Overactive Logistics - Freight Forwarding Open Source Software Solution

Overactive Logistics Pre Alpha 1.6 released!

2008-03-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce the 1.6 Pre Alpha release of Overactive Logistics!. This release includes several bug fixes plus the introduction of a Tracking Shipment subsystem and Tracking Reports.

More information about Overactive Logistics features, downloads and installation can be found at the "Project Links" section of this site or at

http://overactive.sourceforge.net

Overactive Logistics uses Jasper Reports

2008-02-20T07:35:00.000-08:00

We would like to announce that Overactive Logistics has adopted Jasper Reports to fulfill all its reporting needs. The next Overactive Logistics release scheduled to ship soon will feature a shipment tracking subsystem that will provide the first of many reports being created with IReport.

Kuddos to Jasper Reports for an excellent and superb reporting suite!

Shipment tracking subsystem update.

2008-01-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

I've made progress in the shipments list, it displays what shipments are in transit and their status updates as they move through the process. From here a shipment can be selected to view its full details.

Shipment tracking sub system.

2007-12-22T15:38:00.000-08:00

I'm in the process of creating a shipment tracking subsystem that can be accessed via the login screen. Now when the user starts Overactive Logistics there will be two system options to log on.

Cargo System
This is the freight forwarding system where shipments are created.

Tracking System
This is the system where shipments can be tracked.

If the user selects Tracking System the following screen will display the shipments that are on transit and their current status.

From here the user will be able to see more detailed information about the shipment by selecting it.

Overactive Logistics Pre Alpha 1.5 released

2007-11-14T19:44:00.000-08:00

HOW TO INSTALL?

Detailed instructions can be found at:
Installation Instructions

New blog look and logo

2007-11-01T23:36:00.000-07:00

Well, it is 2:37 am and I just checked in a bunch of code changes, slowly I'm closing the gap between shipments and charges calculation. I've been extremely careful to keep the domain model always up to date with all the little refactoring details that have been arising during these busy time.

I had to take a little break a few days ago just to cool off my mind and decided that it was time to start thinking about the project's logo and why not give the project's blog a fresh new look.

After I publish the next Overactive Source release I will be working on a simple website featuring detailed information about the system modules and capabilities with screenshoots of course.

Progress.

2007-10-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

I've been very active the last few weeks working on the commodities, containers and shipments modules. My goal was to deliver a partial alpha release by the end of this month however I realized that I'm not too far from completing all the logistics features so I decided just to move forward with their coding. I'll be targeting a release before the end of the year.

Commodities

2007-10-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

Time again to hit the road. After clearing out many of my day job assignments I have finally found some spare time to start working on the commodities maintenance module.

Got Item Definitions and Locations

2007-09-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

The item definition and location modules have been finished today. I'll start working on the commodities module next.

Containers

2007-07-31T14:20:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly making good progress for the containers maintenance module. Here is an screenshoot of how it will look.

Container, Commodity and Item Definition.

2007-07-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

This is the final domain model for the Container maintenance module, it will require two supporting modules which are Commodity and Item Definition. I already got the domains coded and will be moving forward on the controllers and facades to support the graphical user interfaces.

Containers Module

2007-07-05T12:15:00.000-07:00

I started modeling today the domains for the Containers module which will be accessible from Shipments. This is a quick snapshot of what is going to take to get it done.

Overactive Logistics Pre Alpha 1.4 released.

2007-06-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS OVERACTIVE LOGISTICS?
Overactive Logistics is a freight forwarding open source software solution being developed for the cargo transportation industry.
It runs in both web based or stand alone modes and provides a graphical user interface with rich client capabilities.

WHERE TO GET UP TO DATE INFORMATION ABOUT PROJECT STATUS?
You can get information about the project current status and development efforts in the project's site located at:
http://overactive.sourceforge.net/

HOW TO CONTACT US?
You can contact us sending us an email to:
overactive.source@gmail.com

UNDER WHAT OPEN SOURCE LICENSE IS OVERACTIVE LOGISTICS RELEASED?
Overactive Logistics is being release under the Overactive Source Public License which is a derivative from the Mozilla Public License.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS VERSION (PRE ALPHA 1.4)?
This version contains the latest progress made on Shipments and Shipment Charges

