Oracle MAF: configuring Windows 10 development environment

One of the main features that includes Oracle MAF 2.3 released early this week is the ability to deploy applications in any Windows 10 device.

Downloading and Installing JDeveloper 12.2.1

To develop an application with Oracle MAF 2.3 we need JDeveloper 12.2.1 that can be downloaded in this link:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/jdev/downloads/index.html

You have to download both files.

Once we have installed JDeveloper, we have to install Oracle Mobile Application Framework extension.
This is a known step for JDeveloper users, under ‘Help’ menu click on ‘Check for updates’ and select MAF extension.

Downloading and Installing Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition

First of all we have to download Visual Studio in this link:

https://www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-community-vs


We can use Community, Professional or Enterprise versions


 And click on download button.

Once we have executed the installer, in the wizard we have to select this items and finish the installation.
Creating and Installing the PFX file

Now we need to create a Personal Information Exchange (.pfx file). 
The tools we are going to use are in this folder:

cd C:Program Files (x86)Windows Kits10binx64
First we need to create a .cer and .pvk files.
makecert.exe -sv E:mafmaf.pvk -n “CN=Ruben Rodriguez,OU=MAF,O=rsantrod,C=ES” -r -h 0 -eku “1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.3,1.3.6.1.4.1.311.10.3.13” E:mafmaf.cer
A brief explanation of the arguments
  • -sv path of the private key
  • -n name of the certificate
  • -r means that is self signed
  • -h 0 means that cannot be used as a CA (Certification Authority)
  • -eku 
    • 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.3 the certificate can be used to sign code
    • 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.10.3.13 lifetime signing
  • The last one is the path of the .cer file

Once we execute the command, we will have to set a password for the certificate.
The second command will allow us to copy both .cer and .pvk files into a pfx file.

pvk2pfx.exe -pvk E:mafmaf.pvk -spc E:mafmaf.cer -pfx E:mafmaf.pfx -pi rsantrod -po rsantrod

  • -pvk path of the .pvk file
  • -spc path of the .cer file
  • -pfx path of the pfx file
  • -pi password of the key file
  • -po password of the certificate file

Once we have executed both command we will have this 3 files.

Now we have to import the PFX file into the certificate stores by clicking on the PFX file. 
We have to run this wizard 3 times.
The first one will be in Current User location.

We have to select the pfx file.

We have to set a password for the password for the pfx file and click next.

In this first import we have to select Personal certificate store.

Click on finish to import the file.

The second time we execute the import wizard we have to use Current User location and Trusted People Certificate Store.

And the third time we have to select Local Machine location and Trusted People Certificate Store.

Enabling Developer Mode in Windows 10

We need to enable Developer Mode in Windows 10 as by default we will not be allowed to run applications if are not installed from Windows Store.
We have to open settings and click on Update & Security.
Then click on For Developers and click on Developer Mode.

Configuring JDeveloper

The last step is to configure Windows Platform in JDeveloper preferences.
We need to provide Windows SDK location, the PFX file and its password.

Oracle MAF 2.3 has been released

The most  awaited version of Oracle Mobile Application Framework (Oracle MAF 2.3.0) has been released. This is a big announcement as we can now build Windows 10 applications that can be run on any Windows 10 devices, even on computers. 

These are some of the new features of this release:

JDeveloper 12.2.1


Oracle MAF 2.3.0 is now available in JDeveloper 12.2.1, released in November just before Oracle Open World.

Windows 10 support

Oracle MAF now allows to deploy the application to Windows 10 devices, event desktops or laptops but there are some limitations as you can only deploy the applications to devices based on x86 chipset.



Mobile Cloud Service Analytics integration

This release also provides built-in support for generating analytics events in Oracle Mobile Cloud Service. This will allow us to create custom analytics events and also for lifecycle events like startup, user login, etc… without any line of code.

Data Visualization Tools enhancements

Some of this enhancements are that we can individually style the axis labels or tooltips.

We can also set vertial orientation  for Rating Gauge.

In conclusion I think that this is a step forward and that Oracle MAF is now one of the best choices to build cross-platform single-code mobile applications that makes the development simpler thanks to the declarative programming.

You can check step by step how to configure the development environment in this link: Oracle MAF: configuring Windows 10 development environment

You can get more information in these links: link 1 and link 2.

