View

OpenXava generates a default user interface from the model. In many simple cases this is enough, but sometimes it is necessary to model with precision the format of the user interface or view. In this chapter you will learn how to do this.

Layout

The @View annotation can be used in an entity or embeddable class in order to define the layout of its members in the user interface.
The syntax for @View is:

@View(
 name="name", // 1
 members="members", // 2
 extendsView="view" // 3 New in v3.1.2
)
public class MyEntity {

name (optional): This name identifies the view, and can be used in other OpenXava places (for example in application.xml) or from another entity. If the view has no name then the view is assumed as the default one, that is the natural form to display an object of this type. If the name is Simple or Search this view will be used by default to create the search dialog (since v4m4).
members (optional): Indicates the members to display and its layout in the user interface. By default it displays all members (excluding hidden ones) in the order in which are declared in the model. Inside members you can use section and group elements for layout purposes; or action element for showing a link associated to a custom action inside your view.
extendsView (optional): (New in v3.1.2) All the members in the extendsView view are automatically included in the current one. See view inheritance.

You can define several views for an entity using the @Views annotation.
By default (if you do not use @View) all members are displayed in the order of the model, and one for each line.
For example, a model like this:

@Entity
@IdClass(ClerkKey.class)
public class Clerk {
 
 @Id @Required
 @Column(length=3, name="ZONE")
 private int zoneNumber;
 
 @Id @Required
 @Column(length=3, name="OFFICE")
 private int officeNumber;
 
 @Id @Required
 @Column(length=3, name="NUMBER")
 private int number;
 
 @Required @Column(length=40)
 private String name;
 
 // Getters and setters
 ...
 
 }

Generates a view that looks like this:

You can choose the members to display and its order, with the members attribute:

@Entity
@IdClass(ClerkKey.class)
@View(members="zoneNumber; officeNumber; number")
public class Clerk {

In this case name is not shown.
Also you can use members for tunning the layout:

@View(members=
 "zoneNumber, officeNumber, number;" +
 "name"
)

You can observe that the member names are separated by commas or by semicolon, this is used to indicate layout. With comma the member is placed just the following (at right), and with semicolon the next member is put below (in the next line). Hence the previous view is displayed in this way:

Groups

With groups you can lump a set of related properties and it has visual effect. For defining a group you only need to put the name of the group and after it its members within square brackets. Just in this way:

@View(members=
 "id [ zoneNumber, officeNumber, number ];" +
 "name"
)

In this case the result is:

You can see the three properties within the group are displayed inside a frame, and name is displayed outside this frame. The semicolon before name causes it to appear below, if not it appears at right.
You can put several groups in a view:

@View(members=
 "general [" +
 " number;" +
 " type;" +
 " name;" +
 "]" +
 "contact [" +
 " telephone;" +
 " email;" +
 " website;" +
 "]"
)

In this case the groups are shown one next to the other:

If you want one below the other then you must use a semicolon after the group, like this:

@View(members=
 "general [" +
 " number;" +
 " type;" +
 " name;" +
 "];" +
 "contact [" +
 " telephone;" +
 " email;" +
 " website;" +
 "]"
)

In this case the view is shown this way:

Nested groups are allowed. This is a pretty feature that allows you to layout the elements of the user interface in a flexible and simple way. For example, you can define a view as this:

@View(members=
 "invoice;" +
 "deliveryData [" +
 " type, number;" +
 " date;" +
 " description;" +
 " shipment;" +
 " transportData [" +
 " distance; vehicle; transportMode; driverType;" +
 " ]" +
 " deliveryByData [" +
 " deliveredBy;" +
 " carrier;" +
 " employee;" +
 " ]" +
 "]"
)

And the result will be:

Sometimes it's useful to layout members aligned by columns, like in a table. For example, the next view:

@View(name="Amounts", members=
 "year, number;" +
 "amounts [" +
 "customerDiscount, customerTypeDiscount, yearDiscount;" +
 "amountsSum, vatPercentage, vat;" +
 "]"
)

...will be displayed as following:

This is ugly. It would be better to have all data aligned by columns. You can define the group in this way:

@View(name="Amounts", members=
 "year, number;" +
 "amounts [#" +
 "customerDiscount, customerTypeDiscount, yearDiscount;" +
 "amountsSum, vatPercentage, vat;" +
 "]"
)

Note that now you use [# instead of [. Now you obtain this result:

Now, thanks to the #, the members are aligned by columns.
This feature is also available for the sections (see below) and for members, that is for the root view (new in v4.7.1). Moreover, if you put alignedByColumns=true (new in v4.7.1) in xava.properties all elements are aligned by column even if you do not specify # in the view.

Sections

Furthermore the members can be organized in sections. For defining a section you only need to put the name of the section and after it its members within braces. Let's see an example from the Invoice entity:

@View(members=
 "year, number, date, paid;" +
 "comment;" +
 "customer { customer }" +
 "details { details }" +
 "amounts { amountsSum; vatPercentage; vat }" +
 "deliveries { deliveries }"
)

The visual result is:

The sections are rendered as tabs that the user can click to see the data contained in that section. You can observe how in the view you put members of all types (not only properties); thus, customer is a reference, details and deliveries are collections.
Nested sections are allowed. For example, you can define a view as this:

@View(name="NestedSections", members=
 "year, number, date;" +
 "customer { customer }" +
 "data {" +
 " details { details }" +
 " amounts {" +
 " vat { vatPercentage; vat }" +
 " amountsSum { amountsSum }" +
 " }" +
 "}" +
 "deliveries { deliveries }"
)

In this case you will obtain a user interface like this:

As in the groups case, the sections allow using # for aligning by columns, like this:

@View(name="AlignedAmountsInSection", members=
 "year, number;" +
 "customer { customer }" +
 "details { details }" +
 "amounts {#" +
 "customerDiscount, customerTypeDiscount, yearDiscount;" +
 "amountsSum, vatPercentage, vat;" +
 "}"
)

With the same effect as in the group case.

View inheritance (new in v3.1.2)

On defining a new view you can inherit the members and layout of an already existing view. In this way, you can avoid copy & paste, and at the same time you keep your code shorter and easier to update.
This is done using extendsView. For example if you have a view like the next one:

@View(name="VerySimple", members="name, sex"),

That produces the next UI:

If you want a new view that extends this one just write the next code:

@View(name="Simple", extendsView="VerySimple", members="mainLanguage")

and you will have the next view:

As you see the members of VerySimple view are included automatically in Simple view, and the own members of view are added at the end.
In this case you extend a view of the same entity, but you can also extend a view of the parent entity, if you are using JPA inheritance. That is, if you have an entity called Programmer:

@Entity
@View(name="WithSections",
 members =
 "name, sex;" +
 "mainLanguage;" +
 "experiences { experiences }"
)
public class Programmer {

You can reuse the WithSections view in a child class of Programmer:

@Entity
@View(name="WithSections", extendsView="super.WithSections",
 members =
 "favouriteFramework;" +
 "frameworks { frameworks }"
)
public class JavaProgrammer extends Programmer {

As you can see, the way to extends a view of the superclass is using the super prefix for extendsView. In this case the WithSections view of the JavaProgrammer entity will have all the members of the WithSections view of Programmer entity plus its own ones.
Look the aspect of WithSections view of JavaProgrammer:

If you want to extend the default view (the default view is the view with no name) just use the word DEFAULT as name for extendsView. As in the next example:

@View(members="name, sex; mainLanguage, favouriteFramework; experiences")
@View(name="Complete", extendsView="DEFAULT", members = "frameworks")

The Complete view will have all the members of default view (name, sex, mainLanguage, favouriteFramework, experiences) plus frameworks.
View inheritance only applies to members and their layout. Actions, events and other refinements done at member level are not inherited.

Responsive layout (new in v5.7)

Responsive layout means that the layout of the UI is adapted to the page size, so your application works fine in a 7" tablet, a 15" laptop or a 22" desktop, with the same code. To activate responsive layout in OpenXava add the next entry to xava.properties of your project:

flowLayout=true

After it, OpenXava adjusts the fields layout to the page size. For example, from the next @View:

@View( members=
    "#number, description;" +
    "color, photos;" +
    "family, subfamily;" +
    "warehouse, zoneOne;" +
    "unitPrice, unitPriceInPesetas;" +
    "unitPriceWithTax"
)

With a small screen you get:

With a not so small screen you get:

With a larger screen:

And so on. Note as # , and ; from @View are ignored.