-Progress made on Incomming/Outgoing Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)
-Progress made on Shipment Charges and Freight Charges (Income, Expense)
-Vendor maintenance
-SCAC maintenance
-IATA maintenance
-FMC maintenance
-Carrier maintenace (Air, Land, Ocean)
-Forwarding Agent maintenance
-Ports maintenance
-Schedule D maintenance
-Schedule K maintenance
-Customer maintenance
-Security roles maintenance
-Users maintenance
-Company maintenance

WHAT ARE THE GOALS FOR THE FIRST BETA VERSION?
The initial Beta version aims to provide the following modules:

-Outgoing Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)
-Incoming Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)
-SCAC maintenance
-IATA maintenance
-FMC maintenance
-Vendor maintenance
-Carrier maintenace (Air, Land, Ocean)
-Forwarding Agent maintenance
-Ports maintenance
-Schedule D maintenance
-Schedule K maintenance
-Customer maintenance
-Security roles maintenance
-Users maintenance
-Company maintenance
-Reports

HOW TO INSTALL?

For detailed steps please click on the Installation Instructions link.

The following is a high level overview of the installation steps:

Software requirements
-JBoss 4.2.0 GA
-MySQL Server 5.0
-MySQL Tools 5.0
-MySQL Connector/J 5.0.4
-Web browser with Java Plug-in 1.4.0 or higher

Database creation (using MySQL Administrator)
-Create a new database schema (catalog) called LOGISTICS
-Do a "Restore" using the "logistics.sql" backup file in the newly created "Target Schema" LOGISTICS

Application deployment (in JBoss)
-Type the database user name and password where required inside the file mysql-ds.xml and deploy it in JBoss
-Deploy the mysql-connector-java-5.0.4-bin.jar driver in JBoss
-Deploy the overactive-logistics.ear in JBoss

Running the aplication
-Open your web browser and type the following link:
http://localhost:8080/logistics/
-Once the login screen shows up access the application using the following:
User : admin
Password: admin

Hitting the road again.

2007-06-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

It feels good to be back again. I've been very busy in the last few months working in my day job attending to client accounts and clearing some much needed certifications plus writing some articles.

Now I finally got enough time to retake the development of Overactive Logistics and as a first step I worked last night migrating the development environment to the JBoss 4.20 version.

I'm planning to do some little refactoring on the Overactive Core to make the kernel more cohesive since for the last few years it kept growing and growing getting features implemented as soon as possible and in the rush some portions of the code got a little bit rusty.

Also as I reported in my last post the EAR has being re structured to have the Overactive Core standing in its own jar file instead of being merged across the project.

Expect a new release soon.

Overactive Core

2007-02-28T06:37:00.000-08:00

In the last few weeks I've been focusing my attention in the Overactive Core to make it a complete separate framework that can be deployed in its own JAR file inside the WEB-INF\lib or referenced in the Class-Path attribute of the MANIFEST.MF in the WAR since currently the Overactive Core is deployed totally embedded with the Overactive Logistic's core. This change will make easier the creation of new releases specially because the Overactive Core has reached a very stable state.

I'm waiting for the production release of JBoss 5.0 to migrate the development version of Overactive Logistics and continue moving forward.

Overactive Logistics Pre Alpha 1.3 released

2007-01-19T06:37:00.001-08:00

IMPORTANT NOTE: This release has been compiled with and requires the JDK 6. There have been issues reported with backward compatibility with the JDK 1.5.0_10 and previous versions when attempting to deploy in JBoss.

Please refer to the the Installation Instructions

WHAT IS OVERACTIVE LOGISTICS?
Overactive Logistics is a freight forwarding open source software solution being developed for the cargo transportation industry.
It runs in both web based or stand alone modes and provides a graphical user interface with rich client capabilities.

WHERE TO GET UP TO DATE INFORMATION ABOUT PROJECT STATUS?
You can get information about the project current status and development efforts in the project's site located at:
http://overactive.sourceforge.net/

HOW TO CONTACT US?
You can contact us sending us an email to:
overactive.source@gmail.com

UNDER WHAT OPEN SOURCE LICENSE IS OVERACTIVE LOGISTICS RELEASED?
Overactive Logistics is being release under the Overactive Source Public License which is a derivative from the Mozilla Public License.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS VERSION (PRE ALPHA 1.3)?
This version contains the latest progress made on Shipments and Shipment Charges

-Progress made on Incomming/Outgoing Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)
-Progress made on Shipment Charges and Freight Charges (Income, Expense)
-Vendor maintenance
-SCAC maintenance
-IATA maintenance
-FMC maintenance
-Carrier maintenace (Air, Land, Ocean)
-Forwarding Agent maintenance
-Ports maintenance
-Schedule D maintenance
-Schedule K maintenance
-Customer maintenance
-Security roles maintenance
-Users maintenance
-Company maintenance

