Apache OFBiz News October 2020

Welcome to our regular monthly round-up of OFBiz news. This month
we have news about OMS discussions, REST sessions, and the Headless Commerce plugin along with our usual list of features, improvements, and
Statistics.

OFBiz as OMS

As shared in our previous post, the OFBiz community is discussing where Apache
OFBiz stands as an Omnichannel Order Management System.
The community had the following discussions this month:

Unfillable Order Reasons and Handling in Omnichannel Retail
https://youtu.be/AwnmdBUohhw

Real-time inventory visibility - keeping your promise with the customer
https://youtu.be/B8aTARHhKrg

Real-time Inventory Visibility: A Merchandiser's View
https://youtu.be/c8GhSfcMpvw

Endless Aisle in Omnichannel Retail
https://youtu.be/z1hRJQRtV7M

Pre-Order Management and Challenges
https://youtu.be/X4SXboL4OmE

Here is the link to the playlist for all the discussions:
https://s.apache.org/83lw6

If
you want to be part of this discussion and share your experiences, join the conversation
https://s.apache.org/nb9aj

Thanks Pranay Pandey for initiating it and to everyone who contributed to it.

Apache OFBiz as Headless commerce

In our previous post, we shared information about the ongoing efforts towards the headless commerce plugin, as decided the community started working on initial documents that will define the roadmap of further efforts. This month community worked on preparing the following documents:

1. OOTB OFBiz eCommerce Feature Set:  This document contains the eCommerce features that OFBiz provides and will help us to define the API
roadmap and quick-start implementation.
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/x/3EV4CQ

2. Headless Commerce (OFBiz) - API RoadMap: This document contains the API endpoints to expose the OOTB eCommerce functionalities.
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/x/Lz14CQ

3. Headless Commerce Requirement Specifications: The document describes the standard features that a modern eCommerce system should have.
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/x/LD14CQ

If
you want to be part of this effort, join the conversation
https://s.apache.org/phc7u

Thanks Ravi Lodhi for preparing the useful documents and to everyone who contributed to it.

REST Implementation Sessions

In our
previous post, we shared information about the new REST plugin by Girish
Vasmatkar, and about the sessions, he has planned to share the insights of the plugin. This month Girish had another session on "Preconfigured
Resources".

Here is the link to the session and the entire playlist:
https://youtu.be/ayjkOIh9wu0
https://s.apache.org/vh04y

Here is the link to the plugin:
https://github.com/apache/ofbiz-plugins/tree/trunk/ofbiz-rest-impl

If
you want to be part of these sessions, join the conversation
https://s.apache.org/ef6au

Thanks Girish Vasmatkar for this valuable contribution to the community.


OFBiz Statistics

Apache Kibble tracks some Apache OFBiz community statistics on its
demo instance, so we have highlighted a few of our stats for the last
month:

  • JIRA Issue Tracker: 14 issues were opened and 21 issues were closed ( 6 different people helped to close these issues)
  • Code Change and Commit Activity:
    • Framework: 40 commits to the code base that changed 2,088 lines of code ( 3 committers were active)
    • Plugins: 31 commits to the code base that changed 1,730 lines of code ( 3 committers were active)
  • Mailing Lists:
    • Dev: 73 emails sent and 24 topics discussed (26 different people)
    • User: 124 emails sent and 30 topics discussed (33 different people)

New features and improvements

Functional enhancements and improvements as well as updates of third party libraries and source code refactoring:

Framework

  • Solves Error messages when generating HTML and PDF file from AsciiDoc files (OFBIZ-11893)
  • Moves SeoConfigUtil.java from Product to Widget component (OFBIZ-12031)
  • Changes Asciidoc Image directory convention for plugins (OFBIZ-12035)
  • Improves: "description" and "comment" datatypes unnecessarily limited to 255 char (OFBIZ-12021)
  • Reverts: "description" and "comment" datatypes unnecessarily limited to 255 char (OFBIZ-12021)
  • Improves Asciidoc Image directory convention for plugins and components (OFBIZ-12035)
  • Improves: Open Screen file from browser (OFBIZ-12038)
  • Removes date.format-1.2.3-min.js (OFBIZ-12040)
  • Improves: Open Form Widget (Single Type) source file from browser (OFBIZ-12041)
  • Improves: Upgrade Gradle to V6.5.1 (OFBIZ-11946)

Plugins

  • Specializes exception class added for Service Not Found. Changes returned status code for service not exportable or action not defined (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Exception Mapper for GenericServiceException. Improves: Cleans up code for exception handling and moves the code to ErrorUtil (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Changes display name for OFBiz Rest APIs on swagger (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Solves Error messages when generating HTML and PDF file from AsciiDoc files (OFBIZ-11893)
  • Changes Asciidoc Image directory convention for plugins (OFBIZ-12035)
  • Moves service inParams check in service filter and addds more improvements in its handling. Service call can be made without passing in inParams for services that don't have any IN attribute (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Adds a method to extract path parameters from paths declared in REST DSL (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Improves: Redundant line in themes (OFBIZ-11997)
  • Service required parameters now show as required in OpenAPI schema as required (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Adds a new 'publish' attribute to API element allowing a specific API to be disabled from publishing (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Updates swagger-ui to v3.35.1 (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Wrapped serviceIn query parameter schema in content to allow url encoding of values in Swagger UI (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Extracts path parameters from declared path in rest.xml and adds path parameters to OpenAPI (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Changes webapp name for API docs to 'docs' and adds redoc.html for rendering OpenAPI spec using Redoc (OFBIZ-11328)

Bugfixes

Functional and technical bugfixes:

Framework

  • Fixes: Open FTL File from browser (OFBIZ-12018)
  • Fixes: title-logo-image should be in header without blank line (GitHub Link)
  • Fixes: variant product selection trashes image (OFBIZ-12019)
  • Fixes: createPartyGroupRoleAndContactMechs service not working (OFBIZ-11986)
  • Fixes: duplicate webtools include help from developer-manual to user-manual for help link work (GitHub Link)

Plugins

  • Fixes: Javadoc issues (OFBIZ-11328)
  • Completes Birt Flexible Reports documentation (OFBIZ-9188)
  • Fixes: Flexible reports use an old noNamespaceSchemaLocation (OFBIZ-12039)
  • Fixes: title-logo-image should be in header without blank line (GitHub Link)
  • Fixes: Asciidoc attribute imagesDir should not be in the header (GitHub Link)
  • Fixes: Wrong quote marks (OFBIZ-11972)
  • Fixes: inParams is not listed in OpenAPI spec if the service does not define any IN attributes (OFBIZ-11328)

Documentation

Framework

Plugins

  • Migration to help system using Asciidoc files (OFBIZ-11587)
  • Removes from plugin cmssite link to document genereted from docbook help files (GitHub Link)