Layout philosophy

It's worth to notice that you have groups instead of frames and sections instead of tabs. Because OpenXava tries to maintain a high level of abstraction, that is, a group is a set of members semantically related, and the sections allow to split the data into parts. This is useful, if there is a big amount of data that cannot be displayed simultaneous. The fact that the group is displayed as frames or sections in a tabbed pane is only an implementation issue. For example, OpenXava (maybe in future) can choose to display sections (for example) with trees or so.

Rules for view annotations

You can annotate a member (property, reference or collection) with several annotations that refine its display style and behaviour. Moreover you can define that effect of these annotations only applies to some views.

For example if you can have an entity with several views:

@Entity
@View( members= "number; type; name; address" )
@View( name="A", members= "number; type; name; address; seller" )
@View( name="B", members= "number; type; name; seller; alternateSeller" )
@View( name="C", members="number; type; name; address; deliveryPlaces" )
public class Customer {

If you're using an OpenXava version older than 6.1 you have to use @Views to wrap the views:

@Entity
@Views({ // Only needed until v6.0.2
  @View( members= "number; type; name; address" ),
  @View( name="A", members= "number; type; name; address; seller" ),
  @View( name="B", members= "number; type; name; seller; alternateSeller" ),
  @View( name="C", members="number; type; name; address; deliveryPlaces" )
})
public class Customer {

If now you want the name property will be read only. You can annotate it in this way:

@ReadOnly
private String name;

In this way name is read only in all views. However, you may want that name will be read only only on views B and C, then you can define the member as following:

@ReadOnly(forViews="B, C")
private String name;

Another way for defining this same case is:

@ReadOnly(notForViews="DEFAULT, A")
private String name;

Using notForViews you indicate the views where name property is not read only. DEFAULT is used for referencing to the default view, the view with no name.
Some annotations have one or more values, for example for indicating which view of the referenced type will be used for displaying a reference you use the @ReferenceView annotation:

@ReferenceView("Simple")
private Seller seller;

In this case when the seller is displayed the view Simple, defined in Seller class, is used.
What if you want to use Simple view of Seller only in B view of Customer? It's easy:

@ReferenceView(forViews="B", value="Simple")
private Seller seller;

What if you want to use Simple view of Seller only in B view of Customer and the VerySimple view of Seller for A view of Customer? In this case you have to use several @ReferenceView:

@ReferenceView(forViews="B", value="Simple"),
@ReferenceView(forViews="A", value="VerySimple")

If you're using a version previous to v6.1 in order to have several @ReferenceView you must use @ReferenceViews, just in this way:

@ReferenceViews({ // Only needed until v6.0.2
  @ReferenceView(forViews="B", value="Simple"),
  @ReferenceView(forViews="A", value="VerySimple")
})

These rules apply to all the annotations in this chapter, except @View and @Views.

Property customization

You can refine the visual aspect and behavior of a property in a view using the next annotations:

@ReadOnly // 1
@LabelFormat // 2
@DisplaySize // 3
@OnChange // 4
@Action // 5
@Editor // 6
@LabelStyle // 7 New in v4m4
private type propertyName;

All these annotations follow the rules for view annotations and all they are optionals. OpenXava always assumes a correct default values if they are omitted.

@ReadOnly (OX): If you mark a property with this annotation it never will be editable by the final user in this view. An alternative to this is to make the property editable or not editable programmatically using org.openxava.view.View. Since v6.2 you can specify @ReadOnly(onCreate=false) in order the property will be editable on creating a new entity, but read only in all other cases.
@LabelFormat (OX): Format to display the label of this property. Its value can be LabelFormatType.NORMAL, LabelFormatType.SMALL or LabelFormatType.NO_LABEL.
@DisplaySize (OX): The size in characters of the editor in the User Interface used to display this property. The editor display only the characters indicated by @DisplaySize but it allows to the user to entry until the total size of the property. If @DisplaySize is not specified, the value of the size of the property is assumed.
@OnChange (OX): Action to execute when the value of this property changes. Only one @OnChange action per view is allowed.
@Action (OX): Actions (showed as links, buttons or images to the user) associated (visually) to this property and that the final user can execute. It's possible to define several @Action for each view.
@Editor (OX): Name of the editor to use for displaying the property in this view. The editor must be declared in openxava/src/main/resources/xava/default-editors.xml or src/main/resources/xava/editors.xml of your project. Before v7 they were OpenXava/xava/default-editors.xml and xava/editors.xml of your project.
@LabelStyle (OX): (New in v4m4): Style to display the label of this property. It has the predefined styles 'bold-label', 'italic-label' and 'reverse-label'; though you can use your own custom style if you define it in a CSS file.

Label format

A simple example of using @LabelFormat:

@LabelFormat(LabelFormatType.SMALL)
private int zipCode;

In this case the zip code is displayed as:

The LabelFormatType.NORMAL format is the default style (with a normal label at the left) and the LabelFormatType.NO_LABEL simply does not display the label. Since v4m4 you can use defaultLabelFormat in xava.properties to specify the label format to be used when @LabelFormat is omitted.

Property value change event

If you wish to react to the event of a value change of a property you can use @OnChange as following:

@OnChange(OnChangeCustomerNameAction.class)
private String name;

The code to execute is:

package org.openxava.test.actions;
 
import org.openxava.actions.*;
import org.openxava.test.model.*;
 
/**
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
public class OnChangeCustomerNameAction extends OnChangePropertyBaseAction { // 1
 
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 String value = (String) getNewValue(); // 2
 if (value == null) return;
 if (value.startsWith("Javi")) {
 getView().setValue("type", Customer.Type.STEADY); // 3
 }
 }
 
}

The action has to implement IOnChangePropertyAction although it is more convenient to extend it from OnChangePropertyBaseAction (1). Within the action you can use getNewValue() (2) that provides the new value entered by user, and getView() (3) that allows you to access programmatically the View (change values, hide members, make them editable and so on).

Actions of property

You can also specify actions (@Action) that the user can click directly:

@Action("Delivery.generateNumber")
private int number;

In this case instead of an action class you have to write the action identifier that is the controller name and the action name. This action must be registered in controllers.xml in this way:

<controller name="Delivery">
 ...
 <action name="generateNumber" hidden="true"
 class="org.openxava.test.actions.GenerateDeliveryNumberAction">
 <use-object name="xava_view"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 </action>
 ...
</controller>

The actions are displayed as a link or an image beside the property. Like this:

By default the action link is present only when the property is editable, but if the property is read only (@ReadOnly) or calculated then it is always present. You can use the attribute alwaysEnabled to true so that the link is always present, even if the property is not editable. As following:

@Action(value="Delivery.generateNumber", alwaysEnabled=true)

The attribute alwaysEnabled is optional and its default value is false.
The code of previous action is:

package org.openxava.test.actions;
 
import org.openxava.actions.*;
 
/**
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
public class GenerateDeliveryNumberAction extends ViewBaseAction {
 
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 getView().setValue("number", new Integer(77));
 }
 
}

A simple but illustrative implementation. You can use any action defined in controllers.xml and its behavior is the normal for an OpenXava action. In the chapter 7 you will learn more details about actions.
Optionally you can make your action an IPropertyAction (this is only available for actions associated to properties with @Action annotation), thus the container view and the property name are injected in the action by OpenXava. The above action class could be rewritten in this way:

package org.openxava.test.actions;
 
import org.openxava.actions.*;
import org.openxava.view.*;
 
/**
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
public class GenerateDeliveryNumberAction
 extends BaseAction
 implements IPropertyAction { // 1
 private View view;
 private String property;
 
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 view.setValue(property, new Integer(77)); // 2
 }
 
 public void setProperty(String property) { // 3
 this.property = property;
 }
 public void setView(View view) { // 4
 this.view = view;
 }
 
}

This action implements IPropertyAction (1), this required that the class implements setProperty() (3) and setView() (4), these values are injected in the action object before call to execute() method, where they can be used (2). In this case you does not need to inject xava_view object when defining the action in controllers.xml. The view injected by setView() (4) is the inner view that contains the property, for example, if the property is inside an aggregate the view is the view of that aggregate not the main view of the module. Thus, you can write more reusable actions.