WHAT ARE THE GOALS FOR THE FIRST BETA VERSION?
The initial Beta version aims to provide the following modules:

-Outgoing Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)
-Incoming Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)
-SCAC maintenance
-IATA maintenance
-FMC maintenance
-Vendor maintenance
-Carrier maintenace (Air, Land, Ocean)
-Forwarding Agent maintenance
-Ports maintenance
-Schedule D maintenance
-Schedule K maintenance
-Customer maintenance
-Security roles maintenance
-Users maintenance
-Company maintenance
-Reports

HOW TO INSTALL?

You can find detailed installation instructions by visiting the project's site at: http://overactive.sourceforge.net/
and selecting the link "Installation Instructions" in the right side section titled "Project Links".

The following is a high level overview of the installation steps:

Software requirements
-JBoss 4.0.4 GA
-MySQL Server 5.0
-MySQL Administrator 1.1.4
-MySQL Connector/J 3.1
-Web browser with Java Plug-in 1.4.0 or higher

Database creation (using MySQL Administrator)
-Create a new database schema (catalog) called LOGISTICS
-Do a "Restore" using the "logistics.sql" backup file in the newly created "Target Schema" LOGISTICS

Application deployment (in JBoss)
-Type the database user name and password where required inside the file mysql-ds.xml and deploy it in JBoss
-Deploy the mysql-connector-java-5.0.3-bin.jar driver in JBoss
-Deploy the overactive-logistics.ear in JBoss

Running the aplication
-Open your web browser and type the following link:
http://localhost:8080/logistics/
-Once the login screen shows up access the application using the following:
User : admin
Password: admin

New release comming up!

2007-01-17T21:16:00.000-08:00

The new release Pre Alpha 1.3 is comming up very soon.

Stay tunned!

Happy New Year!

2007-01-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

We wish you all a happy, productive and overactive new year!

This year we'll be aiming to have a fully operational shipments module and start incorporating reports into Overactive Logistics and who knows maybe release our first Beta Version!

We are slowly making progress in the shipment charges sub module that is part of the shipments module, once completed we'll be releasing our Overactive Logistics Pre Alpha 1.3 Version.

Here are some screenshoots:

Shipment Charges Update.

2006-12-14T10:03:00.000-08:00

My day job has been keeping me extremely busy. The project I'm currently working on has some aggressive deadlines and for the last month and a half I had to put on the side working on Overactive Logistics and just doing some little stuff from time to time.

However the shipment charges module is moving on, slowly but moving forward. Here is an screenshoot.

Shipment Charges.

2006-10-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

Time to take the road again!. I'm currently working on income and expense shipment and freight shipment charges. Stay tunned for updates.

Overactive Logistics Pre Alpha 1.2 released

2006-09-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS OVERACTIVE LOGISTICS
Overactive Logistics is a freight forwarding open source software solution being developed for the cargo transportation industry.
It runs in both web based or stand alone modes and provides a graphical user interface with rich client capabilities.

UNDER WHAT OPEN SOURCE LICENSE IS OVERACTIVE LOGISTICS RELEASED
Overactive Logistics is being release under the Overactive Source Public License which is a derivative from the Mozilla Public License.

WHAT ARE THE GOALS FOR THE FIRST BETA VERSION
The initial Beta version aims to provide the following modules:

-Outgoing Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)
-Incoming Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)
-SCAC maintenance
-IATA maintenance
-FMC maintenance
-Vendor maintenance
-Carrier maintenace (Air, Land, Ocean)
-Forwarding Agent maintenance
-Ports maintenance
-Schedule D maintenance
-Schedule K maintenance
-Customer maintenance
-Security roles maintenance
-Users maintenance
-Company maintenance
-Reports

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS VERSION (PRE ALPHA 1.2)
This version was refactored to implement the latest and official version of EJB 3.0. The Carrier maintenance module was also refactore so the
three types of Carriers (Air, Land, Ocean) are now mapped to a single CARRIER database table.
This version also includes the release of the Shipment maintenance module (work in progress) that is capable of creating Air, Land and Ocean
shipments.

