While in Europe, Sebastian and Marta asked me to pop over to Hamburg to do a talk for their user group. The event took place at an IBM office and was totally packed. The group was awesome and I felt totally well received (Danke fur die Bier!). We spent most of the time trying out the new features of Flash Builder 4 and helping developers understand the changes prior to them getting their hands on it. As with Berlin, a lot of Flex 3 developers had issues trying Flash Builder 4. We found it very useful to work through the changes together starting with all the new namespaces (Spark, Halo, FXG et) plus the variants of MX NS values (2009, 2006, halo). The big hits were the new advanced package explorer for each class, highlighting other instances of a class where it appears in the program (something Java developers are used to in Eclipse), advanced code hinting, content assist, class wizards and more. The network monitor won lots of friends.

I thought I would have the record of being the speaker to come from furthest away, however someone else apparently came from New Zealand (perhaps Kai?). The ColdFusion demo was a highlight!

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 1:46 AM 1 comments links to this post

Labels: adobe, brandenburg, Flex, SaaS White Paper, soa, university

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 1:45 AM 0 comments links to this post

Labels: adobe, Adobe LiveCycle ES, berlin, ontology, semantics

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 1:26 AM 1 comments links to this post

For this exercise, you will need to make a call to a server running Adobe LiveCycle ES 8.2.1. You will have to have it set up with appropriate user names and permissions. To learn how to set up Eclipse with this project and your development environment, please see the previous article here in this video: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/articles/invoke_services.html

Set your domain name:port and the username and password in the code below. To programmatically add a Signature Field to a PDF document, the LC ES SDK offers a service client method called addSignatureField(). Here is the method signature (click to expand):

During this exercise you will also learn how to invoke an Adobe LiveCycle ES service using the Java SDK to add a visible signature field to a PDF document. The expected duration is approximately 15 minutes.

Step 1: Set up a new Java class call AddSignatureField in Eclipse. Import the same jars as per the previous lesson and also add the jar that contains the packages com.adobe.livecycle.signatures.client and com.adobe.livecycle.signatures.client.types. Copy the following code into your class:

package org.duanesworldtv.livecycle.samples;


    import java.util.*;

  import java.io.File;

  import java.io.FileInputStream;

  import com.adobe.livecycle.signatures.client.*;

  import com.adobe.livecycle.signatures.client.types.*;

  import com.adobe.idp.Document;

  import com.adobe.idp.dsc.clientsdk.ServiceClientFactory;

  import com.adobe.idp.dsc.clientsdk.ServiceClientFactoryProperties;



  public class AddSignatureField {



  public static void main(String[] args) {



  try

  {

  //Set connection properties required to invoke LiveCycle ES

  Properties ConnectionProps = new Properties();

  ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_DEFAULT_SOAP_ENDPOINT, "http://<your_server>:<port>");

  ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_TRANSPORT_PROTOCOL,ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_SOAP_PROTOCOL);

  ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_SERVER_TYPE, "JBoss");

  ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_CREDENTIAL_USERNAME, "administrator");

  ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_CREDENTIAL_PASSWORD, "p@ssw0rd");



  //Create a ServiceClientFactory instance

  ServiceClientFactory myFactory = ServiceClientFactory.createInstance(ConnectionProps);



  //Create a SignatureServiceClient object

  SignatureServiceClient signClient = new SignatureServiceClient(myFactory);



  //Specify a PDF document to which a signature field is added

  FileInputStream fileInputStream = new FileInputStream("/Users/duane/Desktop/eclipse/workspace/JavaOne2009-docs/test.pdf");

  Document inDoc = new Document (fileInputStream);



  //TODO: Specify the name of the signature field




  //TODO: Create a  PositionRectangle object that specifies

  //the signature fields location





  //TODO: Specify the page number that will contain the signature field





  //Add a signature field to the PDF document

  Document sigFieldPDF = signClient.addSignatureField(

  inDoc,

  fieldName,

  pageNum,

  post,

  null,

  null);



  //Save the PDF document that contains the signature field

  File outFile = new File("/Users/duane/Desktop/eclipse/workspace/JavaOne2009-docs/test-signed.pdf");

  System.out.println("Signature added, file saved!");

  sigFieldPDF.copyToFile(outFile);

  } catch (Exception ee) {

  ee.printStackTrace();

  }

  }

  }

Step 2: Make sure your code looks similar to the following. There should five TODOs, two of which are merely paths.

We need to add code to complete the parameters required to write the code where the "TODO" markers are. Study the method signature to understand what each required parameter is.