Choosing an editor (property)

An editor display the property to the user and allows him to edit its value. OpenXava uses by default the editor associated to the stereotype or type of the property, but you can specify a concrete editor to display a property using @Editor.
For example, OpenXava uses a combo for editing the properties of type enum, but if you want to display a property of this type in some particular view using a radio button you can define that view in this way:

@Editor(forViews="TypeWithRadioButton", value="ValidValuesRadioButton")
private Type type;
public enum Type { NORMAL, STEADY, SPECIAL };

In this case for displaying/editing the editor ValidValuesRadioButton will be used, instead of default one. ValidValuesRadioButton is defined in openxava/src/main/resources/xava/default-editors.xml (in OpenXava/xava/default-editors.xml for v6 or older) as following:

<editor name="ValidValuesRadioButton" url="radioButtonEditor.jsp"/>

This editor is included with OpenXava, but you can create your own editors with your custom JSP code and declare them in the file editors.xml in src/main/resources/xava (just xava in v6 or older) of your project.
This feature is for changing the editor only in one view. If you want to change the editor for a type, steroetype or a property of a model at application level then it's better to configure it using editors.xml file.

Dynamic combos (new in v5.8)

For a combo with a static list of elements you can use a property of type enum. For a combo that get data from database you can use a reference with @DescriptionsList. If you need something else since v5.8 you have some methods in org.openxava.view.View class that allows you to create a drop-down list using your own logic for any property. For example, for a simple property like this:

private String color;

You can add a combo programmatically in this way:

getView().addValidValue("color", "wht", "White");
getView().addValidValue("color", "blk", "Black");

This creates a combo for color property with two values wht with label White and blk with label Black. In addition to addValidValue(), you have removeValidValue() , getValidValues() and hasValidValues() available. Since v6.3 you also have clearValidValues(), disableValidValues(), removeBlankValidValue() and hasBlankValidValue().
Since v7.1 you can select and edit the selected option or enter a new value directly using EditableValidValues editor, for example:

@Editor("EditableValidValues")
@Column(length = 15)
private String color;

In this example selecting White, you can edit it by White beige or enter a new value as Yellow. These new values will not be added to the original list of options for use in other records.

Reference customization

You can refine the visual aspect and behavior of a reference in a view using the next annotations:

@ReferenceView       // 1
@ReadOnly            // 2
@NoFrame             // 3
@NoCreate            // 4
@NoModify            // 5
@NoSearch            // 6
@AsEmbedded          // 7
@SearchAction        // 8
@SearchListCondition // 9 New in v4m4
@DescriptionsList    // 10
@LabelFormat         // 11
@Action              // 12
@OnChange            // 13
@OnChangeSearch      // 14
@Editor              // 15 New in v3.1.3
@LabelStyle          // 16 New in v4m4
@Collapsed           // 17 New in v5.0
@ManyToOne
private type referenceName;

All these annotations follow the rules for view annotations and all they are optionals. OpenXava always assumes a correct default values if they are omitted.

@ReferenceView (OX): If you omit this annotation, then the default view of the referenced object is used. With this annotation you can indicate that it uses another view.
@ReadOnly (OX): If you use this annotation the reference never will be editable by final user in this view. An alternative is to make the property editable/uneditable programmatically using org.openxava.view.View. Since v6.2 you can specify @ReadOnly(onCreate=false) in order the reference will be editable on creating a new entity, but read only in all other cases.
@NoFrame (OX): If the reference is displayed with no frame. By default the references are displayed with frame.
@NoCreate (OX): By default the final user can create new objects of the referenced type from here. If you use this annotation this will not be possible.
@NoModify (OX): By default the final user can modify the current referenced object from here. If you use this annotation this will not be possible.
@NoSearch (OX): By default the user will have a link to make searches with a list, filters, etc. If you use this annotation this will not be possible.
@AsEmbedded (OX): By default in the case of a reference to an embeddable the user can create and edit its data, while in the case of a reference to an entity the user can only to choose an existing entity. If you put @AsEmbedded then the user interface for references to entities behaves as a in the embedded case, allowing to the user to create a new object and editing its data directly. It has no effect in case of a reference to embeddables. Warning! If you remove an entity its referenced entities are not removed, even if they are displayed using @AsEmbedded.
@SearchAction (OX): Allows you to specify your own action for searching when the user click in the search link. Only one by view is allowed.
@SearchListCondition (OX): (New in v4m4) Condition to be used for listing the selectable elements that can be used as a reference.
@DescriptionsList (OX): Display the data as a list of descriptions, typically as a combo. Useful when there are few elements of the referenced object.
@LabelFormat (OX): Format to display the label of the reference. It only applies if this reference is annotated with @DescriptionsList. Works as in property case.
@Action (OX): Actions (showed as links, buttons or images to the user) associated (visually) to this reference and that the final user can execute. Works as in property case. You can define several actions for each reference in the same view.
@OnChange (OX): Action to execute when the value of this reference changes. Only one @OnChange action by view is allowed.
@OnChangeSearch (OX): Allows you to specify your own action for searching when the user type a new key. Only one by view is allowed.
@Editor (OX): (New in v3.1.3) Name of the editor to use for displaying the reference in this view. The editor must be declared in openxava/src/main/resources/xava/default-editors.xml or src/main/resources/xava/editors.xml of your project. Before v7 they were OpenXava/xava/default-editors.xml and xava/editors.xml of your project.
@LabelStyle (OX): (New in v4m4) Style to display the label of the reference. It only applies if this reference is annotated with @DescriptionsList. Works as in property case.
@Collapsed (OX): (New in v5.0) The reference will be shown collapsed for the indicated views. Visually this means that the frame surrounding the reference view will be initially closed. Later the user will be able to set his preferences by clicking on the expansion icon.

If you do not use any of these annotations OpenXava draws a reference using the default view. For example, if you have a reference like this:

@ManyToOne
private Family family;

The user interface will look like this:

Choose view

The most simple customization is to specify the view of the referenced object that you want to use. This is done by means of @ReferenceView:

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@ReferenceView("Simple")
private Invoice invoice;

In the Invoice entity you must have a view named Simple:

@Entity
@Views({
 ...
 @View(name="Simple", members="year, number, date, yearDiscount;"),
 ...
})
public class Invoice {

Thus, instead of using the default view of Invoice (that shows all invoice data) OpenXava will use the next one:

Customizing frame

If you combine @NoFrame with groups you can group visually a property that is not a part of a reference with that reference, for example:

@View( members=
 ...
 "seller [" +
 " seller; " +
 " relationWithSeller;" +
 "]" +
 ...
)
public class Customer {
 ...
 @ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
 @NoFrame
 private Seller seller;
 ...
}

And the result:

Custom search action

The final user can search a new value for the reference simply by keying the new code and leaving the editor the data of reference is obtained; for example, if the user keys "1" on the seller number field, then the name (and the other data) of the seller "1" will be automatically filled. Also the user can click in the lantern, in this case the user will go to a list where he can filter, order, etc, and mark the wished object.
To define your custom search logic you have to use @SearchAction in this way:

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY) @SearchAction("MyReference.search")
private Seller seller;

When the user clicks in the lantern your action is executed, which must be defined in controllers.xml.

<controller name="MyReference">
 <action name="search" hidden="true"
 class="org.openxava.test.actions.MySearchAction"
 image="images/search.gif">
 <use-object name="xava_view"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 <use-object name="xava_referenceSubview"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 <use-object name="xava_tab"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 <use-object name="xava_currentReferenceLabel"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 </action>
 ...
</controller>

The logic of your MySearchAction is up to you. You can, for example, refining the standard search action to filter the list for searching, as follows:

package org.openxava.test.actions;
 
import org.openxava.actions.*;
 
/**
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
 
public class MySearchAction extends ReferenceSearchAction {
 
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 super.execute(); // The standard search behaviour
 getTab().setBaseCondition("${number} < 3"); // Adding a filter to the list
 }
 
}

You will learn more about actions in chapter 7.

Condition for search list (reference, new in v4m4)

When the user clicks in the lantern he go to a list where he can filter, order, etc, and mark the wished object. You can use @SearchAction to overwrite completely this behavior, though if you only want to set a custom condition for the list, then using @SearchListCondition is faster. The above example can be rewritten as following:

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY) @SearchListCondition("${number} < 3")
private Seller seller;

Note as you do not need to create any action.

Custom creation action

If you do not use @NoCreate annotation the user will have a link to create a new object. By default when a user clicks on this link, a default view of the referenced object is displayed and the final user can type values and click a button to create it. If you want to define your custom actions (among them your create custom action) in the form used when creating a new object, you must have a controller named as component but with the suffix Creation. If OpenXava see this controller it uses it instead of the default one to allow creating a new object from a reference. For example, you can write in your controllers.xml:

<!--
Because its name is WarehouseCreation (model name + Creation) it is used
by default for create from reference, instead of NewCreation.
Action 'new' is executed automatically.
-->
<controller name="WarehouseCreation">
 <extends controller="NewCreation"/>
 <action name="new" hidden="true"
 class="org.openxava.test.actions.CreateNewWarehouseFromReferenceAction">
 <use-object name="xava_view"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 </action>
</controller>

In this case when the user clicks on the 'create' link, the user is directed to the default view of Warehouse and the actions in WarehouseCreation will be allowed.
If you have an action called 'new', it will be executed automatically before all. It can be used to initialize the view used to create a new object.

