would serialize a the object as a session variable, load it at the beginning of each script, then reserialize it before posting to another page. My first conceptual OfBiz question is this: what is the standard method of storing temporary data such as this? Do I store everything in a DB during simple UI transactions?
>
> 2) Where can I learn about the entity data types and how they map to data types in the particular database system I'm using?
>
> Thanks everyone.
>
>
>
>
>

[Peter Felts]

Thank you all. This has been very informative. I've got my work cut out for me this weekend...





----- Original Message ----
From: BJ Freeman <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 8:41:09 PM
Subject: Re: Help with concepts...

 1) the concept is reversed. you use the widgets and ftl's  for UI. They
are entity aware. The visual is controlled by css, after the basic
generation. Once an entity or entity view is defined the page will
generate the data. if you change the entityview you don't have to  change
the UI. The new data gets added by defualt.

2) start here for info.
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/OFBiz+Documentation+Index
as far as integration of legacy systems that keep running with other
input, I suggest you create a Delegator that incorporates youre  datasource.
then have ofbiz webtools create the entities for you.
after dressing them up a bit put your entities you you application.
you can then use services to keep the two in sync thru secas

BTW this is not an official ofbiz stance but just my opinion.

Peter Felts sent the following on 1/24/2008 5:14 PM:

> I'm learning OfBiz and I'm at the point where I've gone through the  basic tutorials provided by opensourcestrategies.com, but now I've got  some conceptual questions that I'm hoping the ofBiz community could help  me with. Any insight into these topics would be greatly appreciated!  Thanks.
>
> 1) I am used to programming web interfaces in PHP. In a typical PHP  application I would store transaction data in an object or array. Lets  say that we've got an order object which is not to be placed in the  database until the order has been placed. In PHP I would serialize a the  object as a session variable, load it at the beginning of each script,  then reserialize it before posting to another page. My first conceptual  OfBiz question is this: what is the standard method of storing temporary  data such as this? Do I store everything in a DB during simple UI  transactions?
>
> 2) Where can I learn about the entity data types and how they map to  data types in the particular database system I'm using?
>
> Thanks everyone.
>
>
>
>
>

[Yitao_Zhao]

In my opinion
The operation is integrated in the ofbiz

Try to understand the database stucture

It will help you to get known about the ofbiz process



On 1/25/08, Peter Felts <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> I'm learning OfBiz and I'm at the point where I've gone through the basic
> tutorials provided by opensourcestrategies.com, but now I've got some
> conceptual questions that I'm hoping the ofBiz community could help me with.
> Any insight into these topics would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
>
> 1) I am used to programming web interfaces in PHP. In a typical PHP
> application I would store transaction data in an object or array. Lets say
> that we've got an order object which is not to be placed in the database
> until the order has been placed. In PHP I would serialize a the object as a
> session variable, load it at the beginning of each script, then reserialize
> it before posting to another page. My first conceptual OfBiz question is
> this: what is the standard method of storing temporary data such as this? Do
> I store everything in a DB during simple UI transactions?
>
> 2) Where can I learn about the entity data types and how they map to data
> types in the particular database system I'm using?
>
> Thanks everyone.
>
>
>