Learn iText with examples - Excellent link!

http://itextpdf.com/examples/

-NJN

Soft skills training - Teamwork

Hello Friends,

I am recently mentoring my team into Soft skills area where I really feel little action is required to grow in their carrier. I am sharing the presentation to all. Kindly have a look.

This time I am adding the blog which covers the great part called “Team Work”. Why Team work is really important, result of teamwork and the result of not doing the same.

teamwork presentation.pptx

Feel free to post your comments/queries. I am happy to answer your queries.

Ragards,

Nanjundan Chinnasamy

Working with apache commons configuration

This week, i have explored the apache commons-configuration third part jar. It sounds more interesting to read the configuration details from multiple properties files in our project at once.

Sample Configuration file:

configuration.xml – File to configure the list of properties file to be loaded from your application.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<configuration>

  <system />

  <properties fileName="logging.properties" />

  <properties fileName="appConfig.properties" />

  <properties fileName="webserviceEndPoints.properties" />

  <properties fileName="message.properties" />

  <properties fileName="com/x/y/z/a.properties"/>

  <properties fileName="com/x/y/z/b.properties"/>

</configuration>

/**

* This class is to read values from the properties files listed in central configuration file. Need to define the *all configuration/properties file in the configuation.xml

*/

public final class ConfigurationManager {

    private static final String CONFIG_FILE = "configuration.xml";

    private static Configuration configuration;

    private ConfigurationManager() {

     final URL configFileURL = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource(CONFIG_FILE);

     final DefaultConfigurationBuilder builder = new DefaultConfigurationBuilder(configFileURL);

     configuration = builder.getConfiguration(true);

    }

Now, how do we get the value from property file using key?

Each method returns an object by looking up in the property file associated with the key if the corresponding key is missing it will return defaultValue which is the argument.

    configuration.getInteger(Key)

    configuration.getInteger(Key, defaultValue) - If not present in prop file

                        .getString

                        .getBoolean

                        .getDouble

                        .getStringArray

                        .getList etc.

   You can have to explore for additional methods.

Reference:

commons-configuration-1.5.jar. Please refer the features here for configuration (http://commons.apache.org/configuration)

online image editor

I have come across a new new online tool this week. Thought, it is worth to share this tool with my readers and followers.

To create/edit graphic images we may need licensed software like photoshop etc. Do you think, is it really worth to spend much cost to create/edit  simple images to the designers like me? Definitely, me answer is NO.

How about create/edit an image through online without installing any specialized software(s)? Sounds interesting? Have a look at the website http://pixlr.com/editor

Rgds

_NjN

Screenprint using Fireshot

Last week I have come across a tool called “Fire Shot”. I admired about the techniques and the various options provided by that tool.

It is used to capture the screen prints and can be directly saved as image, pdf etc.. The beauty is if you have a lengthy screen which requires page scrolling, the entire page can be captured as a single image.

You can also explore the tool at http://www.screenshot-program.com/fireshot/api_demo.php

Google plus launches tool for business?

From the post title, open source developers and small business entrepreneurs will be vey happy to see such a great initiative from google. Yes, It’s google plus tool available freely by 2013. We could have use these tools effectively for sharing the data and meeting the friends and colleagues across the world. Sounds good?!

You can see more details from the below mentioned link. Happy reading!
http://mashable.com/2012/08/29/google-plus-for-business

_NjN

How to know the version of the java/j2ee application deployed?

Many occasions, you might have come across the circumstances where you may want to know the version of the application deployed for particular instances like System testing, UAT and production. Possible situations are,

1. As part of post deployment activity, you may wanted to ensure the whether the deployed build(s) is successfully deployed or not.

2. To see the version of the build deployed in production (to know the stable version of the build). You might have seen many open source applications for this. 

Ant target to achieve the same:

Java Class file that can read the MANIFEST.MF file attributes:

Code is self explanatory.   We have a small piece of Code to get the ServertContext from FacesContext.  If you are not using JSF, replace with relevant code base.

JSF presentation file used to display the MANIFEST.MF file attributes:

Below is the design view of the presentation. Bean attribute values will be populated using VersionInfoMFReader.java class file as mentioned above. Here, presentation values will be populated from the bean as below.

We have implemented the above version info reader in our application. Sample application screen print attached below.