1. Resource Modeling Tool -  How you define attributes and labels for your demo
2. Web Services Calling MDMS - Real transactions invoked by a simple http requests
3. Building the UI - A two minute GUI

The display quality of the you tube posts are not great, so I will eventually upload the high res recordings and post links here.  But for now, here is the you tube posting for part 1 of 3:

This became as issue when I tried to implement the delete and update services.  The sMash runtime should pass the identifier value in the calling URL for the web service.  e.g. http://localhost:8080/resources/personModel/12358983622.  That tells the web service which instance to act on. But before I added “id” to my resource model, the URL did not have any identifier value tacked on the end.

I took a number of steps to correct this problem so I don’t know which ones actually made the difference.  First, I added an attribute called “id” to the resource model.  Second, I ran the console command to generate the tables for this resource.  Third, I replaced the resource handler code with ZRM.delegate() and tested the application using the default relational persistence.  That worked.  And when I rewired the app to the custom handler that hooks to MDM Server, it still worked.  I don’t know whether generating the tables was actually necessary.

Poster is a simple http client that enabled me to test the RESTful web services before building the UI.  This is a great programming model.  Encapsulated, reusable services…but so much easier to build and use than the full blown, bulky web services we usually think of.  No WSDL, no SOAP messages, etc.

Firebug monitors the browser.  With it, I can watch all of the individual http calls when the application page loads.  Very useful when debugging.  But, Firebug does so much more.  Want to watch the javascript code execute?  Want to step through the javascript execution and set break points?

/public/handlers/personModel.json:

{
“model”: “personModel”,
“CREATE”: {
“request_type”: “addPerson”,
“is_new_style_doc”: false,
“service_type”: “Tx”,
“wrapper_input”: “mdmPerson”,
“wrapper_output”: “mdmPersonSearch”
},
“DELETE”: {
“request_type”: “deletePerson”,
“is_new_style_doc”: false,
“service_type”: “Tx”,
“wrapper_input”: “mdmPerson”,
“wrapper_output”: “mdmPersonSearch”
},
“LIST”: {
“request_type”: “searchPerson”,
“is_new_style_doc”: false,
“service_type”: “Tx”,
“wrapper_input”: “mdmPersonSearch”,
“wrapper_output”: “mdmPersonSearchResult”
},
“RETRIEVE”: {
“request_type”: “getPerson”,
“is_new_style_doc”: false,
“service_type”: “Tx”,
“wrapper_input”: “mdmPerson”,
“wrapper_output”: “mdmPersonSearch”
},
“UPDATE”: {
“request_type”: “updatePerson”,
“is_new_style_doc”: false,
“service_type”: “Tx”,
“wrapper_input”: “mdmPerson”,
“wrapper_output”: “mdmPersonSearch”
}
}

/public/wrappers/mdmPerson.json:

{
“public_names”: {
“Id”: { “path”: “PartyId” },
“First Name”: { “path”: “TCRMPersonNameBObj/GivenNameOne” },
“Last Name”: { “path”: “TCRMPersonNameBObj/LastName” },
“Contact Method”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyContactMethodBObj”, “child”: “party_contact_method” },
“Phone”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyContactMethodBObj”, “child”: “party_contact_method”, “type_filter”: “1″ },
“Email”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyContactMethodBObj”, “child”: “party_contact_method”, “type_filter”: “9″ },
“Birthdate”: { “path”: “BirthDate” },
“Gender”: { “path”: “GenderType” },
“Soc Sec No”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyIdentificationBObj/IdentificationNumber” },
“Address Line 1″: { “path”: “TCRMPartyAddressBObj/TCRMAddressBObj/AddressLineOne” },
“Address Line 2″: { “path”: “TCRMPartyAddressBObj/TCRMAddressBObj/AddressLineTwo” },
“City”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyAddressBObj/TCRMAddressBObj/City” },
“State ID”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyAddressBObj/TCRMAddressBObj/ProvinceStateType” },
“State”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyAddressBObj/TCRMAddressBObj/ProvinceStateValue” },
“Zip”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyAddressBObj/TCRMAddressBObj/ZipPostalCode” },
“Country ID”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyAddressBObj/TCRMAddressBObj/CountryType” },
“Country”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyAddressBObj/TCRMAddressBObj/CountryValue” },
“Faves”: { “path”: “TCRMPartyValueBObj”, “child”: “party_value” }
},
“children”: {
“party_contact_method”: “mdmPartyContactMethod”,
“party_value”: “mdmPartyValue”
},
“xml”: “TCRMPersonBObj”
}

Models by intention present a simplified, flattened out view of the entity.  That is, they won’t include all of the attributes or all of the nested object relationshipships.  (MDM Server flattens out objects too, by the way.  Look at the difference between a TCRMPersonSearchResultBObj and a TCRMPersonBObj.)

/app/resources/personModel.json:

{
“fields”: {
“FirstName”: {
“label”: “First Name”,
“required”: false,
“type”: “string”,
“description”: “”,
“default_value”: “”,
“max_length”: 50
},
“LastName”: {
“label”: “Last Name”,
“required”: false,
“type”: “string”,
“description”: “”,
“default_value”: “”,
“max_length”: 50
},
“Phone”: {
“label”: “Phone.Listing”,
“required”: true,
“type”: “string”,
“description”: “”,
“default_value”: “”,
“max_length”: 50
},
“SocSecNo”: {
“label”: “Soc Sec No”,
“required”: false,
“type”: “string”,
“description”: “”,
“default_value”: “”,
“max_length”: 50
},
/* …Attributes Omitted…*/
“id”: {
“label”: “Id”,
“required”: false,
“type”: “string”,
“description”: “”,
“default_value”: “”,
“max_length”: 50
}
},
“collections”: {
}
}

The video, starting at about the 2:55 mark, starts illustrating the kind of blueprint I’m following. Resource handlers for RESTful web services, tooling for simple, quick UI generation, next-gen application mash ups, etc.

• MDM Server doesn’t like the TCRMPartyContactMethodBObj’s in my addPerson XML.  I could add the phone number, but not the e-mail address.  It complained that I was using either an incorrect contact method category or contact method type.  My entries matched the code tables as far as I could tell.  Just dropped the e-mail for now.
• The data grid in the UI seems to break now when I retrieve an unfiltered list of persons (roughly about 110 of them).  But if I reduce the result set with search parameters, no problem.  Odd.  That was working yesterday even with a hundred names.
• This config is really taxing my poor laptop. Running the VMWare image, RMI Gateway, and sMash runtime causes my memory to start swapping out pretty badly. Definitely gets worse the longer I work with it.
• The UI doesn’t give very good visual indicators when requests are still being processed.
• The data grid looks a little barren because I’m only populating a handful of attributes.  I might need to think a little more about which attributes display in what context.  For example, TCRMPersonSearchBObj’s returned by the inList() service don’t have all the wrapper attributes, unlike the TCRMPersonBObj’s.  Need to think about the right way to configure all of that.