Makumba application example

In this example we will build a web application for managing data about our business partners in following steps:

1. Defining data structure - MDD
2. Wrinting JSP pages
   • Listing objects
   • Showing single object
   • Creating new object
   • Editing existing object
   • Fine tuning page layout
3. Business Logic

 MDD - Makumba Data Definition

File dataDefinitions/organisation/Partner.mdd (somewhere in classpath):

name=not null char[40]    ;Name
city=char[40]       ;City
country= ptr general.Country ;Country
phone=char[20]      ;Phone
fax=char[40]        ;Fax
email=char[40]      ;E-Mail
homepage=char[50]   ;Home Page on the Internet
comment=text        ;Other comments

name=char[60]             ;Country
iso2letterCode=fixed char[2];2-letter ISO code

 JSP - Java Server Pages

 Listing objects

• brief summary (name and city)
• link to a page with more detailed information

<%@ taglib uri="http://www.makumba.org/presentation" prefix="mak" %>

<h2>Partners:</h2>

<mak:list from="organisation.Partner p">
   <a href="partner.jsp?partner=<mak:value expr="p"/>">
                <mak:value expr="p.name">
   </a>,
   <i><mak:value expr="p.city"/></i>  <br>
</mak:list>

<hr>
[<a href="partnerNew.jsp">New partner entry</a>]

 Object details

<%@ taglib uri="http://www.makumba.org/presentation" prefix="mak" %>

<mak:object from="organisation.Partner p" where="p=$partner">
    <h2><mak:value expr="p.name"/></h2>

    <mak:value expr="p.city"/>,
      <mak:value expr="p.country.name"/><br>
    Home Page: <b><mak:value expr="p.homepage"/></b>
    <p>
    You can send them an email to: <mak:value expr="p.email"/><br>
    Call me: <b><mak:value expr="p.phone"/></b><br>
    Comment: <mak:value expr="p.comment"/>
</mak:object>

<hr>
[<a href="partnerList.jsp">List them all</a>]

For additional options see the specification of mak:object and mak:value.

 New object creation

<%@ taglib uri="http://www.makumba.org/presentation" prefix="mak" %>

<h2>New partner</h2>

<mak:newForm type="organisation.Partner" action="partnerList.jsp">
   Name: <mak:input field="name"/> <br>

   City: <mak:input field="city"/> <br>
   Country: <mak:input field="country"/><br>
   <input type="submit" value="Create">
</mak:newForm>

<hr>
[<a href="partnerList.jsp">Back to list</a>]

For additional options see the specification of mak:newForm and mak:input.

 Editing existing objects

<%@ taglib uri="http://www.makumba.org/presentation" prefix="mak" %>

<mak:object from="organisation.Partner p" where="p=$partner">
   <h2>Edit <mak:value expr="p.name"/></h2>
   <mak:editForm object="p" action="partnerList.jsp">

      City: <mak:input field="city"/> <br>
      Country: <mak:input field="country"/><br>
      Home Page: <mak:input field="homepage"/>
      <p>
      Email: <mak:input field="email"/><br>
      Phone: <mak:input field="phone"/><br>
      Comment: <mak:input field="comment"/><br>
      <input type="submit" value="Save">
   </mak:editForm>

   <mak:delete object="p" action="partnerList.jsp">Delete this</mak:delete>

</mak:object>

<hr>
[<a href="partnerList.jsp">Back to list</a>]

For additional options see the specification of mak:editForm and mak:input.

 Fine-tuning layout

In order to keep your code as clean as possible, we advise you to break it down into small, human-managable files and include them in your pages with <jsp:include /> directive, eg:

<jsp:include page="header.jsp"/>

 BL - Business Logic