Custom modification action

If you do not use @NoModify the user will have a link to modify the current referenced object. By default when a user clicks on this link, a default view of the referenced object is displayed and the final user can modify values and click a button to update it. If you want to define your custom actions (among them your update custom action) in the form used when modifying the current object, you must have a controller named as component but with the suffix Modification. If OpenXava see this controller it uses it instead of the default one to allow modifying the current object from a reference. For example, you can write in your controllers.xml:

<!--
Because its name is WarehouseModification (model name + Modification) it is used
by default for modifying from reference, instead of Modification.
The action 'search' is executed automatically.
-->
<controller name="WarehouseModification">
 <extends controller="Modification"/>
 <action name="search" hidden="true"
 class="org.openxava.test.actions.ModifyWarehouseFromReferenceAction">
 <use-object name="xava_view"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 </action>
</controller>

In this case when the user clicks on the 'modify' link, the user is directed to the default view of Warehouse and the actions in WarehouseModification will be allowed.
If you have an action called 'search', it will be executed automatically before all. It is used to initialize the view with the object to modify.

Descriptions list (combos)

With @DescriptionsList you can instruct OpenXava to visualize references as a descriptions list (actually a combo). This can be useful, if there are only a few elements and these elements have a significant name or description.
The syntax is:

@DescriptionsList(
  descriptionProperties="properties",  // 1
  depends="depends",                   // 2
  condition="condition",               // 3
  orderByKey="true|false",             // 4
  order="order",                       // 5
  filter="filter class",               // 6 New in v6.4
  showReferenceView="true|false",      // 7 New in v5.5
  forTabs="tab1,tab2,...",             // 8 New in v4m4
  notForTabs="tab1,tab2,..."           // 9 New in v4m4
)

descriptionProperties (optional): The property or properties to show in the list, if not specified, the property named description, descripcion, name or nombre is assumed (since v7.1 you can specify your own default properties adding the defaultDescriptionPropertiesValueForDescriptionsList entry in xava.properties). If the referenced object does not have a property called this way then it is required to specify a property name here. It allows to set more than one property separated by commas. To the final user the values are concatenated.
depends (optional): It's used in together with condition. It can be achieve that the list content depends on other values displayed in the main view (if you simply type the names of the members) or in the same view (if you type this. before each of the member's name). For using several members separate them by commas.
condition (optional): Allows to specify a condition (with SQL style) to filter the values that are shown in the description list.
orderByKey (optional): By default the data is ordered by description, but if you set this property to true it will be ordered by key.
order (optional): Allows to specify an order (with SQL style) for the values that are shown in the description list.
filter (optional): (New in v6.4) Allows to define the logic to fill the values of the parameters used in the condition (the ?). It must implement IFilter and you can use here the same filters used for @Tab.
showReferenceView (optional): (New in v5.5) Shows a combo and a detail view of the reference at the same time. The reference view is read only and its value changed when the combo is changed by the user. The used view is the one specified in @ReferenceView. The default value is false.
forTabs (optional): (New in v4m4) Allows to specify multiple tab names separated by commas. If any of the properties from descriptionProperties is in any of these tabs the filter part will be shown with a description list.
notForTabs (optional): (New in v4m4) Allows to specify multiple tab names separated by commas. If any of the properties from descriptionProperties is in any of these tabs the filter part will continue to be displayed like a plain property.

The simplest usage is:

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@DescriptionsList
private Warehouse warehouse;

That displays a reference to warehouse in this way:

In this case it shows all warehouses, although in reality it uses the baseCondition and the filter specified in the default @Tab of Warehouse. You will see more about tabs.
If you want, for example, to display a combo with the product families and when the user chooses a family, then another combo will be filled with the subfamilies of the chosen family. An implementation can look like this:

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@DescriptionsList(orderByKey=true) // 1
private Family family;
 
@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY) @NoCreate // 2
@DescriptionsList(
 descriptionProperties="description", // 3
 depends="family", // 4
 condition="${family.number} = ?" // 5
 order="${description} desc" // 6
 )
private Subfamily subfamily;

Two combos are displayed one with all families loaded and the other one empty. When the user chooses a family, then the second combo is filled with all its subfamilies.
In the case of Family the property description of Family is shown, since the default property to show is 'description' or 'name'. The data is ordered by key and not by description (1). In the case of Subfamily (2) the link to create a new subfamily is not shown and the property to display is 'description' (in this case this maybe omitted).
With depends (4) you make that this combo depends on the reference family, when change family in the user interface, this descriptions list is filled applying the condition condition (5) and sending as argument (to set value to ?) the new family value. And the entries are ordered descending by description (6).

In condition and order you put the property name inside a ${} and the arguments as ?. The comparator operators are the SQL operators.

In references where @DescriptionsList depends on other @DescriptionsList with composite key, you can put a ? for each key value. That is, if you have an Warehouse entity like this:

@Entity @Getter @Setter
@IdClass(WarehouseKey.class)
public class Warehouse {

    @Id 
    int zoneNumber;

    @Id 
    int number;

    @Column(length=40) @Required
    String name;

}

With composite key that includes zoneNumber and number. Then in other entity you can have two @DescriptionsLists like these:

@ManyToOne
@DescriptionsList
Warehouse mainWarehouse;
	
@ManyToOne
@DescriptionsList(
    depends="mainWarehouse", 
    condition="${warehouse.zoneNumber} = ? and ${warehouse.number} = ?") 
    // condition="${warehouse} = ?" // Since v6.6.3
Carrier defaultCarrier;

Where defaultCarrier depends on mainWarehouse (with its composite key). The trick is to use two ? and compare the two values of the key, zoneNumber and number in condition.

New in v6.6.3: Also it's possible to indicate only the reference name in the condition, instead of the qualified properties of that reference. That is you can use just ${warehouse} = ? instead of ${warehouse.zoneNumber} = ? and ${warehouse.number} = ? in condition. This is not just for composite keys, but for single key references too, see:

@DescriptionsList(
    depends="family", 
    // condition="${family.number} = ?" // Classic way
    condition="${family} = ?" // Since v6.6.3
)

Note ${family} instead of ${family.number}, although the later is still supported.

New in v3.0.3: Qualified properties are allowed for condition and order even if they are not in descriptionProperties. That is, you can write a condition like this:

@DescriptionsList( descriptionProperties="name",
 condition="${family.level.description} = 'TOP'"
)
private Subfamily subfamily;

You can define complex conditions using JPQL (new in v4.5, before v4.5 SQL was used):

@DescriptionsList(
 condition="e.thing.number = (SELECT t.number FROM Thing t WHERE t.name = 'CAR')"
)
private Subfamily subfamily;

As you can see in the example above, with JPQL (new in v4.5) you can use e.propertyName as alternative to ${propertyName}.
You can specify several properties to be shown as description:

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@ReadOnly
@DescriptionsList(descriptionProperties="level.description, name")
private Seller alternateSeller;

In this case the concatenation of the description of level and the name is shown in the combo. Also you can see how it is possible to use qualified properties (level.description).
If you use @ReadOnly in a reference annotated as @DescriptionsList, then the description (in this case level.description + name) is displayed as a simple text property instead of using a combo.
Since v5.5 it's possible to show the combo and the regular view at the same time using the showReferenceView attribute. If you write this code:

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@DescriptionsList(showReferenceView=true) // Combo and view at the same time
@ReferenceView("Simple") // This is the used view
private Seller seller;

You get:

The used view is the specified in @ReferenceView or the default one if not specified.
Since v5.8 we can modify the combo condition at runtime. If we want to change the values of a combo depending on a value that specifies the client, we can write this code in our @OnChange action:

public class OnChangeStateConditionInCity extends OnChangePropertyBaseAction {
    public void execute() throws Exception{
        String value = (String)getNewValue();
        String condition = "";
        if ( Is.empty(value)) condition = "1=1";
        else condition = "upper(name) like '%" + value + "%'";
        getView().setDescriptionsListCondition("state", condition);    // we modify the condition of the combo 'state'
    }
}

Depending on the value that the client types, with the method setDescriptionsListCondition(), we modify the condition of the combo 'state' and that change the values displayed in the combo.

