Some newbie questions when evaluation OFBiz

[sebastianscheid]

Hi,

I am trying to evaluate OFBiz. I think I have understood the ideas of the technical parts of the framework like the Entity and Service Engine and the Screens.

Now I have problems to understand the functional concepts of the ERP part. I cannot find any documentation that explains all the stuff that comes out of the box. The Application Overview for Users seems to be in progress http://docs.ofbiz.org/download/attachments/742/ApplicationOverviewForUsers.pdf?version=1

There are some more technical functions, I do not understand too:
How do I switch the language of the applications? There is this nice drop down at the top right corner containing a pretty long list of languages, but only a few strings are translated when setting another language (perhaps German is not supported well yet?).


Is somewhere described, how to customize the look of the application to represent my coporate identity? I guess I have to changes some css files.

Is it possible to customize screens by making unnecessary fields invisible (by configuration)? For example, I do not need a field like height or weight for a product that describes a service (instead of a physical good).
If this is not possible, what should I do? Take the existing screen and remove the fields from it? But what happens, when I want to upgrate OFBiz? Are my changes overwritten?

There seems to be no database locking functionality (wether pessimistic nor optimistic). Is there somewhere a switch to simply enable optimistic locking?

There are messages resulting from a business error, that are not very readable, like:
The Following Errors Occurred:
ERROR: Could not complete the If copyTask field = Y create a copy of the routingTask, in all the case add a RoutingTaskAssociation [file:/<path>OFBIZ/applications/manufacturing/script/org/ofbiz/manufacturing/techdata/RoutingSimpleEvents.xml#addRoutingTaskAssoc] process [problem invoking the [createWorkEffort] service with the map named [context] containing [{locale=de_DE, workEffortPurposeTypeId=null, estimatedMilliSeconds=null, fixedAssetId=null, userLogin=[GenericEntity:UserLogin][createdStamp,2008-04-09 08:36:54.233(java.sql.Timestamp)][createdTxStamp,2008-04-09 08:36:53.983(java.sql.Timestamp)][currentPassword,19ffea33cc7d86cb368def0962ddaf7cad828fa2(java.lang.String)][disabledDateTime,null()][enabled,Y(java.lang.String)][hasLoggedOut,null()][isSystem,null()][lastCurrencyUom,null()][lastLocale,null()][lastUpdatedStamp,2008-04-14 16:47:53.675(java.sql.Timestamp)][lastUpdatedTxStamp,2008-04-14 16:47:53.675(java.sql.Timestamp)][partyId,10000(java.lang.String)][passwordHint,null()][successiveFailedLogins,0(java.lang.Long)][userLoginId,TestAdmin(java.lang.String)], description=null, workEffortTypeId=null, currentStatusId=null, workEffortName=null, estimatedSetupMillis=null}]: The following required parameter is missing: [createWorkEffort.workEffortTypeId]The following required parameter is missing: [createWorkEffort.currentStatusId]The following required parameter is missing: [createWorkEffort.workEffortName]]

Is this normal, or do less technical exception messges exist?

Thanks in advance for any answers
Sebastian

[BJ Freeman]

unfortunately there is no complete documentation,
Most documentation is community driven, meaning if one does not
volunteer it does not get done.
the mechanism to change language is working. What is missing are the
property files that provide the language you select.

Yes you can change the look in feel thru CSS files.

you will have to customize the FTL or Widget files that display data
you can make it conditional based on the type of goods.
you may find examples in the files you are going to modify.

Database locking is a function provided by the JDBC.
if it is available for your DB is should be doing it when there are
transactions enabled. Please specify the SVN(trunk or ver4.0) and the
version, there may be a fix in a new version.

your errors may be due to the language setting. First try in English to
see if they happen. if not then we can look for bugs relative to that
language.

this error says that some parameter has not been passed. So if you could
 explain what steps were taken to generate this error it would help in
trouble shooting.

sebastianscheid sent the following on 4/15/2008 2:50 AM:

> Hi,
>
> I am trying to evaluate OFBiz. I think I have understood the ideas of the
> technical parts of the framework like the Entity and Service Engine and the
> Screens.
>
> Now I have problems to understand the functional concepts of the ERP part. I
> cannot find any documentation that explains all the stuff that comes out of
> the box. The Application Overview for Users seems to be in progress
> http://docs.ofbiz.org/download/attachments/742/ApplicationOverviewForUsers.pdf?version=1
>
> There are some more technical functions, I do not understand too:
> How do I switch the language of the applications? There is this nice drop
> down at the top right corner containing a pretty long list of languages, but
> only a few strings are translated when setting another language (perhaps
> German is not supported well yet?).
>
>
> Is somewhere described, how to customize the look of the application to
> represent my coporate identity? I guess I have to changes some css files.
>
> Is it possible to customize screens by making unnecessary fields invisible
> (by configuration)? For example, I do not need a field like height or weight
> for a product that describes a service (instead of a physical good).
> If this is not possible, what should I do? Take the existing screen and
> remove the fields from it? But what happens, when I want to upgrate OFBiz?
> Are my changes overwritten?
>
> There seems to be no database locking functionality (wether pessimistic nor
> optimistic). Is there somewhere a switch to simply enable optimistic
> locking?
>
> There are messages resulting from a business error, that are not very
> readable, like:
> The Following Errors Occurred:
> ERROR: Could not complete the If copyTask field = Y create a copy of the
> routingTask, in all the case add a RoutingTaskAssociation
> [file:/<path>OFBIZ/applications/manufacturing/script/org/ofbiz/manufacturing/techdata/RoutingSimpleEvents.xml#addRoutingTaskAssoc]
> process [problem invoking the [createWorkEffort] service with the map named
> [context] containing [{locale=de_DE, workEffortPurposeTypeId=null,
> estimatedMilliSeconds=null, fixedAssetId=null,
> userLogin=[GenericEntity:UserLogin][createdStamp,2008-04-09
> 08:36:54.233(java.sql.Timestamp)][createdTxStamp,2008-04-09
> 08:36:53.983(java.sql.Timestamp)][currentPassword,19ffea33cc7d86cb368def0962ddaf7cad828fa2(java.lang.String)][disabledDateTime,null()][enabled,Y(java.lang.String)][hasLoggedOut,null()][isSystem,null()][lastCurrencyUom,null()][lastLocale,null()][lastUpdatedStamp,2008-04-14
> 16:47:53.675(java.sql.Timestamp)][lastUpdatedTxStamp,2008-04-14
> 16:47:53.675(java.sql.Timestamp)][partyId,10000(java.lang.String)][passwordHint,null()][successiveFailedLogins,0(java.lang.Long)][userLoginId,TestAdmin(java.lang.String)],
> description=null, workEffortTypeId=null, currentStatusId=null,
> workEffortName=null, estimatedSetupMillis=null}]: The following required
> parameter is missing: [createWorkEffort.workEffortTypeId]The following
> required parameter is missing: [createWorkEffort.currentStatusId]The
> following required parameter is missing: [createWorkEffort.workEffortName]]
>
> Is this normal, or do less technical exception messges exist?
>
> Thanks in advance for any answers
> Sebastian

[Valentina Sirkova]

On Tue, 2008-04-15 at 02:50 -0700, sebastianscheid wrote:
> Hi,
> There are some more technical functions, I do not understand too:
> How do I switch the language of the applications? There is this nice drop
> down at the top right corner containing a pretty long list of languages, but
> only a few strings are translated when setting another language (perhaps
> German is not supported well yet?).
>
About language conversion OFBiz recently moved to xmls so the best
practice is to keep your labels in xmls. :)

Valentina