-Vendor maintenance
-SCAC maintenance
-IATA maintenance
-FMC maintenance
-Carrier maintenace (Air, Land, Ocean)
-Forwarding Agent maintenance
-Ports maintenance
-Schedule D maintenance
-Schedule K maintenance
-Customer maintenance
-Security roles maintenance
-Users maintenance
-Company maintenance
-An snapshoot of Outgoing Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)

HOW TO INSTALL

Please note that this section lists a high level overview of the installation. For a more detailed guide please visit the following link: Overactive Logistics Installation

Software requirements
-JBoss 4.0.4 GA
-MySQL Server 5.0
-MySQL Administrator 1.1.4
-MySQL Connector/J 5.0
-Web browser with Java Plug-in 1.4.0 or higher

Database creation (using MySQL Administrator)
-Create a new database schema (catalog) called LOGISTICS
-Do a "Restore" using the "logistics.sql" backup file in the newly created "Target Schema" LOGISTICS

Application deployment (in JBoss)
-Type the database user name and password where required inside the file mysql-ds.xml and deploy it in JBoss
-Deploy the mysql-connector-java-5.0.3-bin.jar driver in JBoss
-Deploy the overactive-logistics.ear in JBoss

Running the aplication
-Open your web browser and type the following link:
http://localhost:8080/logistics/
-Once the login screen shows up access the application using the following:
User : admin
Password: admin

WHERE TO GET UP TO DATE INFORMATION ABOUT PROJECT STATUS
You can get information about the project current status and development efforts in our blog located at:
http://overactive-logistics.blogspot.com/

HOW TO CONTACT US
You can contact us sending us an email to:
overactive.source@gmail.com

Added formatted textfield capabilities.

2006-09-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

The Overactive Renderer has been enchanced to support formatted textfields by producing JFormattedTextField components with specific mask formats.

The formats supported are String, Integer, Time, Float, Short, Double, Long, Byte, Currency, Phone and Character.

During the past few weeks I implemented the necesary changes in Overactive Logistics to make use of this feature.

Here are some screenshoots showing the Phone and Time formats.

Shipments update.

2006-08-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

Shipments is moving forward and getting in good shape, some delays to work on this module were caused by refactoring in the code and adjustments in the entity beans after the migration to the JBoss 4.0.4 version.

I'm still planning to create a release of Overactive Logistics before the end of this month, in the meantime here is an screen shoot of the shipments module.

JBoss 4.0.4

2006-08-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

Finally last night I decided to migrate from JBoss 4.0.3 to JBoss 4.0.4. I'm so glad I did! since the EJB3.0 implementation has changed in the new version and it was much better having to deal with it now than later!.

EJB3.0 has made small changes in the entity bean notations and in the way references to sesision beans are acquired out of the InitialContext class. For example now the name that it is bound is the one of the class and not the interface and it should be appended with "/remote" or "/local" respectively.

Also it was very nice to found that JBoss 4.0.4 starts faster while in debug mode and that an existing bug that happened when deploying .par and .ejb3 at the same time has been fixed.

Refactoring done!

2006-07-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

I'm done refactoring Overactive Logistics to support automatic data conversion on post invocation in a form. This refactoring eliminated about 40% total of the application's code which was every single line of code written in the Web Commands to take the parameter out of the HttpServletRequest, convert it to the right type and set it in the collection to be sent to the EJBCommand.

Now I'm back with shipments which I calculate is about 70% done, the gui is in place as well as its web and ejb commands plus its ejb maintenance and domain classes. The pieces still to be completed are the notations to map the entitybeans and the database tables.

Significant refactoring comming up.

2006-07-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

I'm putting the development of the shipments module temporarily on hold since I came up with a very cool idea that will reduce a lot of the amount of code required in the web commands.

One of the tasks for a web command is to convert the values of the parameters that are comming out from the HttpServletRequest object to their right types. For example a textfield element in a screen module my prompt for a number, when the form is submitted this value is sent to the server side component as an String due to HTTP. The web command then gets this value using the method getParameter(String) and converts it to Integer placing it later in a collection that will contain all the parameters for the required ejb command. This results in writing a lot of code to convert all the non String values to their right types.

By modifying the xsd definition for the input elements to require a type property, their values can be sent in the following way:

Integer:1
String:hello
Boolean:True
Float:5.912

Then a single method can parse all the value and convert them using the information provided.

This refactoring effort will eliminate up to 30% of the code that has already been written however it will require modify all the stylesheets to provide the type property in the definition of each input element.

Shipment module update.

2006-07-06T06:53:00.000-07:00

The shipments module progress is moving slowly mainly because I'm trying to avoid the need for any future refactoring as much as possible. As I move forward I've been making improvements and refining the core framework that will minimize the amount of code written in the web commands.

