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Integrate ZK Spreadsheet with Spring

Ivan Cheng, Engineer, Potix Corporation
May 6, 2008

Version

Applicable to ZK 3.0.5 and later

Applicable to ZK Spreadsheet 1.0.0 and later

Introduction

In Use JavaBean in Excel with ZK Spreadsheet and Change the Style of Spreadsheet within 1 Min, we demonstrate how to use JavaBean directly via Variable-Resolver and change the style of spreadsheet with ease. In this article, we will integrate ZK Spreadsheet and Spring to achieve same functionality. It is easy to integrate ZK Spreadsheet with Spring.

If you'd like to know more about ZK Spreadsheet, please refer to the following URLs:

New Features of ZK Spreadsheet 0.7.0

A Preview of ZK Spreadsheet Component

A Sip of the ZK Spreadsheet Component

How to Build a Rich Excel Report with ZK Spreadsheet

If you'd like to know more about Variable-Resolver, please refer to the following URL:

Using ZK JndiVariableResolver - Retrieve Session Beans and EntityManagerFactory

Let's start to build an application for integrating ZK Spreadsheet and Spring.

Live Demo

It is similar to the demo in previous article. It demonstrates that you can achieve same functionality by integrating ZK Spreadsheet with Spring.

Configuration Files

In your web.xml, you have to use org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener to load the spring configuration when the server started.

web.xml
	......
	
	<context-param>
		<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
		<param-value>/WEB-INF/spring-config.xml</param-value>
	</context-param>
	<listener>
		<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
	</listener>
	
	......

Define your bean in Spring's configuration file. Please remember the bean id (dataBean, database) which will be taken as a key for Variable-Resolver to lookup the bean. I will describe it later.

spring-config.xml
	......
	
	<beans>
		<bean id="dataBean" class="model.DataBean"/>
		<bean id="database" class="model.Database">
			<property name="dataBean">
				<ref bean="dataBean"/>
			</property>
		</bean>
	</beans>
	
	......

Get Values via Variable-Resolver

ZK provides a variable-resolver directive that application developers can specifies the resolver class that will be used by the zscript interpreter to resolve unknown variables. Based on such mechanism, the ZK Team has implemented a variable resolver class that would automatically resolve the Spring bean objects by their ids defined in spring-config.xml . Thus the zul page now can use the Spring beans seamlessly in zscript or EL expression just like using general ZK components.

sheet.zul

//Add Variable-Resolver for Spring
<?variable-resolver class="org.zkoss.zkplus.spring.DelegatingVariableResolver"?>
<window>
  <listbox id="quarter" mold="select" rows="1" onSelect="refreshQuarter()">
  	<listitem value="0" label="Select"/>
  	<listitem value="1" label="Quarter 1"/>
  	<listitem value="2" label="Quarter 2"/>
  	<listitem value="3" label="Quarter 3"/>
  	<listitem value="4" label="Quarter 4"/>
  </listbox>
  <listbox id="style" mold="select" rows="1" onSelect="changeStyle()">
  	<listitem label="Style 1" value="/BalanceSheet.xls"/>
  	<listitem label="Style 2" value="/NewSheet.xls"/>
  </listbox>
<zscript>
	void refreshQuarter() {
		Listitem listitem = quarter.getSelectedItem();
		int quarter = Integer.parseInt(listitem.value);
		//Call the method to reload data
		database.reloadQuarter(quarter);
		//Call the method to refresh values of cells
		balance.book.notifyChange(new String[]{"dataBean"});
	}
	
	void changeStyle() {  //Change the URL of spreadsheet
		balance.url = style.getSelectedItem().value;
	}
	
	//Initial data, ZK will find it via DelegatingVariableResolver.
	database.reloadQuarter(0);
</zscript>
	<spreadsheet id="balance" url="/BalanceSheet.xls" maxrow="40" maxcolumn="20" height="600px" width="1300px"/> 
</window>

Download

ZssSpring.war

Conclusion

The ZK team has implemented a Spring bean variable resolver which allows accessing spring bean directly in zscript and EL expression. In the same way we can get Spring beans in ZK Spreadsheet. All we have to do is to modify configuration files and then, layout the Spreadsheet at proper place. In the near future, we will introduce more useful tools of ZK Spreadsheet. We expect your response to make it better, feel free to leave a message or post it to ZK forum .

Comments

2009-01-02

Hi,

I am trying the code with zk version 3.5 and spring web-flow but the zscript tag inside the zul file is not detecting bean variables or any standard zk elements like self or even the objects in the same zul file like listbox (I want to get the selected value from listbox like above spreadsheet code)

It shows error Inline execution of .... (all code in zscript tag)

when traced it shows error particularly at the variables which are not getting recognized like bean variables or even the listbox in the same zul file is also not getting identified.


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