This document discusses various tips and best practices for developing mobile applications using Oracle Mobile Application Framework (MAF) that are not covered in developer guides. It covers topics like navigation, gestures, device interactions, push notifications and more. Real world examples are provided to illustrate how to handle issues like avoiding app crashes when taking pictures, following platform-specific gesture standards, and designing payloads for push notifications. The presenter encourages attendees to prioritize usability and consider all aspects of the mobile development lifecycle.

1. Real Life
Oracle Mobile Application Framework
Things that you don't get from the developer guide
Oracle Open World, San Francisco, September 28th 2014

2. Who Am I
• Luc Bors
• Principal Consultant
• AMIS, Netherlands
• Friends of Oracle & Java
• Oracle Partner
• Oracle Specialized Partner of
the year 2014
Middleware - EMEA

3. Before we start
• Let’s look at some basic terms related to MAF and Mobile
– Springboard
– Gestures
– Feature
– Push Notifications

4. MAF Architecture Overview
Device
Native
Container
SQLite
Database
Java
VM
Configuration
Server
Business
Logic
Model
JDBC
Apache
Cordova
SQLite
Web
View
Server
HTML
HTML5
and
Javascript
Presentation
AMX
View
Local
HTML
Controller
Push
Handler
Server
Generated
HTML
APN/GCM
Push
Services
SOAP
and
REST
Services
Device
Services
App
Config
Credential
Management
SSO
and
Access
Control

5. Todays Topics
• Navigation and Application Control
• Device Interaction
• Gestures
• Push Notifications

6. Springboard & navigationbar
• Springboard configuration in maf-application.xml

7. The Default Springboard

8. The Custom SpringBoard

9. Springboard Toggle
• Default button on bottom left
• Custom button such as Top Right
• Create this yourself
• Note: No show / hide available
• Note: No “isSpringboard” visible property available.
• You need to create this yourself
<amx:commandLink
actionListener="#{bindings.gotoSpringboard.execute}"
id="cl1” styleClass="custom-springboard-link”>
<amx:image inlineStyle="width:30px;height:30px”
source="/images/springboard.png" id="i1"/>
</amx:commandLink>

10. Feature Archives
• Feature Archives can be reused
• Deploy MAF app as FAR
• Add to ‘Consumer’
• Use features from FAR in other apps

11. Features
can
be
taskflows
• Can contain multiple activities
• Navigation between activities is
possible
• Information exchange is possible

12. List to Detail
• Navigate from List to Detail
• If List and Detail use the same iterator, correct details will show up
automatically
List View
1 Name…..
2 Name…..
3 Name…..
4 Name…..
Detail View
#3.
Name
State
Country
Example: If you select List item #3,
and that will become the current item
in the iterator the list is based on.

13. Navigation
• Declarative Navigation
– Button/Link/ListItem
<amx:listItem id="li1" action="detail" showLinkIcon="true”
selectedRowKeys="#{Collection.collectionModel.selectedRow}”"
selectionListener="#{Collection.collectionModel.makeCurrent}""
…."
…"
>"

14. List to Detail (+)
• What if you don’t want to GET all detail data for every List item ?
• Simply use an (extra) service call to get the detail Data
Service
call
List View
1 Name…..
2 Name…..
3 Name…..
4 Name…..
Detail View
#3.
Name
State
Country
Image:
Example: If you select List item #3, and that will become
the current item in the iterator the list is based on. You can
use the Identifier of that list item to call the service

15. Navigation
• Declarative Navigation
– Button/Link/ListItem
<amx:listItem id="li1" action="detail" showLinkIcon="true">"
<amx:setPropertyListener id="x" from="#{row.rowKey}”
to="#{pageFlowScope.myBean.currentStadium}" "
type="action"/>"

16. Programmatic Navigation
• Programmatic Navigation
– JavaCode
AdfmfContainerUtilities.invokeContainerJavaScriptFunction("
AdfmfJavaUtilities.getFeatureName(), "
"adf.mf.api.amx.doNavigation", "
new Object[] { ”detail" });
} "

17. Programmatic Navigation
• Drawback
– No access to setPropertyListener
• Solution if you need that functionality:
– Set the value in java Code
ValueExpression ve ="
AdfmfJavaUtilities.getValueExpression("
"#{pageFlowScope.myBean.currentStadium}”"
, String.class);"
"
ve.setValue(AdfmfJavaUtilities.getAdfELContext()"
, getCurrentStadium());"

18. Todays Topics
• Navigation and Application Control
• Device Interaction
• Gestures
• Push Notifications

19. All day example
• Twitter or Whatsapp and images
• What if you embed an image in a message ?
• Two options:
• Use exisiting image from gallery or
• Create a new one with camera.
• Where is the catch ?

20. Device Interaction (Declarative)
• The Device Datacontrol
• Drag n Drop support
• Attributes as fields
• Operations as buttons

21. Camera interaction (from Java)
• Take a picture ……………
import oracle.adf.model.datacontrols.device;
DeviceManagerFactory.getDeviceManager().getPicture(
100,
DeviceManager.CAMERA_DESTINATIONTYPE_FILE_URI,
DeviceManager.CAMERA_SOURCETYPE_CAMERA, false,
DeviceManager.CAMERA_ENCODINGTYPE_PNG,
200,
200);
• …… or get one from the Library
DeviceManager.CAMERA_SOURCETYPE_PHOTOLIBRARY

22. Smart Camera Interaction
• Or how to prevent your app from crashing …
• DESTINATIONTYPE_DATA_URL you will get the image as base64 encoded
string
• Camera’s are very good and picture quality is amazing.
– Encoding such images as base64 causes memory issues
• Don’t blow up your app.
– iOS you should set quality parameter to a value less then 50 to avoid memory
issues
– On Android out-of-memory can be caused with default image settings. Make
image smaller by setting targetWidth and targetHeight
• Small sized images can be uploaded using web services.