If possible I'll try to have a release at the end of this month.

Moving forward.

2006-06-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

I've been making a lot of progress with the gui for the shipments module. So far I need to finish some tedious but important details before moving to work on the shipment domain model.
Stay tunned for more updates.

Shipments.

2006-06-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

Slowly I'm making progress on the shipments module. This module will support incoming and outgoing air, land and ocean shipments. Here is a preview of it.

Overactive Logistics installation guide.

2006-05-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

Updated on November 14 2007

Software Requirements.
-Java SE Development Kit 6
-JBoss 4.2.2 GA
-MySQL Server 5.0
-MySQL Administrator
-MySQL Connector/J
-Web browser with Java Plug-in 1.4.0 or higher

1. Install Java
-Go to http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads
-Download and install the "Java SE Development Kit 6" (JDK 6).
For specific instructions on how to install the Java SE Development Kit 6 go to http://java.sun.com/javase/6/webnotes/install/index.html

2. Install MySql
-Go to http://dev.mysql.com/downloads
-Download and install "MySQL 5.0"
-Download and install "MySQL GUI Tools"
-Also download "MySQL Connector/J 5.0" and extract the archive "mysql-connector-java-5.0.4-bin.jar" this will be later deployed into JBoss.
For more detailed information about MySQL 5.0 go to http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/index.html

3. Install JBoss
-Go to http://labs.jboss.com/jbossas/downloads
-Click "Download" for the 4.2.2 GA version.
-Download the file "jboss-4.2.2.GA.zip"
-To install JBoss just unzip "jboss-4.2.2.GA.zip"

For more detailed information about JBoss go to http://labs.jboss.com/portal/jbossas/docs (registration required)

4. Download Overactive Logistics
-Go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/overactive
-Download the distribution "overactive-logistics-pre-alpha1.5"

5. Generate the Overactive Logistics Database
-Extract from the "overactive-logistics-pre-alpha1.5.zip" the "logistics.sql" file.
-Run MySQL Administrator
-Select Catalogs and create a new schema called LOGISTICS
-Select Restore and open the "logistics.sql" back up file.
-Select the Target Schema LOGISTICS
-Start Restore

6. Deploy the Datasource
-Extract from the "overactive-logistics-pre-alpha1.5.zip" the "mysql-ds.xml" file.
-Open the "mysql-ds.xml" file.
-Provide the username and password for the database where indicated. These could be the ones used to log on to "MySQL Administrator"

-Copy the "mysql-ds.xml" file into the "deploy" folder in your JBoss installation.

7. Deploy the Database Driver
-Copy the "mysql-connector-java-5.0.4-bin.jar" into the "deploy" folder in your JBoss installation.

8. Deploy Overactive Logistics
-Extract from the "overactive-logistics-pre-alpha1.4.zip" the "overactive-logistics.ear" file.
-Copy the "overactive-logistics.ear" into the "deploy" folder in your JBoss installation.

At the end the "deploy" folder in your JBoss installation should look like this:

9. Run Overactive Logistics
-Open your web browser and type the following link:
http://localhost:8080/logistics/

Note: Your web browser should have the Java Plug-in 1.4.0 or higher installed. This is normally done as part of the
"Java SE Development Kit 6" installation.

-Once the login screen shows up access the application using the following:
User : admin
Password: admin

Vacation time!

2006-05-03T16:57:00.000-07:00

Ok... the time to strech my legs, get some nice sun tan and get away from the monitor has come once again!. I'll be back on line in two weeks, in the meantime thanks so much to all the people that has gotten in contact with me to in regard of the latest version of Overactive Logistics.

Got a JCalendar!

2006-04-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

The Overactive Logistics project has decided to make use of the JCalendar component which is part of the FLib open source library created by Antonio Freixas.

His outstanding work can be found at http://flib.sourceforge.net

Kuddos Tony!

Here is an screenshoot of JCalendar

Screenshoots! Screenshoots!

2006-04-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

With the new Pre Alpha 1.1 release I thought it would be a good idea to publish some screenshoots. Here they are:

Overactive Logistics Version Pre Alpha 1.1 released

2006-04-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS OVERACTIVE LOGISTICS
Overactive Logistics is a freight forwarding open source software solution being developed for the cargo transportation industry.
It runs in both web based or stand alone modes and provides a graphical user interface with rich client capabilities.