Parameters

inPDFDoc — A com.adobe.idp.Document object that represents the PDF document to which the signature field is added. This is a required parameter and cannot be null.

signatureFieldName — The name of the signature field. This is a required parameter and cannot be null.

pageNumber — The page number on which the signature field is added. Valid values are 1 to the number of pages contained within the document. This is a required parameter and cannot be null.

positionRectangle — A PositionRectangle object that specifies the position for the signature field. This is a required parameter and cannot be null. If the specified rectangle does not lie at least partially on the crop box of the specified page, an InvalidArgumentException is thrown. Also, neither the height nor width value of the specified rectangle can be 0 or negative. Lower left X or lower left Y coordinates can be 0 or greater but not negative, and are relative to the crop box of the page.

fieldMDPOptionsSpec — A FieldMDPOptionSpec object that specifies the PDF document fields that are locked after the signature field is signed. This is an optional parameter and can be null.

seedValueOptionsSpec — A PDFSeedValueOptionSpec object that specifies the various seed values for the field. This is an optional parameter and can be null.

TODO:

The first line of code you have to add will be the name of the signature field itself. This can be whatever you want. Signature fields in PDF documents are named uniquely so you can further manipulate them programmatically to do things like validate signatures, get signature values and more.

 //TODO: Specify the name of the signature field

String fieldName = "SignatureField1"; 

Step 4: You now need to create a "PositionRectangle" object that specifies the signature fields location. This is done via 4 integers which correspond to the (int lowerLeftX, int lowerLeftY, int width, int height). These represent the position of a signature field located within a PDF document. A signature field's rectangle defines the location of the signature field on the PDF document page in default user space units. An object of this type can be programmatically added to a PDF document.

 //TODO: Create a  PositionRectangle object that specifies

//the signature fields location

PositionRectangle post = new  PositionRectangle(193,47,133,12); 

Step 5: The last thing you have to do is to specify the page number. This may be confusing but values start at 1 (not zero) and go up. This is a mandatory requirement and will throw an error if left null. HINT: The document we are using is only one page long.

//TODO: Specify the page number that will contain the signature field


java.lang.Integer pageNum = new java.lang.Integer(1);

Step 6: Your code should now be ready to compile and run. It should look like the code below:

package org.duanesworldtv.livecycle.samples;

/*

  * This Java Quick Start uses the following JAR files

  * 1. adobe-signatures-client.jar

  * 2. adobe-livecycle-client.jar

  * 3. adobe-usermanager-client.jar

  * 4. adobe-utilities.jar

  * 5. jbossall-client.jar (use a different JAR file if LiveCycle ES is not deployed

  * on JBoss)

  *

  * These JAR files are located in the following path:

  * /Adobe/LiveCycle9.0/LiveCycle_ES_SDK/client-libs/common

  *

  * For complete details about the location of these JAR files,

  * see "Including LiveCycle ES library files" in Programming

  * with LiveCycle ES

  */

  import java.util.*;

  import java.io.File;

  import java.io.FileInputStream;

  import com.adobe.livecycle.signatures.client.*;

  import com.adobe.livecycle.signatures.client.types.*;

  import com.adobe.idp.Document;

  import com.adobe.idp.dsc.clientsdk.ServiceClientFactory;

  import com.adobe.idp.dsc.clientsdk.ServiceClientFactoryProperties;



  public class AddSignatureField {



  public static void main(String[] args) {



  try

  {

  //Set connection properties required to invoke LiveCycle ES

  Properties ConnectionProps = new Properties();

  ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_DEFAULT_SOAP_ENDPOINT, "http://<your_server>:<port>");

  ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_TRANSPORT_PROTOCOL,ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_SOAP_PROTOCOL);

  ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_SERVER_TYPE, "JBoss");

  ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_CREDENTIAL_USERNAME, "administrator");

  ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_CREDENTIAL_PASSWORD, "p@ssw0rd");



  //Create a ServiceClientFactory instance

  ServiceClientFactory myFactory = ServiceClientFactory.createInstance(ConnectionProps);



  //Create a SignatureServiceClient object

  SignatureServiceClient signClient = new SignatureServiceClient(myFactory);



  //Specify a PDF document to which a signature field is added

  FileInputStream fileInputStream = new FileInputStream("/Users/duane/Desktop/eclipse/workspace/JavaOne2009-docs/test.pdf");

  Document inDoc = new Document (fileInputStream);



  //Specify the name of the signature field

  String fieldName = "SignatureField1";



  //Create a  PositionRectangle object that specifies

  //the signature fields location (int lowerLeftX, int lowerLeftY, int width, int height)

  PositionRectangle post = new  PositionRectangle(193,47,133,35);



  //Specify the page number that will contain the signature field

  java.lang.Integer pageNum = new java.lang.Integer(1);



  //Add a signature field to the PDF document

  Document sigFieldPDF = signClient.addSignatureField(

  inDoc,

  fieldName,

  pageNum,

  post,

  null,

  null);



  //Save the PDF document that contains the signature field

  File outFile = new File("/Users/duane/Desktop/eclipse/workspace/JavaOne2009-docs/test-signed.pdf");

  System.out.println("Signature added, file saved!");

  sigFieldPDF.copyToFile(outFile);

  } catch (Exception ee) {

  ee.printStackTrace();

  }

  }

  }

Now run the code. Note that this lab will take about 15 seconds to completely run--probably longer if there are many people all logging in at the same time.

