New post about Sales Orders and Ship Groups in OFBiz on HWM Blog

Another post of the OFBiz tutorial series I wrote for my company's blog:
"OFBiz Tutorial – Order Entry and Ship Groups"

New post about PDF exports in OFBiz on HWM Blog

Another post of the OFBiz tutorial series I wrote for my company's blog:
"OFBiz Tutorial – Implementing a Product PDF export"

New post about CSV exports in OFBiz on HWM Blog

Another post of the OFBiz tutorial series I wrote for my company's blog:
"OFBiz Tutorial – Implementing a Product CSV export"

Another post in the OFBiz Tutorial series

Another post of the OFBiz tutorial series I wrote for my company's blog:
"OFBiz Tutorial – Enhancing the Product list screen"

New post about OFBiz Widget Programming on HWM Blog

Here is the link of a new post about OFBiz widgets I wrote for my company's blog:
"OFBiz Tutorial – Building A Simple Product List Screen"

New post about OFBiz Custom Components on HWM Blog

Here is the link of a new post about OFBiz Custom Components setup I wrote for my company's blog:
"OFBiz Tutorial - Custom Components in OFBiz"

New post about OFBiz Widget Renderers on HWM Blog

Here is the link of a new post about OFBiz Widget Renderers I wrote for my company's blog:
"OFBiz Tutorial - Introduction to OFBiz Widgets"

HotWax Media is Gold Sponsor at ApacheCon US 2009

We did it again!
HotWax Media is again, after last year's Platinum Sponsorship at New Orleans conference, one of the top names at ApacheCon: we are Gold Sponsor at ApacheCon US 2009, Oakland.
Unfortunately this year I am not able to attend and meet the Apache gents, but for sure HotWax Media will be greatly represented by Mike Bates and Tim Ruppert.
Here is the blog post about this event from HotWax Media blog:
HotWax Media, Gold Sponsor, ApacheCon US 2009

Firefox error using OFBiz demo certificate

I had issues running OFBiz in Firefox 3.0.8 (but the problem may be already there since 3.0.3) on MacOSX; the browser was returning the following error:

Error code: sec_error_expired_issuer_certificate

I managed to fix it following these steps:
1) Firefox-> preferences -> advanced -> encryption -> view certificates -> servers
2) Add exception...
3) Enter https://localhost:8443

Quick Start Guides for OFBiz

Here are some "experimental" quick start guides for OFBiz that I have written to simplify the very first steps in the OFBiz world: Quick Start Guides.
Right now they are just an experiment and a work in progress, but they may be useful: by following them, in very few steps, you will be able to have an OFBiz instance up and running, create a custom application etc...

ApacheCon - Badge

Preparing for the ApacheCon US 2008.



Here is my schedule and my profile pages.
For an overview of all the sessions related to OFBiz, visit the OFBiz Symposium page.

Countdown to ApacheConUS 2008 - 1 month

The ApacheCon US 2008 is getting closer, minus one month to go: November 3-7, New Orleans.
This year, OFBiz will be an important part of the Conference and there will be several training sessions and presentations about this amazing Open Source ERP software.
And the company I work for, HotWax Media, is a Platinum Sponsor of the event, and will play a big role in this.
From this page you will find the links to the sessions I am going to hold.

Summary of Main new features in OFBiz - August

Here is the summary of the most interesting features developed in August 2008 by the Apache OFBiz open source project's community:

Framework:

• Generics markup added to several Java classes.
• Refactored FlexibleStringExpander - less memory used.

MyPage, ProjectManager:

• It is now possible to create a customer request from an incoming email.
• Creation of a project task from a customer request.
• Allow the customer to login to the backend system in mypage using OFBiz security system and showing the status of the customer requests
• Allow the customer to login to the backend system in mypage using OFBiz security system and showing the status of the customer requests
• Customer can now add new requests and update the priority of exiting requests
• Customer can also see and download his own invoices in his currency in pdf format
• Many enhancements in receiving email into the system
• create an invoice from all hours reported per timesheet on not yet invoiced project tasks

Order Component:

• Miscellaneous enhancements to the order detail screen, mostly related to the action links for shipment related operations

POS:

• New virtual keyboards (alphanum and num) automatically accessed from fields needing them (usefull with touch screens, can be disabled with a property)

Fixed Asset Maintenance:

• Meter readings can be entered without creating a maintenance
• Automatic maintenance generation. If a product maintenance is based on meter readings, then maintenances will be created automatically when the meter reading crosses a threshold. If a product maintenance is based on time intervals, then maintenances will be created automatically when the time interval is passed
• New party roles for maintenance worker, maintenance manager, and maintenance supplier (outside service)
• Automatic assignment of parties to maintenance tasks
• Additional parties can be assigned to a maintenance task
• Improved user interface in the Asset Maintenance component

As usual, you can see the full list of new features here.