UNDER WHAT OPEN SOURCE LICENSE IS OVERACTIVE LOGISTICS RELEASED
Overactive Logistics is being release under the Overactive Source Public License which is a derivative from the Mozilla Public License.

WHAT ARE THE GOALS FOR THE FIRST BETA VERSION
The initial Beta version aims to provide the following modules:

-Outgoing Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)
-Incoming Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)
-SCAC maintenance
-IATA maintenance
-FMC maintenance
-Vendor maintenance
-Carrier maintenace (Air, Land, Ocean)
-Forwarding Agent maintenance
-Ports maintenance
-Schedule D maintenance
-Schedule K maintenance
-Customer maintenance
-Security roles maintenance
-Users maintenance
-Company maintenance
-Reports

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS VERSION (PRE ALPHA 1.1)
This version went under a heavy refactoring to make use of inheritance which was not possible before the EJB 3.0 port. Also the Overactive Renderer
was refactored to implement an improved mechanism for gui component reuse and event handling plus a better way to reference parent window callers.
The Overactive Logistics code had to be refactored as well to make use of these new features.
This version Pre Alpha 1.1 contains the definite release of the arquitecture that will be used during the rest of the project, no major changes are expected.

-Vendor maintenance
-SCAC maintenance
-IATA maintenance
-FMC maintenance
-Carrier maintenace (Air, Land, Ocean)
-Forwarding Agent maintenance
-Ports maintenance
-Schedule D maintenance
-Schedule K maintenance
-Customer maintenance
-Security roles maintenance
-Users maintenance
-Company maintenance
-An snapshoot of Outgoing Shipments (Air, Ground, Ocean)

WHERE TO GET UP TO DATE INFORMATION ABOUT PROJECT STATUS
You can get information about the project current status and development efforts in our blog located at:
http://overactive-logistics.blogspot.com

And you can download the project from Sourceforge at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/overactive

HOW TO CONTACT US
You can contact us sending us an email to:
overactive.source@gmail.com

Guts and glory!

2006-04-24T17:35:00.000-07:00

I spent some time today updating the class diagrams to reflect the latest refactoring efforts. I'll be publishing a new Pre Alpha 1.1 release before the end of this week before heading for the construction of the shipments module.

Got vendors maintenance module!

2006-04-23T20:42:00.000-07:00

For the last few months Overactive Logistcs went through a heavy refactoring first to support EJB3.0 in order to make effective use of inheritance and second to implement an improved mechanism for gui component reuse and event handling plus a better way to reference parent window callers.

The refactoring is completely done! and Overactive Logistics is now back on track.
One of the latest additions is the implementation of the vendors maintenance module, here are some screenshoots.

Here we have opened the vendors module and have pressed the search button.
The vendors list window shows the vendors that have been created.

After selecting the vendor it is displayed in the module.

This module and other refactorings that have been made to the company maintenance will support the creation of shipments.

A new version Overactive Logistics Pre Alpha 1.1 will be released this week.

The Overactive Manifiesto.

2006-04-07T14:37:00.000-07:00

First of all this is not a will-be-dead project, meaning that it is not one of the thousands of projects that are started by a group of highly motivated individuals only to be abandoned somewhere in SourceForge a couple of months later.

Certainly the development of Overactive Logistics has been at small pace but this is mainly because I'm the only developer, I do not have any sort of funding and all my work is done during my spare time. Like many Open Source software enthusiasts I have a day job as a Software Developer plus wife and kids.

The Overactive Logistics solution is being developed on top of two frameworks Overactive Core which I built after finding Struts way to robust to fit my needs and Overactive Renderer which is my way to provide a solution for adding rich client capabilities to web based applications.

The development of these two frameworks took me nearly 2 years before I decided to embark on the trek to develop Overactive Logistics.

So why Overactive Logistics?

Most Open Source software efforts nowadays are focused on the creation of programming languages, development environments, frameworks, application servers and operating systems. In comparison enterprise business software solutions like Compiere and SugarCRM are not as many.

Overactive Logistics is an effort to create a robust enterprise Open Source solution for the cargo transportation industry that fits in that category and that freight forwarders can use to manage their logistic operations.

The way I'm heading is that eventually when Overactive Logistics gets mature enough and the right moment arrives, I'll be looking to create an start-up that provides support, training and software implementation services around the product. This company will use only the Open Source business model and will focus initially on Overactive Logistics with later plans to develop more solutions.