Reference value change event

If you wish to react to the event of a value change of a reference you can write:

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@OnChange(OnChangeCarrierInDeliveryAction.class)
private Carrier carrier;

In this case your action listens to the change of carrier number.
The code to execute is:

package org.openxava.test.actions;
 
import org.openxava.actions.*;
 
/**
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
public class OnChangeCarrierInDeliveryAction
 extends OnChangePropertyBaseAction { // 1
 
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 if (getNewValue() == null) return;
 getView().setValue("remarks", "The carrier is " + getNewValue());
 addMessage("carrier_changed");
 }
 
}

The action implements IOnChangePropertyAction, by means of OnChangePropertyBaseAction (1), although it's a reference. We receive the change of the key property of the reference; in this case carrier.number. The rest is as in the property case.

Reference search on change event

The user can search the value of a reference simply typing its key. For example, if there is a reference to Subfamily, the user can type the subfamily number and automatically the subfamily data is loaded in the view. This is done using a default on change action that does the search. You can specify your own action for search when key change using @OnChangeSearch annotation, just in this way:

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@OnChangeSearch(OnChangeSubfamilySearchAction.class)
private Subfamily subfamily;

This action is executed for doing the search, instead of the standard action, when the user changes the subfamily number.
The code to execute is:

package org.openxava.test.actions;
 
import org.openxava.actions.*;
 
/**
 *
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
 
public class OnChangeSubfamilySearchAction
 extends OnChangeSearchAction { // 1
 
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 if (getView().getValueInt("number") == 0) {
 getView().setValue("number", new Integer("1"));
 }
 super.execute();
 }
 
}

The action implements IOnChangePropertyAction, by means of OnChangeSearchAction (1), although it's a reference. It receives the change of the key property of the reference; in this case subfamily.number.
This case is an example of refining the behaviour of on change search, because it extends from OnChangeSearchAction, that is the default action for searching, and calls to super.execute(). Also it's possible to do a regular on change action (extending from OnChangePropertyBaseAction for example) overriding completely the search logic.

Choosing an editor (reference, new in v3.1.3)

An editor display the reference to the user and allows him to edit its value. By default, the editor OpenXava uses for references is a detailed view inside a frame (the standard way) or a combo (if you use @DescriptionsList), but you can specify your own editor to display a concrete reference using @Editor.
For example, if you have a reference to a Color entity and you want to display it in some particular entity or view using a custom user interface, such as a radio buttons group with available colors, you can do it in this way:

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@Editor("ColorRadioButtons")
private Color color;

In this case the ColorRadioButtons editor will be used for displaying/editing, instead of the default one. You must define your ColorRadioButton editor in the editors.xml file in src/main/resources/xava (just xava for v6 or older) of your project:

<editor name="ColorRadioButtons" url="colorRadioButtonsEditor.jsp"/>

Also you have to write the JSP code for your editor in colorRadioButonsEditor.jsp.
This feature is for changing the editor for a concrete reference in a concrete entity only, or even only in one view of that entity (using @Editor(forViews=)). If you want to change the editor for all references to certain entity type at application level then it's better to configure it using editors.xml file.
Learn more on Editors for references.

Collection customization

You can refine the visual aspect and behavior of an @OneToMany or @ManyToMany collection in a view using the next annotations:

@CollectionView         //  1
@ReadOnly               //  2
@EditOnly               //  3
@NoCreate               //  4
@NoModify               //  5
@AsEmbedded             //  6
@ListProperties         //  7
@RowStyle               //  8
@EditAction             //  9
@ViewAction             // 10
@NewAction              // 11
@AddAction              // 12 New in v5.7
@SaveAction             // 13
@HideDetailAction       // 14
@RemoveAction           // 15
@RemoveSelectedAction   // 16
@ListAction             // 17
@RowAction              // 18 New in v4.6
@DetailAction           // 19
@OnSelectElementAction  // 20 New in v3.1.2
@Editor                 // 21 New in v3.1.3
@SearchListCondition    // 22 New in v4m4
@Tree                   // 23 New in v4m4
@Collapsed              // 24 New in v5.0
@ListSubcontroller      // 25 New in v5.7
@OneToMany/@ManyToMany
private Collection collectionName;

And the next annotations for a @ElementCollection (new in v5.0):

@ReadOnly               //  2 New in v5.1
@EditOnly               //  3 New in v5.1
@ListProperties         //  7
@RemoveSelectedAction   // 15 New in v5.3
@Editor                 // 20
@Collapsed              // 23
@ElementCollection
private Collection collectionName;

All these annotations follow the rules for view annotations and all they are optionals. OpenXava always assumes a correct default values if they are omitted.

@CollectionView (OX): The view of the referenced object (each collection element) which is used to display the detail. By default the default view is used.
@ReadOnly (OX): If you set it then the final user only can view collection elements, he cannot add, delete or modify elements.
@EditOnly (OX): If you set it then the final user can modify existing elements, but not add or remove collection elements.
@NoCreate (OX): If you set it then the final user doesn't get the link to create or add new objects of the referenced object type.
@NoModify (OX): If you set it then the final user doesn't get the link to modify the objects of the referenced object type. It only applies to embedded collections.
@AsEmbedded (OX): By default the embedded collections (with cascade type REMOVE or ALL) allow the users to create and to edit elements, while the regular collections allow only to choose existing entities to add to (or remove from) the collection. If you put @AsEmbedded then the collection behaves as a embedded collection even though it hasn't cascade type REMOVE or ALL, allowing to the user to add objects and editing them directly. It has no effect in case of embedded collections.
@ListProperties (OX): Properties to show in the list for visualization of the collection. You can qualify the properties. By default it shows all persistent properties of the referenced object (excluding references and calculated properties). The suffix + (new in v4.1) can be added to a property name to show the sum of the column at bottom, like in the tabs. Before v5.9 the column summation was not allowed in calculated collections, element collections and @OrderColumn lists. The summation (+) is not allowed for calculated properties in regular collections (@OneToMany with not @OrderColumn). In the case of the element collections you can put the name of a reference (new in v5.1) if it is annotated with @DescriptionsList in the embeddable class.
@RowStyle (OX): To give a special style to some rows. Behaves equals that in the Tab case. It does not works for calculated collections. It's possible to define several @RowStyle for each view.
@EditAction (OX): Allows you to define your custom action to begin the editing of a collection element. This is the action showed in each row of the collection, if the collection is editable. Only one @EditAction per view is allowed.
@ViewAction (OX): Allows you to define your custom action to view a collection element. This is the action showed in each row, if the collection is read only. Only one @ViewAction per view is allowed.
@NewAction (OX): Allows you to define your custom action to start creating a new element and insert it into the collection. This is the action executed on click in 'New' link. Only one @NewAction per view is allowed. Before v5.7 this annotation was also used to define the 'Add' action because then 'New' and 'Add' did not coexist.
@AddAction (OX): (New in v5.7) Allows you to define your custom action to start adding a new element to the collection choosing from an existing one. This is the action executed on click in 'Add' link. Only one @AddAction per view is allowed.
@SaveAction (OX): Allows you to define your custom action to save the collection element. This is the action executed on click in 'Save detail' link. Only one @SaveAction per view is allowed.
@HideDetailAction (OX): Allows you to define your custom action to hide the detail view. This is the action executed on click on 'Close' button or closing de dialog. Only one @HideDetailAction per view is allowed.
@RemoveAction (OX): Allows you to define your custom action to remove the element from the collection. This is the action executed on click in 'Remove' button in the detail view of the element. Only one @RemoveAction per view is allowed.
@RemoveSelectedAction (OX): Allows you to define your custom action to remove the selected elements from the collection. This is the action executed when a user selects some rows and then click in 'Remove selected' button, or clicks directly on the remove icon in a row. Only one @RemoveSelectedAction per view is allowed.
@ListAction (OX): To add actions in list mode; usually actions which scope is the entire collection. It's possible to define several @ListAction for each view.
@RowAction (OX): (New in v4.6) To add actions in list mode associated to each row; these actions are not present in the button bar of the collection, but only in the rows. It's possible to define several @RowAction for each view.
@DetailAction (OX): To add actions in detail mode, usually actions which scope is the detail that is being edited. It's possible to define several @DetailAction for each view.
@OnSelectElementAction (OX): (New in v3.1.2) To define an action to be executed when an element of the collection is selected or unselected. It's possible to define several @OnSelectElementAction for each view.
@Editor (OX): (New in v3.1.3) Name of the editor to use for displaying the collection in this view. The editor must be declared in openxava/src/main/resources/xava/default-editors.xml or src/main/resources/xava/editors.xml of your project. Before v7 they were OpenXava/xava/default-editors.xml and xava/editors.xml of your project.
@SearchListCondition (OX): (New in v4m4) Condition to be used for listing the selectable elements that can be added to the collection. It does not apply to embedded collections.
@Tree (OX): (New in v4m4) To indicate that this collection will be displayed using a tree instead of a list.
@Collapsed (OX): (New in v5.0) The collection will be shown collapsed for the indicated views. Visually this means that the frame surrounding the collection view will be initially closed. Later the user will be able to set his preferences by clicking on the expansion icon.
@ListSubcontroller: (New in v5.7) To group several actions and to show them in a drop-down button.