Navigate to the path you specified for the output file and see your document. You should see a PDF document with a signature!

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 4:57 PM 0 comments links to this post

Book: Web 2.0 Architectures from O'Reilly

O'Reilly Media has released a new book on Web 2.0. Called Web 2.0 Architectures, this book should help you understand better the inner workings of Web 2.0 from a technology perspective and how some online services today have been successful with this model.

If you are looking to understand Web 2.0 from a marketing perspective, this may not be the book for you. But if you are a web architect, business analyst or someone who wants to build your own Web 2.0 website or solution, there is bound to be some information in this book to get you started.

Labels: web 2.0 architecture

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 2:43 PM 1 comments links to this post

HB Mok pinged me internally and was really stoked to see that the Force.com toolkit for Adobe AIR and Flex has been updated. The toolkit enables developers to access data and business processes held within Force.com from a Flex or AIR programming environment. Needless to say, developers could quickly code up some rather sweet looking mashups using that data in no time at all.

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 3:32 PM 0 comments links to this post

The preconference lab, "LiveCycle ES: Building Rich Engaging Applications," is an essential introduction to developing user-centric applications with Adobe LiveCycle ES. LiveCycle ES allows both business and IT professionals to visually assemble end-to-end processes, which when combined with rich interfaces, create engaging applications that unify systems and people quickly and flexibly. We'll present an end-to-end use case bringing a rich Internet application (RIA) and a LiveCycle application together. You will learn about the LiveCycle IDE, the Admin User Interface, and the LiveCycle ES solution components as we guide the participants through the development of this comprehensive use case.

We strongly recommend this training to those new to LiveCycle ES, or those who would like a refresher, in order to get the most value out of the more advanced LiveCycle topics that will be presented during the MAX event.

The LiveCycle ES: Building Rich Engaging Applications preconference lab will take place the following dates and times at the Los Angeles Convention Center, the same venue as MAX 2009.

Labels: Adobe LiveCycle ES, Adobe LiveCycle Training, certification

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 3:30 PM 1 comments links to this post

Labels: Tour de LiveCycle

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 2:24 PM 0 comments links to this post

Labels: adobe, Adobe training, berlin, Flex, I love germany

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 10:06 AM 2 comments links to this post

Labels: adobe, blazeDS, Flash Builder, Flex, REST

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 11:27 AM 4 comments links to this post

Labels: AIR chromeless application, AIR tutorial, source code, video

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 8:31 AM 0 comments links to this post

Labels: MVC, SaaS White Paper, soa, Software as a Service

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 9:49 AM 1 comments links to this post

This fascinating book puts substance behind Web 2.0. Using several high-profile Web 2.0 companies as examples, authors Duane Nickull, Dion Hinchcliffe, and James Governor have distilled the core patterns of Web 2.0 coupled with an abstract model and reference architecture. The result is a base of knowledge that developers, business people, futurists, and entrepreneurs can understand and use as a source of ideas and inspiration.
Full Description

Labels: architecture, web 2.0 design patterns

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 8:23 AM 0 comments links to this post

Labels: adam pease, fun, ontology, sumo, what to do when you're bored

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 4:27 PM 4 comments links to this post

FLARToolkit will detect the marker from an input image and calculate the camera position in three-dimension space. Something like Helper library are planned, but further processing (like synthesizing the 3D Graphics) needs to implemented by yourself. You can try a demo of it here at General Electric.

While at the booth, we got awarded the "Best in Show" award from Web Professional Minute, sponsored by Peachpit Press. This image links to the video.