Meeting face to face with the OFBiz people - Part 2

This is a followup after my first post with the list of OFBiz committers that I've met face-to-face.
After my last trip to Indore, here is the updated list:

Olivier Heinz in Padova
Si Chen in New York
Andrew Zeneski in New York
David Welton in Padova
Yoav Shapira in Padova
David Jones in Salt Lake City
Tim Ruppert in Salt Lake City
Christian Geisert in Padova
Anil Patel in Indore
Ashish Vijaywargiya in Indore
Vikas Mayur in Indore

I am also sure that many of the guys I've met there, part the HWM crew, will be sooner or later committers, because they are doing a great job. Additionally I will meet many others at ApacheCon in New Orleans.
The above list will grow soon.

Christian and me in Padova

Here are two pictures of Christian Geisert and me (I am the guy with the blu t-shirt), taken by Christian's wife during the day they spent in Padova a few weeks ago: they were in Italy for a summer holiday and they were so kind to spend a few hours in Padova so that we had a great chance to meet in person, chat about our work, interests, passions, OFBiz... and of course to drink a "spritz", the traditional (lightly) alcoholic drink of Padova.



Summary of Main new features in OFBiz - July

Here is the summary of the most interesting features developed in July 2008 by the Apache OFBiz open source project's community:

My Page:

• New application currently under development and is now fairly complete. This component shows all information for a specific user such as personal email, project tasks assigned, timesheet and company events such as holidays.

Party Component:

• Enhanced the communication event screens and created specific forms for emails and internal notes.
• created the possibility to create Customer requests from incoming emails which allows the import into the project manager component where request can be converted into project tasks
• When emails come into the system and the email is not known, a form is added which allows the quick creation of new parties. Also has a bulk delete button to delete incoming spam.

Order Component:

• Enhanced the Customer request screens and changed them according the OFBIz interface standards.
• Implemented returns of purchase orders to suppliers

Framework:

• Added support for default entity-group for entities: now, if an entity belongs to the org.ofbiz group, there is no need to explicitely specify this

All Components:

• a bunch of Beanshell scripts have been converted to Groovy scripts
• removed all the, no more needed after recent enhancement, entity-group.xml files

As usual, you can see the full list of new features here.

Summary of Main new features in OFBiz - June

Here is the summary of the most interesting features developed in June 2008 in the OFBiz open source project:

Framework:

• New deploy option for JBoss422
• Embedded Tomcat has been upgraded to 6.0.16
• Embedded Geronimo TX Manager have been upgraded to 2.1.1
• Added support for LDAP Authentication

User Interface:

• New and faster calendar lookups
• New collapsible lookup interface is slowly spreading in OFBiz (Ajax style)

As usual, you can see the full list of new features here.

HotWax Media @ ApacheCon US 2008

Here we are... ApacheCon US 2008 has been officially announced by the Apache Software Foundation:

press release
registration and details

ApacheCon US 2008 will be held 3 November through 7 November in New Orleans, Louisiana.
I am going to participate at the conference, where I will do a presentation and probably also part of the 2 days training at the OFBiz Symposium: I will post more information about this event soon.
Most of all I am proud to work for HotWax Media, one of the main sponsors of the event:

ApacheCon US 2008 Sponsors

"With world leading technology companies such as Google, Hewlett-Packard, Hippo, Hotwax Media, IONA, Linux Magazine, SpringSource, and Yahoo! sponsoring this year's gathering of Open Source users, enthusiasts and vendors, ApacheCon US 2008 has ensured that it continues its mission to encourage the uptake and development of Open Source software through raising awareness and generating public interest."

This is going to be my very first ApacheCon... and I really hope to meet you all in New Orleans.

Meeting face to face with the OFBiz people

It is exciting to play a role in the community of an international open source project like Apache OFBiz: you have a chance to interact with smart and brilliant people from all over the World.

Here is a visual representation of the committers and PMC (Project Management Commitee) members of the OFBiz project: ASF World Map.

As you can see, mostly all the continents in the World are represented, and we also have users from South America, Africa and China.

And in the last few years, I had the pleasure to meet face to face several of the OFBiz people; yesterday I was really happy to meet Christian Geisert here in Padova.

Here is the list of the persons that I met so far:

Olivier Heinz in Padova
Si Chen in New York
Andrew Zeneski in New York
David Welton in Padova
Yoav Shapira in Padova
David Jones in Salt Lake City
Tim Ruppert in Salt Lake City
Christian Geisert in Padova

I am sure that I will have a chance to meet many others during the next ApacheCon event that is going to happen in November in New Orleans. I am going to write more about it in future posts.