Properties in list

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany and @ElementCollection collections
If you do not use any of these annotations then the collection is displayed using the persistent properties in list mode; although in typical scenarios the properties of the list are specified:

@ListProperties("number, name, remarks, relationWithSeller, seller.level.description, type")
@OneToMany(mappedBy="seller")
private Collection<Customer> customers;

And the collection is displayed:

You see how you can put qualified properties into the properties list (as seller.level.description).

View for editing

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany
If you do not use any annotation then the default view is used to edit the entity in each row; although in typical scenarios the view for detail is specified:

@CollectionView("Simple"),
@OneToMany(mappedBy="seller")
private Collection<Customer> customers;

When the user clicks on

('Edit'), then the view Simple of Customer will be rendered; for this you must have defined a view called Simple in the Customer entity (the model of the collection elements).
This view is also used if the user click on

('Add') in an embedded collection, otherwise OpenXava does not show this view, instead it shown a list of entities to add.
If the view Simple of Customer is like this:

@View(name="Simple", members="number; type; name; address")

On clicking in a detail the following dialog will be shown:

Element collection (new in v5.0)

Element collections do not use @CollectionView because the data is editable in the collection directly, like an spreadsheet. However, most of the behavior of the detail mode is also available in element collections, including the support of the next annotations in the embeddable class members: @ReadOnly, @Editor, @SearchListCondition (new in v5.1), @SearchAction (new in v5.1), @DefaultValueCalculator (new in v5.1), @OnChange (new in v5.1), @OnChangeSearch (new in v5.1), @NoSearch (new in v5.1) and @DescriptionsList (new in v5.1).
You can use @ListProperties in an element collection, in this way:

@ElementCollection
@ListProperties("product.number, product.description, unitPrice, quantity, amount")
private Collection<QuoteDetail> details;

You get the next user interface:

In the case of the element collections you can put the name of a reference (new in v5.1) in @ListProperties if it is annotated with @DescriptionsList in the embeddable class. That is, you can write this:

@ElementCollection
@ListProperties("invoice.year, invoice.number, invoice.amount, status, receptionist") // receptionist is a reference
private Collection<ServiceExpense> expenses;

Where receptionist is not a property but a reference, a reference annotated with @DescriptionsList, in this way:

@Embeddable
public class ServiceExpense {
 
    @ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
    @DescriptionsList
    private Receptionist receptionist;
 
    ...
 
}

From the above code you get:

@DescriptionsList with showReferenceView=true is not supported in element collections.

Custom edit/view action

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany collections
You can refine easily the behavior when the

('Edit') link is clicked using @EditAction:

@EditAction("Invoice.editDetail")
@OneToMany (mappedBy="invoice", cascade=CascadeType.REMOVE)
private Collection<InvoiceDetail> details;

You have to define Invoices.editDetail in controllers.xml:

<controller name="Invoice">
 ...
 <action name="editDetail" hidden="true"
 image="images/edit.gif"
 class="org.openxava.test.actions.EditInvoiceDetailAction">
 <use-object name="xava_view"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 </action>
 ...
</controller>

And finally write your action:

package org.openxava.test.actions;
import java.text.*;
import org.openxava.actions.*;
/**
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
public class EditInvoiceDetailAction extends EditElementInCollectionAction { // 1
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 super.execute();
 DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
 getCollectionElementView().setValue( // 2
 "remarks", "Edit at " + df.format(new java.util.Date()));
 }
}

In this case you only refine hence your action extends (1) EditElementInCollectionAction. In this case you only specify a default value for the remarks property. Note that to access the view that displays the detail you can use the method getCollectionElementView() (2).
Also it's possible to remove the edit action from the User Interface, in this way:

@EditAction("")
@OneToMany (mappedBy="invoice", cascade=CascadeType.REMOVE)
private Collection<InvoiceDetail> details;

You only need to put an empty string as value for the action. Although in most case it's enough to define the collection as @ReadOnly.
The technique to refine the view action (the action for each row, if the collection is read only) is the same but using @ViewAction instead of @EditAction.

Custom list and row actions

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany collections
Use @ListAction to define actions that applies to entire collection and @RowAction (new in v4.6) to define actions for each row. @ListAction and @RowAction are very alike, indeed they are coded in the same way, the difference is that the @ListActions are shown in the button bar while the @RowActions are shown in each row. @ListActions can be also shown in each row if they are defined as in-each-row="true" in controllers.xml.
This is an example:

@ListAction("Carrier.translateName")
private Collection<Carrier> fellowCarriers;

Now a new link is shown to the user:

Also you need to define the action in controllers.xml:

<controller name="Carrier">
 ...
 <action name="translateName" hidden="true"
 class="org.openxava.test.actions.TranslateCarrierNameAction">
 </action>
 ...
</controller>

And the action code:

package org.openxava.test.actions;
import java.util.*;
import org.openxava.actions.*;
import org.openxava.test.model.*;
/**
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
public class TranslateCarrierNameAction extends CollectionBaseAction { // 1
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 Iterator it = getSelectedObjects().iterator(); // 2
 while (it.hasNext()) {
 Carrier carrier = (Carrier) it.next();
 carrier.translate();
 }
 }
}

The action extends CollectionBaseAction (1), this way you can use methods as getSelectedObjects() (2) that returns a collection with the objects selected by the user. There are others useful methods, as getObjects() (all elements collection), getMapValues() (the collection values in map format) and getMapsSelectedValues() (the selected elements in map format). In the case of @RowAction, getSelectedObjects() and getMapsSelectedValues() return an unique element, the one of the row of the action, even if the row is not checked.
As in the case of detail actions (see next section) you can use getCollectionElementView().
Also it's possible to use actions for list mode as list actions for a collection.

Default list and row actions

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany collections
If you want to add some custom list actions to all the collection of your application you can do it creating a controller called DefaultListActionsForCollections in your own controllers.xml file in src/main/resources/xava (just xava for v6 or older) as following:

<controller name="DefaultListActionsForCollections">
    <extends controller="CollectionCopyPaste"/> <!-- New in v5.9 -->
    <extends controller="Print"/>
    <action name="exportAsXML"
        class="org.openxava.test.actions.ExportAsXMLAction">
    </action>
</controller>

In this way all the collections will have the actions of CollectionCopyPaste (new in v5.9) and of Print controller (for export to Excel and generate PDF report) and your own ExportAsXMLAction. This has the same effect of @ListAction (look at custom list actions section) but it applies to all collections at once.
If you want to define default row actions (@RowAction) you can define the controller DefaultRowActionsForCollections (new in v4.6).
Since v5.9 this feature applies to both persistent and calculated collections, before calculated collections were not supported for default list and row actions.