Any questions or comments can be sent to the following email address:

overactive.source@gmail.com

"this" and "parent"

2006-04-01T16:39:00.000-08:00

During the ongoing refactoring efforts I found necesary to improve the way screens can be reused after being renderer by the Overactive Renderer. This issue was partially fixed in the current demos by the introduction of a "key" attribute in the spec for each component description. This key was randomly generated and managed in the web commands of the application making the code low cohesive that what it should be.

During the last week I worked to come up with a model that promotes reusability by delegating the management of the key to the Overactive Renderer eliminating the need to manage the key in the code of the application making the stylesheets and web command easier to read and maintain.

With this model the introduction of two prefixes have been intruduced: "this" and "parent".

The key as I mentioned is generated and managed internally now by the Overactive Renderer. Now we can only invoke actions on components that are defined in the same form by using "this". When invoking an action on a component of a parent window the use of the prefix parent "parent" has been introduced.

My efforts during the comming days will be to cleanup all the stylesheets to make use of this new model.

Refactoring progress.

2006-03-20T06:14:00.000-08:00

The Carrier, Agent and Customer domain classes now extend ShipperEntity, some extra refactoring effort was needed to the xml stylesheets for the carrier maintenance module since we no longer have a Carrier standing for itself but have Air, Ocean and Land subtypes.

Some refactoring is needed in the web command and ejb command classes too, once they are done I'll proceed with the vendor maintenance module who will also be extending from ShipperEntity.

Carrier, Agent and Customer refactoring.

2006-03-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

Ok. It's official! Certifications are cleared and now I'm back at full speed once again!.
I'm currently refactoring the Carrier, Agent and Customer domains to inherit from a new ShipperEntity superclass which is a requirement for the shipments module construction.
This would not have been possible without the lengthy but necesary porting to EJB3.0.
Also I found that a module for vendor maintenance is necesary and it is already in my todo list.

Shipments.

2006-02-25T15:50:00.000-08:00

I started working on the analysis and design to implement shipments. This will make use of all the details entered in each of the maintenance modules (customer, carrier, agent, scac, etc, etc...).
Carriers, customers and agents will require a little refactoring which is now possible to achieve with the EJB 3.0 porting. So far everything is looking good.

If nothing gets on my way I'm planning to clear my pending certifications next week. Once done I'll be able to come back on track and full speed to the project.

Getting certified.

2006-02-10T11:55:00.000-08:00

During the following days Overactive Logistics will be in a temporary state of suspended animation while this author has to earn some credentials by clearing out some certification exams.

What I thought it was going to be a 2 week study process suddenly became hardened by the presence of two little individuals climbing over my back and running all over the place while I desperately was looking for some peaceful corner in the apartment to settle down.

It won't be too long, I promise. So comeback in the next few weeks for updates.

Overactive Logistics Pre Alpha 1.0 (EJB 3.0 port) released

2006-01-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

VERSION
overactive-logistics-pre-alpha1.0

WHAT IS OVERACTIVE LOGISTICS
Overactive Logistics is a freight forwarding open source software solution being developed entirely on J2EE for the cargo transportation industry. It runs in both web based or stand alone modes and provides a graphical user interface with rich client capabilities.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS DEMO
This is a port of the previous demo release to EJB 3.0 and is an snapshoot of the work been done so far, there is still a long way to go, however this little sample aims to give you a hands on experience with the application. This demo has the following maintenance modules:

-SCAC maintenance
-IATA maintenance
-FMC maintenance
-Carrier maintenace (Air, Land, Ocean)
-Forwarding Agent maintenance
-Ports maintenance
-Schedule D maintenance
-Schedule K maintenance
-Customer maintenance
-Security roles maintenance
-Users maintenance
-Company maintenance

UNDER WHAT OPEN SOURCE LICENSE IS OVERACTIVE LOGISTICS RELEASED
Overactive Logistics is being release under the Overactive Source Public License which is a derivative from the Mozilla Public License.

WHERE TO GET UP TO DATE INFORMATION ABOUT PROJECT STATUS
You can downoload Overactive Logistics from Source Forge at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/overactive

You can get information about the project current status and development efforts in our blog located at:
http://overactive-logistics.blogspot.com/

HOW TO CONTACT US
You can contact us sending us an email to:
overactive.source@gmail.com

Overactive Logistics ported to EJB 3.0

2006-01-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

Overactive Logistics has completely been ported to EJB 3.0 and is on a heavy regression test. Once the test is done and any bugs found are fixed I will be creating a new release. This release will not contain any new features than the previous one other than the fact that is a port of the current application, however it exposes a cleaner and better architecture.

