Peter Martin: FDS Plugin V2

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February 16, 2007

FDS Plugin V2

I am please to say V2 of my FDS Plugin is now available for download on the Flex Exchange. Thanks to all those who took the time to downloaded the BETA and for reporting the bugs you found. In particular the following bugs have been fixed:

  • The plugin will now run with Java 1.4.
  • The paths in the project are correct on Mac OS X.
  • The 'user_classes' folder is now included in the project classpath.
  • If you compile locally the Web Tools Plaform WAR export will now include the Flex generated files (e.g. *.swf) and the Flex source files if selected.

What's new?

The dependancy on Flex Data Services (FDS) has now been externalized. This means you need to have FDS installed on your machine. You will find a new preferences page in Eclipse (Window > Preferences > Flex Data Services > FDS Installations) where you can configure the installation location of FDS.

FDS Preferences

The new project wizard now has a configuration page, which you can use to configure your FDS project.

Project Config

In particular it adds an option to compile your application locally in Flex Builder, which should help improve your development velocity. In the past it only supported compile on server, which it continues to support. However, I would strongly urge against using this option as I have found it to be troublesome when you are debugging as Flex Builder won't always find the source.

Posted by at February 16, 2007 09:48 AM

Comments

Hi,

I've been using the plugin for a FDS project and so far it's been working great, as I've only been reading data from the server. However, when I try to commit changes to the server, I get the following error:

[RPC Fault faultString="Unable to access UserTransaction in DataService." faultCode="Server.Processing" faultDetail="null"]
at mx.data::ConcreteDataService/http://www.adobe.com/2006/flex/mx/internal::dispatchFaultEvent()
at mx.data::CommitResponder/fault()
at mx.rpc::AsyncRequest/fault()
at ::HTTPMessageResponder/HTTPChannel.as$39:HTTPMessageResponder::resultHandler()
at ::HTTPMessageResponder/completeHandler()
at ::ChannelRequestLoader/::callEventCallback()
at ::ChannelRequestLoader/::completeHandler()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/flash.events:EventDispatcher::dispatchEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
at flash.net::URLLoader/flash.net:URLLoader::onComplete()

According to the Adobe Technote (http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=6b82874f), this is caused by a faulty JOTM configuration. I know how to set it up when running Tomcat normally, but how do you set up the required xml configuration files for the embedded tomcat?

I tried creating the catalina/localhost-directory inside the "Tomcat v5.5 Server @ localhost-config" directory that contains the other configuration files and then created the required application-specific xml configuration file inside the new directory. This didn't seem to work, as I still got the same error as before. Should I set some project-specific settings to load the XML files? The JAR-libraries seem to be included in the server's classpath so that should not be a problem.

Pekka

Posted by: Pekka Toppi at February 16, 2007 05:01 PM

Hi,

I actually found a solution just a few minutes after posting this comment.. Should research more before asking questions :)

However, if anybody else is facing the same problem, try adding a context.xml-file to the root of your configuration directory. Then edit it so it looks like this:

<Context>
<Transaction factory="org.objectweb.jotm.UserTransactionFactory" jotm.timeout="60"/>
</Context>

Now every FDS application you run inside the embedded Tomcat server should have the proper JOTM support enabled without creating any app-specific configuration files.

Posted by: Pekka Toppi at February 16, 2007 05:25 PM

Sorry, but the download doesn't work for me. Could you check please, I am waiting eagerly for this Plug-in.

Thanks

Reto

Posted by: Reto at February 17, 2007 10:21 AM

Hi everybody,
i'm facing a real funny problem with modules and moduleLoader, i hope
it's not my fault anyway...
If i create a normal flex project with fBuilder, i'm able to use
modules in a lot of different ways (as mxml, as as in a function etc..)...
but if i try to use them in my fds application (created with fds
eclipse plugin) i can't use modules. The compile-time error message is
always the same:

Could not resolve to a component implementation

I tried a lot of solutions, paying attention to import all the classes
etc...but nothing change.

I will appreciate everykind of help.

Posted by: fabio at March 23, 2007 12:24 PM

Congratulations again Peter Martin.
You have done great work with this plug-in although I see that Adobe is still using absolute file paths for both .actionScriptProperties and .flexProperties files.
In more detail, .actionScriptProperties accepts ${DOCUMENTS} variable but replaces any occurence of it with absolute paths when modified from the project properties dialog
while
.flexProperties does not accept ${DOCUMENTS} at all.

I am thus still forced to check-out my Flex projects to same location otherwise they do not work.

Please propose to the Flex Developer team to include this feature in the next Flex Builder release. It would be quite useful.

Posted by: Elias Balasis at March 26, 2007 09:34 AM

Hi Peter, is there a problem with FDS installations functionality? It works when you first specify your FDS installation but once you restart Eclipse and create a new project, FDS installation gets reset, I think.

Posted by: Mete Atamel at April 11, 2007 04:09 PM

Peter,
According to Help -> About Eclipse -> Plug-in Details I have v2.0.0.200702152022 of "Flex Enterprise Builder" installed. Is that the latest version of your plug-in?
Cheers,
Graeme

Posted by: Graeme Harker at May 28, 2007 10:44 AM

Hi! I can't found this plugin in Adobe Exchange, anybody knows why? Thanks!

Posted by: ninguno at June 9, 2007 03:21 PM

does the V2 of this plugin work with FLEX 3?

regards

Posted by: sign at June 19, 2007 12:27 PM

Peter, if I use your plugin on a new Dynamic Web Project I get:

C:\dev\app_servers\jboss-4.0.5.GA\server\default\tmp\deploy\tmp26760MyProject-exp.war\WEB-INF\flex\flex-config.xml(84): Error: unable to open './user_classes'

An hard coded location works though. Why is this?

Regards,

Manu

Posted by: Manu at July 10, 2007 03:30 PM

hai

plz send me the 2 jar files.

1.flex-bootstrap-jsp.jar

2.flex-webtier-jsp.jar

need very urgent

with regards

kutti

Posted by: kutti at September 6, 2007 10:36 PM

hi peter, the plugin can't be found in Adobe Exchange. Could you please check? Thanks a lot!

Posted by: jingwei at October 19, 2007 04:38 AM

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