Custom detail actions

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany collections
Also you can add your custom actions to the detail view used for editing each element. This is accomplish by means of @DetailAction annotation. These actions are applicable only to one element of collection. For example:

@DetailAction("Invoice.viewProduct")
@OneToMany (mappedBy="invoice", cascade=CascadeType.REMOVE)
private Collection<InvoiceDetail> details;

In this way the user has another link to click in the detail of the collection element:

You need to define the action in controllers.xml:

<controller name="Invoice">
 ...
 <action name="viewProduct" hidden="true"
 class="org.openxava.test.actions.ViewProductFromInvoiceDetailAction">
 <use-object name="xava_view"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 <use-object name="xavatest_invoiceValues"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 </action>
 ...
</controller>

And the code of your action:

package org.openxava.test.actions;
import java.util.*;
import javax.ejb.*;
import org.openxava.actions.*;
/**
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
public class ViewProductFromInvoiceDetailAction
 extends CollectionElementViewBaseAction // 1
 implements INavigationAction {
 @Inject // Since v4m2
 private Map invoiceValues;
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 try {
 setInvoiceValues(getView().getValues());
 Object number =
 getCollectionElementView().getValue("product.number"); // 2
 Map key = new HashMap();
 key.put("number", number);
 getView().setModelName("Product"); // 3
 getView().setValues(key); // Since v4m5 you can
 getView().findObject(); // use getParentView() instead
 getView().setKeyEditable(false);
 getView().setEditable(false);
 }
 catch (ObjectNotFoundException ex) {
 getView().clear();
 addError("object_not_found");
 }
 catch (Exception ex) {
 ex.printStackTrace();
 addError("system_error");
 }
 }
 public String[] getNextControllers() {
 return new String [] { "ProductFromInvoice" };
 }
 public String getCustomView() {
 return SAME_VIEW;
 }
 public Map getInvoiceValues() {
 return invoiceValues;
 }
 public void setInvoiceValues(Map map) {
 invoiceValues = map;
 }
}

You can see that it extends CollectionElementViewBaseAction (1) thus it has available the view that displays the current element using getCollectionElementView() (2). Also you can get access to the main view using getView() (3) or to the parent view using getParentView() (since v4m5), usually getView() and getParentView() matches. In chapter 7 you will see more details about writing actions.
Also, using the view returned by getCollectionElementView() you can add and remove programmatically detail and list actions with addDetailAction(), removeDetailAction(), addListAction() and removeListAction(), see API doc for org.openxava.view.View.

Refining collection view default behavior

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany collections (since v5.3 @RemoveSelectedAction applies to @ElementCollection too)
Using @NewAction, @AddAction (new in v5.7), @SaveAction, @HideDetailAction, @RemoveAction and @RemoveSelectedAction you can refine the default behavior of collection view. For example if you want to refine the behavior of save a detail action you can define your view in this way:

@SaveAction("DeliveryDetail.save")
@OneToMany (mappedBy="delivery", cascade=CascadeType.REMOVE)
private Collection<DeliveryDetail> details;

You must have an action DeliveryDetails.save in your controllers.xml:

<controller name="DeliveryDetail">
 ...
 <action name="save"
 class="org.openxava.test.actions.SaveDeliveryDetailAction">
 <use-object name="xava_view"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 </action>
 ...
</controller>

And define your action class for saving:

package org.openxava.test.actions;
import org.openxava.actions.*;
/**
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
public class SaveDeliveryDetailAction extends SaveElementInCollectionAction { // 1
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 super.execute();
 // Here your own code // 2
 }
}

The more common case is extending the default behavior, for that you have to extend the original class for saving a collection detail (1), that is SaveElementInCollection action, then call to super from execute() method (2), and after it, writing your own code.
Also it's possible to remove any of these actions from User Interface, for example, you can define a collection in this way:

@RemoveSelectedAction("")
@OneToMany (mappedBy="delivery", cascade=CascadeType.REMOVE)
private Collection<DeliveryDetail> details;

In this case the action for removing the selected elements in the collection will be missing in the User Interface. As you see, only it's needed to declare an empty string as the name of the action.
New in v5.3: @RemoveSelectedAction can be used for @ElementCollection. By default, no Java action is used to remove a row in an element collection, it's done using JavaScript in the browser. However, you can use @RemoveSelectedAction to use a Java action, so you can refine the behavior. Extend the RemoveSelectedInElementCollectionAction (new in v5.3.2) to do it.

Action when a collection element is selected (new in v3.1.2)

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany collections
You can define an action to be executed when a collection element is selected or unselected. This is accomplished using the @OnSelectElementAction annotation. For example, imagine that you have a collection just like this one:

And you want that when a row is selected the value of the selectedIngredientSize field in the user interface will be updated. Let's code it.
First you have to annotate your collection:

@OnSelectElementAction("Formula.onSelectIngredient") // 1
@OneToMany(mappedBy="formula", cascade=CascadeType.REMOVE)
private Collection<FormulaIngredient> ingredients;

In this simple way (1), and thanks to the @OnSelectElementAction annotation, you say that when the user clicks on the checkbox of the collection row the Formula.onSelectIngredient action will be executed. This action is declared in controllers.xml, in this way:

<controller name="Formula">
 ...
 <action name="onSelectIngredient" hidden="true"
 class="org.openxava.test.actions.OnSelectIngredientAction">
 <use-object name="xava_view"/> <!-- Not needed since v4m2 -->
 </action>
 ...
</controller>

Now, only remains the code of the OnSelectIngredientAction class:

public class OnSelectIngredientAction extends OnSelectElementBaseAction { // 1
 public void execute() throws Exception {
 int size = getView().getValueInt("selectedIngredientSize");
 size = isSelected() ? size + 1 : size - 1; // 2
 getView().setValue("selectedIngredientSize", new Integer(size));
 }
}

The easiest way to implement the action is extending from OnSelectElementBaseAction, this allows you to access to the property selected (by means of isSelected(), 2) that indicates wheter the user has selected or unselected the row; and row (using getRow()) that indicates the row number of the affected collection element.

Choosing an editor (collection, new in v3.1.3)

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany and @ElementCollection collections
An editor display the collection to the user and allows him to edit its values. By default, the editor OpenXava uses for collections is a list that shows the data in a tabular fashion, allowing to order, filter and paging, but you can specify your own editor to display a concrete collection using @Editor.
For example, if you have a collection of Customer entities and you want to display it in some particular entity or view using a custom user interface, such as a simple list of names, you can do it in this way:

@OneToMany(mappedBy="seller")
@Editor("CustomersNames")
private Collection<Customer> customers;

In this case the CustomersNames editor will be used for displaying/editing, instead of the default one. You must define your CustomersNames editor in the editors.xml file in src/main/resources/xava (just xava for v6 or older) of your project:

<editor name="CustomersNames" url="customersNamesEditor.jsp"/>

Also you have to write the JSP code for your editor in customersNamesEditor.jsp.
This feature is for changing the editor for a concrete collection in a concrete entity only, or even only in one view of that entity (using @Editor(forViews=)). If you want to change the editor for all collections to certain entity type at application level then it's better to configure it using editors.xml file.
Learn more on Editors for collections section.

Condition for search list (collection, new in v4m4)

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany collections
You can specify a condition to be applied to the list of items available for selection. In the case of non-embedded collections. By using @SearchListCondition you can define a condition only applicable to the search list, furthermore, you can use it along with the forViews and notForViews property to define different criteria for different views (1) as shown in the following code snippet.

@OneToMany(mappedBy="seller")
@SearchListCondition(value="${number} < 5", forViews="SearchListCondition, SearchListConditionBlank") // 1
private Collection<Customer> customers;

Displaying collections as a tree (new in v4m4)

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany collections
It is possible to render a collection as a tree:

@OneToMany(mappedBy="parentContainer", cascade = CascadeType.REMOVE)
@Editor(value="TreeView") // 1
@ListProperties("description") // 2
@OrderBy("folder, itemOrder") // 3
@Tree(pathProperty="folder") // 4
private Collection<TreeItem> treeItems;

Defining the TreeView editor (1) indicates that you want to visualize the collection as a tree. With the @ListProperties (2) annotation, you can define the properties to display at each branch. The items are displayed in the natural order of the collection defined by @OrderBy (3). You must have a String property named path to be used as the branch's path; you can also name it differently by using the @Tree annotation (4) and indicating pathProperty.

As you can see in the table, the tree is made by concatenating the id separated by "/". Sibling items must have the same path. The editor takes care of the creation and modification of the path property. This will look like this:

The user can drag and drop to move items from one branch to another (since v7.2, previously done using buttons).

The full syntax for @Tree is:

@Tree(
  forViews="",                // 1
  notForViews="",             // 2
  pathProperty="path",        // 3
  idProperties="",            // 4
  initialExpandedState=true,  // 5
  orderIncrement=2,           // 6 deprecated since version 7.2
  pathSeparator="/"           // 7
)

forViews: Indicates in which views the tree behavior is going to be applied.
notForViews: Views which are excluded from the tree renderization.
pathProperty: Name of the property to be used as the path for the tree, by default, it uses the "path" property (which must be present in the class). You can also specify another name.
idProperties: The tree implementation needs a unique identification for each of the elements displayed. By default the tree implementation use the properties annotated with @Id, but you can define which properties the tree must use as the unique identifier. The defined properties are comma separated.
initialExpandedState: If true the tree is rendered with all nodes expanded.
orderIncrement: If you define a @OrderBy and it represents an integer property type, the Tree implementation uses this field to allow reordering of the tree elements, by default the increment value is 2 and is the minimum allowed. This value allow easy reordering of elements. (deprecated since version 7.2).
pathSeparator: If you use a separator for your path different than the default "/". Then you can set this property to the value that you are using.