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 8:33 AM 2 comments links to this post

• Java JDK 1.5 – ensure your environment variables are set as per the instructions from the LiveCycle ES documentation
• Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede)
• The LiveCycle ES Client SDK JAR files. You will need the following JAR files to make this lab work:

/*
* This Java Quick Start uses the EJB mode and contains the following JAR files
* in the class path:
* 1. adobe-encryption-client.jar
* 2. adobe-livecycle-client.jar
* 3. adobe-usermanager-client.jar
* 4. adobe-utilities.jar
* 5. jbossall-client.jar (use a different JAR file if LiveCycle ES is not
*    deployed on JBoss)
*
*  These JAR files are located in the following path:
* {install directory}/Adobe/LiveCycle9.0/LiveCycle_ES_SDK/client-libs/common
*
* The adobe-utilities.jar file is located in the following path:
* {install directory}/Adobe/LiveCycle9.0/LiveCycle_ES_SDK/client-libs/jboss
*
* The jbossall-client.jar file is located in the following path:
* {install directory}/Adobe/LiveCycle9.0/jboss/client
*/

/*
{install directory}/Adobe/LiveCycle9.0/LiveCycle_ES_SDK/client-
*  libs/thirdparty
*/

/*
 * This Java Quick Start uses the following JAR files
 * 1. adobe-distiller-client.jar
 * 2. adobe-livecycle-client.jar
 * 3. adobe-usermanager-client.jar
 * 4. adobe-utilities.jar
 * 5. jbossall-client.jar (use a different JAR file if LiveCycle ES is not deployed
 * on JBoss)

 * 
 *  These JAR files are located in the following path:
 * /Adobe/LiveCycle8/LiveCycle_ES_SDK/client-libs
 * 
 * For complete details about the location of these JAR files, 
 * see "Including LiveCycle ES library files" in Programming
 * with LiveCycle ES
 */
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.util.Properties;
import com.adobe.livecycle.generatepdf.client.CreatePDFResult;
import com.adobe.idp.Document;
import com.adobe.idp.dsc.clientsdk.ServiceClientFactory;
import com.adobe.idp.dsc.clientsdk.ServiceClientFactoryProperties;
import com.adobe.livecycle.distiller.client.DistillerServiceClient;
 
public class CreatePDF {
 
 public static void main(String[] args)
 {
  try
  { 
            //Set connection properties required to invoke LiveCycle ES                                           
      Properties ConnectionProps = new Properties();
      ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_DEFAULT_SOAP_ENDPOINT, "http://{your_server_IP}:{HTTP_PORT}");
      ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_TRANSPORT_PROTOCOL,ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_SOAP_PROTOCOL);          
      ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_SERVER_TYPE, "JBoss");
      ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_CREDENTIAL_USERNAME, "{username_of_privileged_user}");
      ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_CREDENTIAL_PASSWORD, "{password}");
  
  // Create a ServiceClientFactory instance
  ServiceClientFactory factory = ServiceClientFactory.createInstance(ConnectionProps);
  
  DistillerServiceClient disClient = new DistillerServiceClient(factory );
  
  // Get a PS file document to convert to a PDF document and populate a com.adobe.idp.Document object
  String inputFileName = "/Users/duane/Desktop/eclipse/workspace/JavaOne2009-docs/test.ps";
  FileInputStream fileInputStream = new FileInputStream(inputFileName);
  Document inDoc = new Document(fileInputStream);
   
  //Set run-time options
  String adobePDFSettings = "Standard";
     String securitySettings = "No Security";
     
     //Convert a PS  file into a PDF file
  CreatePDFResult result = new CreatePDFResult();
  result = disClient.createPDF(
    inDoc, 
    inputFileName, 
       adobePDFSettings, 
    securitySettings, 
    null, 
    null
   );
      
     //Get the newly created document
     Document createdDocument = result.getCreatedDocument();
      
     //Save the PDF file
  createdDocument.copyToFile(new File("/Users/duane/Desktop/eclipse/workspace/JavaOne2009-docs/DuanesWorldTest.pdf"));
  }
  catch (Exception e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
  }
 }
}

//Set connection properties required to invoke LiveCycle ES
Properties ConnectionProps = new Properties();
ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_DEFAULT_SOAP_ENDPOINT, "http://{your_server_ip}:{http_port}");
ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_TRANSPORT_PROTOCOL,ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_SOAP_PROTOCOL);
ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_SERVER_TYPE, "JBoss");
ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_CREDENTIAL_USERNAME, "{username_of_privileged_user}");
ConnectionProps.setProperty(ServiceClientFactoryProperties.DSC_CREDENTIAL_PASSWORD, "{password}");

// Get a PS file document to convert to a PDF document and populate a com.adobe.idp.Document object
String inputFileName = "/Users/duane/Desktop/eclipse/workspace/JavaOne2009-docs/test.ps";

//Save the PDF file
createdDocument.copyToFile(new File("/Users/duane/Desktop/eclipse/workspace/JavaOne2009-docs/DuanesWorldTest.pdf"));

Labels: Adobe LiveCycle ES, distiller, java, SOAP

# posted by Duane "Chaos" Nickull @ 6:52 AM 0 comments links to this post