38 Using Different Output Modes

Most web pages are not suitable for print or for emailing, but users may need that functionality. For example, in the File Explorer application, you could place a button component inside the toolbar of the panelCollection component that contains a table, as shown in Figure 38-1.

Figure 38-1 Button to Print Part of a Page

When the user clicks the button, the page is displayed in a new browser window (or tab, depending on the browser) in a simplified form, as shown in Figure 38-2.

Figure 38-2 Printable Version of the Page

Only the contents of the table are displayed for printing. All extraneous components, such as the toolbar, buttons, and scroll bars, are not rendered.

There may be occasions when you need a page in your application to be emailed. For example, purchase orders created on the web are often emailed to the purchaser at the end of the session. However, because email clients do not support external stylesheets which are used to render to web browsers, you can't email the same page, as it would not be rendered correctly.

Say you have a page that displays a purchase order, as shown in Figure 38-3.

Figure 38-3 Purchase Order Web Page

When the user clicks the Emailable Page link at the top, an actionListener method or another service appends org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.agent.email=true to the current URL and emails the page. Figure 38-4 shows the page as it appears in an email client.

Figure 38-4 Page in an Email Client

1. In one of the layout components, add a command component in the facet that contains the content you would like to print. For procedures, see How to Use Buttons and Links for Navigation and Deliver ActionEvents.

   Note:

   While you can insert a showPrintablePageBehavior component outside of a layout component to allow the user to print the entire page, the printed result will be roughly in line with the layout, which may mean that not all content will be visible. Therefore, if you want the user to be able to print the entire content of a facet, it is important to place the command component and the showPrintablePageBehavior component within the facet whose contents users would typically want to print. If more than one facet requires printing support, then insert one command component and showPrintablePageBehavior tag into each facet. To print all contents, the user then has to execute the print command one facet at a time.

2. In the Components window, from the Operations panel, drag a Show Printable Page Behavior and drop it as a child to the command component.

1. Insert a command component onto the page to be emailed. For more information, see Working with Navigation Components.
2. In a managed bean, create an actionListener method or another service that appends org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.agent.email=true to the current URL of the page to be emailed.

   Note:

   By default, the framework will inline the style information onto each HTML element rather than creating an internal stylesheet. You can configure this behavior by setting the web.xml parameter oracle.adf.view.DEFAULT_EMAIL_MODE to either internal or inline. You can also force a request to render in either internal or inline mode by setting the request parameter to org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.agent.email=internal or org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.agent.email=inline.

3. Select the command component, and in the Properties window, set the method or service as the value for ActionListener.

   Tip:

   If you want to be able to view the email offline, append the following request parameter to the URL of the page to be emailed:

   org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.agent.email=true&oracle.adf.view.rich.render.emailContentType=multipart/related
   

   The framework will convert the HTML to MIME (multipart/related) and inline the images so the email can be viewed offline.

1. In the Components window, from the General Controls panel, drag and drop a Button anywhere onto the page.
2. In the Design tab, right-click the Button and then in the Common section set the Destination to be the page's name plus org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.agent.email=true.

   For example, if your page's name is myPage, the value of the destination attribute should be:

   myPage.jspx?org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.agent.email=true
   

   Figure 38-5 Setting the Destination Attribute

   
3. Right-click the page and choose Run to run the page in the default browser.

   The Create Default Domain dialog displays the first time your run your application and start a new domain in Integrated WebLogic Server. Use the dialog to define an administrator password for the new domain. Passwords you enter must be at least eight characters and must have at least one non-alphabetic character.

4. Once the page displays in the browser, click the Button you added to the page. This will again display the page in the browser, but converted to a page that can be handled by an email client.
5. In your browser, view the source of the page. For example, in Mozilla Firefox, you would select View > Page Source. Select the entire source and copy it.
6. Create a new message in your email client. Paste the page source into the message and send it to yourself.

   Tip:

   Because you are pasting HTML code, you will probably need to use an insert command to insert the HTML into the email body. For example, in Thunderbird, you would choose Insert > HTML.

7. If needed, create a skin specifically for the email version of the page using an agent. The following example shows how you might specify the border on a table rendered in email.

   af|table {
     border: 1px solid #636661;
   }
    
   @agent email { 
     af|table 
      {border:none}
   }
   
   af|table::column-resize-indicator {
     border-right: 2px dashed #979991;
   }
   

   For more information about creating skins, see Customizing the Appearance Using Styles and Skins.

When the ADF Faces framework receives the request parameter org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.agent.email=true in the Render Response phase, the associated phase listener sets an internal flag that notifies the framework to do the following:

• Remove any JavaScript from the HTML.

• Add all CSS to the page, but only for components included on the page and global styles (those without the pipe character (|) in the name).

• Remove the CSS link from the HTML.

• Convert all relative links to absolute links.

• Render images with absolute URLs.

• Inline the style information onto each HTML element rather than creating an internal stylesheet.

Additionally, if you add the parameter oracle.adf.view.rich.render.emailContentType=multipart/related the framework will convert the HTML to MIME (multipart/related) and inline the images so the email can be viewed offline. The full request parameter would be:

org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.agent.email=true&oracle.adf.view.rich.render.emailContentType=multipart/related