Total properties (new in v4.3)

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany and @ElementCollection collections
Inside @ListProperties you can define, between square brakets, a set of properties of the parent entity of the collection to be shown in the footer of the collection as total values. That is, if you define a collection in this way:

@OneToMany (mappedBy="invoice", cascade=CascadeType.REMOVE)
@ListProperties("deliveryDate[invoice.deliveryDate], quantity," +
 "amount[invoice.amountsSum, invoice.vat, invoice.total]")
private Collection<InvoiceDetail> details;

You get:

Total properties can be used for both persistent and calculated collections. You can add total properties to any property of @ListProperties and they can be of any type, not just numbers. These total properties are from the container entity so you have to use the reference to the container entity as prefix, that is, the prefix of the total properties must match with the mappedBy reference in the case of persistent collections.
Since v5.9 total properties can be editable, not just calculated ones. Also since 5.9 a total property can be annotated with @Calculation. Therefore you can define the @ListProperties in this way:

@ListProperties("quantity, amount[invoice.amountsSum, invoice.vatPercentage, invoice.vat, invoice.total]")

Where vatPercentage is a persistent property. This property will be shown in the totals, will be editable and work as a regular property in any other place. In this case vat and total are persistent properties annotated with @Calculation and @ReadOnly:

Since v5.9 it's possible to combine column summation (the + in the property) with total properties, so you can write this @ListProperties:

@ListProperties("vatPercentage, total+[workCost.profitPercentage, workCost.profit, workCost.total]")

Note the + after total and then the total properties inside [].This produces the next effect:

Here the 131.08 is the sum of the column, because of total+. Below you have profitPercentage, profit and total, the regular total properties. You can reference the column summation (that is the total+, the 131.08) from a @Calculation property using sum(columnName). For example, in this case you could define profit property in this way:

@Calculation("sum(invoices.total) * profitPercentage / 100")
@ReadOnly
private BigDecimal profit;

In this case the sum(invoices.total) inside @Calculation is the summation of the total property of all the elements of invoices collection, that is the same of total+ in @ListProperties, that is the 131.08 you see in the image.

Subcontroller in a collection (new in v5.7)

Applies to @OneToMany/@ManyToMany collections.
With @ListSubcontroller we can grouping several actions and show them in a drop-down button. If you put a collection as:

@OneToMany(mappedBy="team", cascade=CascadeType.ALL)
@ListSubcontroller("Stuff")
private Collection<TeamMember> members;

You obtain this:

In @ListSubcontroller you define the controller name, also you have forViews and notForViews attributes. If you want that the subcontroller has an image you can define it in the controller:

<controller name="Stuff" icon="exclamation">
     <action name="viewNames" class="org.openxava.test.actions.ViewNamesOrRolesNamesFromTeamMember" icon="message-outline"/>
     <action name="viewRoles" class="org.openxava.test.actions.ViewNamesOrRolesNamesFromTeamMember" icon="message">
          <set value="true" property="roles"/>
     </action>
</controller>

Transient properties for UI controls
With @Transient (JPA) you define a property that is not stored in database but you want to show to the user. You can use it to provide UI controls to allow the user to manage his user interface.
An example:

@Transient
@DefaultValueCalculator(value=EnumCalculator.class,
 properties={
 @PropertyValue(name="enumType", value="org.openxava.test.model.Delivery$DeliveredBy")
 @PropertyValue(name="value", value="CARRIER")
 }
)
@OnChange(OnChangeDeliveryByAction.class)
private DeliveredBy deliveredBy;
public enum DeliveredBy { EMPLOYEE, CARRIER }

You can see that the syntax is exactly the same as in the case of a regular property of an entity; you can even use enum and @DefaultValueCalculator. After defining the property you can use it in the view as usual, for example with @OnChange or putting it as member of a view.

View actions

In addition of associating actions to a property, reference or collection, you also can define arbitrary actions inside your view, in any place. In order to do this we use the qualified name of action using brackets () as suffix, in this way:

@View( members=
 "number;" +
 "type;" +
 "name, Customer.changeNameLabel();" +
 ...

The visual effect will be:

You can see the link 'Change name label' that will execute the action Customer.changeNameLabel on click on it.
If the container view of the action is not editable, the action is not present. If you want that the action is always enabled, even if the view is not editable, you have to use put the word ALWAYS between the brackets, as following:

@View( name="Simple", members=
 "number;" +
 "type;" +
 "name, Customer.changeNameLabel(ALWAYS);" +
 ...

The standard way to expose actions to the user is using the controllers (actions in a bar), the controllers are reusable between views, but sometimes you will need an action specific to a view, and you want display it inside the view (not in the button bar), for these cases the view actions may be useful.
See more about actions in chapter 7.

Transient class: Only for creating views

In OpenXava it is not possible to have a view without model. Thus if you want to draw an arbitrary user interface, you need to create a class, not to declare it as entity and define your view in it.
An transient class is not associated to any table of the database, typically it's used only for display User Interfaces not related to any data in database.
An example can be:

package org.openxava.test.model;
import javax.persistence.*;
import org.openxava.annotations.*;
/**
 * Example of an transient OpenXava model class (not persistent). <p>
 *
 * This can be used, for example, to display a dialog,
 * or any other graphical interface.<p>
 *
 * Note that is not marked as @Entity <br>
 *
 * @author Javier Paniza
 */
@Views({
 @View(name="Family1", members="subfamily"),
 @View(name="Family2", members="subfamily"),
 @View(name="WithSubfamilyForm", members="subfamily"),
 @View(name="Range", members="subfamily; subfamilyTo")
})
public class FilterBySubfamily {
 @ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY) @Required
 @NoCreate(forViews="Family1, Family2")
 @NoModify(forViews="Family2, WithSubfamilyForm")
 @NoSearch(forViews="WithSubfamilyForm")
 @DescriptionsLists({
 @DescriptionsList(forViews="Family1",
 condition="${family.number} = 1", order="${number} desc"
 ),
 @DescriptionsList(forViews="Family2",
 condition="${family.number} = 2"
 )
 })
 private Subfamily subfamily;
 @ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
 private Subfamily subfamilyTo;
 public Subfamily getSubfamily() {
 return subfamily;
 }
 public void setSubfamily(Subfamily subfamily) {
 this.subfamily = subfamily;
 }
 public Subfamily getSubfamilyTo() {
 return subfamilyTo;
 }
 public void setSubfamilyTo(Subfamily subfamilyTo) {
 this.subfamilyTo = subfamilyTo;
 }
}

For defining a model class as transient you only need to define a regular Java class without @Entity annotation. You mustn't put the mapping annotations nor declare properties as key.
This way you can design a dialog that can be useful, for example, to print a report of families or products filtered by subfamily.
Transient classes are used with only detail modules. Since v5.0 you must define explicitly a module in application.xml for each transient class, until v4.9.1 you could use a transient class without defining a module, it was only needed to generate the portlet.
The package for transient model classes must be the same of the persistent classes.
With this simple trick you can use OpenXava as a simple and flexible generator for user interfaces although the displayed data won't be stored.
deliveryDate[invoice.deliveryDate]<controller name="TeamMemberSub" icon="exclamation"> <action name="viewNames" class="org.openxava.test.actions.ViewNamesOrRolesNamesFromTeamMember" icon="message-outline"/> <action name="viewRoles" class="org.openxava.test.actions.ViewNamesOrRolesNamesFromTeamMember" icon="message"> <set value="true" property="roles"/> </action> </controller

openxava / documentation / View

Table of contents

Layout

Groups

Sections

View inheritance (new in v3.1.2)

Responsive layout (new in v5.7)

Layout philosophy

Rules for view annotations

Property customization

Label format

Property value change event

Actions of property

Choosing an editor (property)

Dynamic combos (new in v5.8)

Reference customization

Choose view

Customizing frame

Custom search action

Condition for search list (reference, new in v4m4)

Custom creation action

Custom modification action

Descriptions list (combos)

Reference value change event

Reference search on change event

Choosing an editor (reference, new in v3.1.3)

Collection customization

Properties in list

View for editing

Element collection (new in v5.0)

Custom edit/view action

Custom list and row actions

Default list and row actions

Custom detail actions

Refining collection view default behavior

Action when a collection element is selected (new in v3.1.2)

Choosing an editor (collection, new in v3.1.3)

Condition for search list (collection, new in v4m4)

Displaying collections as a tree (new in v4m4)

Total properties (new in v4.3)

Subcontroller in a collection (new in v5.7)

View actions

Transient class: Only for creating views