Rendering PDF

[rafaelfrade]

I'm generating a pdf using specific api of seam to do that.
I'd like to know if there is a way to render it without
showing it to the user.
For example, when the user clicks at a link, I save the pdf
in a directory without the user realize it. Like a way to render
the xhtml that is the pdf(that uses the tags p ), but with no
need to show it to the user.

Another question is, using the same API, can I include another
pdf files(real pdfs, not xhtml) to the one I'm making.

Thank you.

[lvdberg]

Hi,

Although the PDF-support ins Seam is great, nothing beats using the API's directly. It takes some effort, but the result is better.
In my opinion PDF is a bit to closely coupled, but that's something for another Thread.

Look at the iText API, or use Birt/JasperReports. The latter has also a nice API to dynamically generate reports. In this way you create the report in the format you want and - if needed - you can output (stream) it directly to your user.

Leo

[cathyben]

I found a C#.net PDF rendering API. And it have related pdf reading and edition feature you wanted.

If you think it's helpful, you can have a look at it.

Best regards.

[baddeley84]

You should be able to do this in Seam, I have done something similar to email an Excel document as an attachment, see code below, I am sure you could adapt this for Seam PDF

In the .xhtml file you need to set the export key, this places the generated document in the event scope...eg:

<e:workbook xmlns:e="http://jboss.org/schema/seam/excel"
 xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
 exportKey="_pue"
 filename="#{poolReportsActions.reportFileName}">

then the following backing bean code to retrieve the report as a byte array:

//Render the report using a fake request
  EmptyFacesContext emptyFacesContext = new EmptyFacesContext();

  try {
       String pageLocation = "/somePage.xhtml";
       Renderer renderer = Renderer.instance();
       renderer.render(pageLocation)
       //Retrieve the report from the event context
       if(Contexts.getEventContext().get("_pue")!=null){

            DocumentData data = (DocumentData) Contexts.getEventContext().get("_pue");
            ByteArrayDocumentData byteData = null;
            if (data instanceof ByteArrayDocumentData) {
                 byteData = (ByteArrayDocumentData) data;
            } else {
                 throw new IllegalArgumentException("Couldnt get the bytes from the pdf document, unkown class " + data.getClass().getName());
            }

            //Send email with attachement
            Map<String,Object> emailMap = new HashMap<String,Object>();
            emailMap.put("clientUser", clientUser);
            emailService.sendMessageToUser(Email.client_usage_report, clientUser, emailMap);

       }else{
            log.error("No document found");
       }

  }catch(Exception ex){
       log.error("Error when trying to get the content of the excel in bytes with the message:\n {0}", ExceptionUtils.getStackTrace(ex));
  }finally{
       emptyFacesContext.restore();
  }