Oracle Fusion Middleware & PaaS Community Forum 2016

This week I had the chance to assist to Oracle Fusion Middleware & PaaS Community Forum 2016 that is taking place in Las Arenas Hotel in Valencia, Spain. This event is organized by Jürgen Kress

The first day was intense and although we started at 10:30 AM we had 6 sessions where some Oracle’s top speakers talked us about Middleware, PaaS, BPM in the Cloud (Process Cloud Service), and my favourite of the day ‘Next-Generation application Development – The Mobile and Cloud effect’ where we were able to see a Oracle Mobile Application Accelerator demo (It will be included in future releases of Oracle Mobile Cloud Service) that will help business users to create mobile applications easily.

The last part of the day was the Community Awards where avanttic was awarded with Oracle Fusion Middleware Community Forum – Mobile award for Outstanding Mobile Contribution 2016. I had the honor to receive the award and also to present the customer success of our last Oracle MAF and Oracle MCS project.

Congratulations to all the winners of this year!

This is the slide I presented.

After the awards ceremony, we headed to Masia Campo Anibal where we enjoyed the dinner talking to other partners and people from Oracle.

The second day started earlier than the first one and the presentations were more technical. We were able to choose one of the 4 breakouts:

  • SOA & Integration & SOA Cloud Service track
  • BPM & Process Cloud Service & User experience track
  • WebLogic & Java Cloud Service & Engineered Systems track
  • Mobile track & Internet of Things (IoT) track
I assisted the last one, Mobile track & Internet of Things (IoT) track where we were able to listen to Frank Nimphius about ‘Accessing Oracle MCS from Oracle MAF’ and ‘Extending Oracle ADF Application to Cloud and Mobile’ and  Andrejus Baranovskis about ‘Oracle JET and WebSockets’.
Although al presentations were fantastic I leave the first one of the day to the last because I was impressed by the presentation about ‘IoT Cloud Service and Predictive Maintenance Showcase’ by Luis Weir and Simon Nicholson. It allowed us to know what can be achieved with Oracle IoTCS, Oracle MCS and Oracle MAF.

After the breakouts there were 2 presentations, the first one was a ‘Live hacking’ where 5 Oracle ACE Director showed us the integration among a lot PaaS products. The last one by Shishir Agarwal about ‘Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)’ allowed us to know the IaaS strategy.

I would like to thank Jürgen Kress for organize again this wonderful event. I can’t wait for the next year!

Using Postman to test REST APIs

When testing SOAP web services almost everyone uses SOAP UI. In terms of REST APIs testing I like to use Postman instead. In this post I am going to show what you can achieve or do with Postman that is available as a Chrome App or Mac App.

  • Storing REST calls in collections
By clicking Save button in the right hand side you can store the requests you are working on.

You can store them in collections. You can also create folders inside those collections.

Collections can be shared or downloaded as a json file.
  • Manage environments
Environments holds variables that can be used in a request.
You can have as many environments as you want. There is an option to also create global variables that applies to your requests although you don’t have any environment selected.

This is an example of my MCS environment.

Having a variable called ‘MobileBackendId’, you can use it in the request like this: {{MobileBackendId}}
  • Executing pre-request scripts
You can also execute a script before a request is done. In this example, instead of changing the date before each request, you can create a script that fills currentDate variable with the system date and also formats the date.

  • Create tests
When a request is executed, you have a way to know if it is working fine without having to look the response.
For example I have created 2 tests:

  • If the body contains ‘message’ property.
  • If the response code is 202.

After executing the request you will see if the tests has passed or not.

Overview of Oracle Sites Cloud Service

At the end of 2015 Oracle launched Oracle Sites Cloud Service. With this product you can create sites in no time. If you have an active account of Oracle Documents Cloud Service, it is since mid February available as a menu option.

This is the main page and the menu we can find in Sites Cloud.

The first thing we are going to do is to create a new Theme. We can base it in a preexisting template provided by Oracle, or create a new one.

We can see all and download the files of our theme.

Now we are ready to create a new Site.

When the site is created we can see that the site is by default offline, and we can also edit or rename our site.
By clicking Edit link button we can see the site composer.

Before editing we have to click on the toggle button in the top toolbar.

We can drag and drop some predefined components into our site and then configure them. For example, after dragging and dropping an image component

We can select an existing image uploaded in our Oracle Documents Cloud Service, or upload a new one.

We can also configure the structure of the site by adding new pages. We can also set sub menu options.

When we have finished our site, we can activate it by clicking in Offline link and confirming the popup.

As you can see it is so easy and fast to build a site.

The site created is also responsive and can be perfectly seen in mobile browsers.