23. Even smarter…
• Determine network connection
#{hardware.networkStatus}
Combined with
#{device.os}
To tweak size and quality parameters based on connectivity
• Always be aware of the other side…..
– Does the recipient have the same Connectivity….

24. Todays Topics
• Navigation and Application Control
• Device Interaction
• Gestures
• Push Notifications

25. Gestures ( and UX )
• Gestures can be
used from:
– Buttons
– Links
– List Item
<amx:showPopupBehavior popupid="pop1"
type="tapHold“ />

26. Gesture Abuse
• .. Or how to confuse your app user…
<amx:showPopupBehavior popupid="pop1"
type=”swipeLeft“ />
<amx:actionListener binding="#{mybean.deleteRow}"
type=”swipeDown"/>

27. What Apple did (iOS6 à iOS7)
• They changed delete swipe from right to left…….
• I rest my case……
• Make sure to be aware
of the right standard:
– For Device
– For OS
– For version

28. This is helpfull

29. Use case example

30. Ingredients
• A (Web) service and datacontrol
• A Page with Listview
• An ActionListener with type
SwipeDown
• Smart Java Code to call service
(conditionally)
<amx:listView var="row”"
value="#{bindings.allLocations.collectionModel}" "
fetchSize="#{bindings.allLocations.rangeSize}”"
id="lv1"> "
<amx:listItem id="li1"> "
<amx:actionListener type="swipeDown” "
binding="#{pageFlowScope.locationsBackingBean.checkForUpdates}”>"
"

31. Example

32. Todays Topics
• Navigation and Application Control
• Device Interaction
• Gestures
• Push Notifications

33. Push Notifications
• Subscribe to GCM
• Receive token
• Register with Enterprise app
• Enterprise app Pushes message to
GCM
• GCM delegates message to
device(s)

34. Working with Payload
• “Pusher” knows the mobile app
• “Pusher” knows how app can respond
• App knows “ Pusher”
• App knows what to expect from “Pusher”
• “Pusher” pushes info to determine the Feature and optionally a Key
• App Navigates to correct Feature based on this information and calls
Service with the key to fetch information

35. Server side message
• Example:
private Message createMessage(String msg) {
String sound = "default";
Message message =
new Message.Builder()
.delayWhileIdle(true)
.addData("alert", msg)
.addData("sound",sound)
.addData("FeatureName", "Sessions")
.addData("SessionId", "12")
.build();
return message;
}

36. In the MAF App
onMessage Deserialize
Payload
PushNotification Listener
Call Feature

37. When Notified (onMessage)
• Application Push Notification Listener
• onMessage(Event event)
• Deserialize Payload and work with it
PayloadServiceResponse serviceResponse =
(PayloadServiceResponse)jsonHelper.fromJSON(
PayloadServiceResponse.class, event.getPayload());
ValueExpression notificationPayloadBinding =
AdfmfJavaUtilities.getValueExpression(
"#{applicationScope.notificationSessionId}", String.class);
notificationPayloadBinding.setValue(
AdfmfJavaUtilities.getAdfELContext(),
serviceResponse.getSessionId());
ValueExpression ve =
AdfmfJavaUtilities.getValueExpression(
"#{applicationScope.notified}", Boolean.class);
ve.setValue(AdfmfJavaUtilities.getAdfELContext(), Boolean.TRUE);

38. …. Finally …
• Change badge and go to the Feature.
// also, lets decrease the application icon badge by one
int currentBadge =
AdfmfContainerUtilities.getApplicationIconBadgeNumber();
if (currentBadge > 0) {
AdfmfContainerUtilities.setApplicationIconBadgeNumber(
currentBadge - 1);
}
AdfmfContainerUtilities.gotoFeature(
"com.tamcapp.mobilebook.ses.ConferenceSessions");

39. In the MAF Feature
FeatureLifeCycle Listener
onActivate()
Do
Something
Navigate

40. In the Feature
• Feature LifeCycle Listener
– In the onActivate() method respond to notification
if(notified.booleanValue()){
AdfmfContainerUtilities.invokeContainerJavaScriptFunction(
AdfmfJavaUtilities.getFeatureName()
,"adf.mf.api.amx.doNavigation”
,new Object[] { "featureActivated" });
}

41. The taskflow behind the scenes
• Wildcard activity
– featureActivated
• To Router
– Determine if Notified
– If so, handle the Notification
• HandleNotification
– Call Service to get info, or do
whatever is needed to handle the
notification

42. Summary
• Don’t take anything for granted
• Start simple, renew fast.
• (Re-) Consider default behavior
• Users First !!!!
• Think about proper Use cases for every thing you do
• Use the wiki:
– https://wikis.oracle.com/display/ADFMobileDesign/Home
• Tip: Read a good MAF book and go to many session during #oow14

43. Book launch
ISBN no’s: 0071830855 / 9780071830850
Regular price: $60
Oracle OpenWorld Bookstore:
Moscone South, Upper Lobby.
20% discount for OOW visitors
Meet the author:
Meet me in the Oracle
OpenWorld bookstore on
Monday from 1 to 1:30
p.m.

44. More mobile at OOW14
• Monday
• Tuesday

45. More mobile at OOW14
• Wednesday

46. More mobile at OOW14
• Thursday
• Don’t miss the HOL

47. Luc Bors, AMIS, The Netherlands
Luc.Bors@amis.nl
LucBors@gmail.com
Follow me on : @lucb_