EJB 3.0 port update.

2006-01-10T11:46:00.000-08:00

70 % of the project has been ported to EJB 3.0. I'm currently working on carrier maintenance and once done I will go for customer and agent maintenance modules. My plan is to make a release as soon as I'm done with the porting. I'll keep you posted.

Merry Overactive Christmas!

2005-12-23T13:57:00.000-08:00

From this little corner of the world the Overactive Logistics project wishes you a Merry Christmas!
And by the way!!... even though the posts during this month decreased the hard work to make Overactive Logistics a reality is alive and well.

Most of my time has been spent working on the migration to EJB3.0 and doing research on on how to improve the current architecture during this important milestone.

More concrete, the session beans have been ported to the new specification and are now homeless, the entity beans have represented a very nice and smooth challenge. I plan to have the application fully ported and back on track before mid Jan.

Major Overactive Logistics refactoring II (EJB 3.0)

2005-12-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

One of the core ideas behind the Overactive Logistics architecture is to stay wide open to innovation and new Java/J2EE technologies, because of this taking the decision to migrate the object model to Hybernate and making the Session Beans regular Facade objects felt a little bit like taking an step backwards.

Since its inception the project was planned on top of EJB technology due to the immediate benefits and services that this platform offers to the developer.

After analyzing more the EJB 3.0 public draft specification and doing some prototyping with JBoss EJB3 implementation I have decided that migrating to EJB 3.0 is the right way to go.

It is my second day porting Overactive Logistics from EJB 2.1 to EJB 3.0 and I must say that I'm completely astonished!.

The EJB 3.0 simplifications are totally awesome, I'm reducing all the code written in a 40% due to the elimination of EJB Home interfaces, deployment descriptors, EJB exceptions and EJB create/remove method calls.

The use of annotations is not a natural act for a developer however it is easy to get used to them once you pass that first shock and start typing them, it feels specially great when you get rid of the deployment descriptors.

JBoss has done a terrific job, it took me less than a few hours to configure my development enviroment for EJB 3.0 and their documentation even though is incomplete is a great help.

Major Overactive Logistics Refactoring.

2005-12-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

During the analysis for the shipments module I found that the domain model requires changes that can't be implemented in a clean way without the extensive use of object inheritance and object reusability based on interface implementation. The EJB 2.1 specification states that inheritance is not supported in entity beans. Due the complexity of the current requirements plus the need for greater flexibility during object modeling I have decided to port the domain model to POJOs using Hibernate and port the Session Beans to normal Facade classes.

This will extend my current scope for the release of the first beta version of Overactive Logistics, however it will reduce dramatically the complexity of the system architecture resulting in shorter development cycles as a reward.

Demo released on Source Forge

2005-11-25T00:24:00.000-08:00

Today I released the first demo of Overactive Logistics on Source Forge!
This is just a little demo so the users can grab an snapshoot of the work been done so far, there is still a long way to go, however this little sample aims to give a hands on experience with the application. This demo has the following maintenance modules:

-SCAC maintenance
-IATA maintenance
-FMC maintenance
-Carrier maintenace (Air, Land, Ocean)
-Forwarding Agent maintenance
-Ports maintenance
-Schedule D maintenance
-Schedule K maintenance
-Customer maintenance
-Security roles maintenance
-Users maintenance
-Company maintenance

Shipments analysis.

2005-11-20T10:42:00.000-08:00

I started doing the analysis and design for the way Overactive Logistics is going to handle shipments. During this phase I found that rates and charges required some little fixes in the carrier, agent and customer modules and worked on them.

I'm hoping to start coding the shipments module this week.

Ready to work on shipments

2005-11-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

I finally finished with all my pending tasks. I also updated my development enviroment to the latest versions of MySQL, JDK, Eclipse and JBoss and I'm ready to start working on the shipments module.

Updates.

2005-10-30T10:06:00.000-08:00

Well!, I've been going slowly through most of my TODO pending tasks and been able to make a significant progress. Overactive Logistics now has maintenance modules for SCAC, IATA and FMC. Now each one of this codes can be selected from each one of its respective screens.

Finally, I created a little utility that allows me to break the ejb-jar.xml and jbosscmp-jdbc.xml schemas in individual mappings and merge them during deployment time. The advantage of this is that now each schema specification for an Entity Bean is defined in its own file making them easier to maintain.

US Customs and FMC

2005-10-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

I finished the US Customs and FMC maintenance modules. Tomorrow I'll move on the FMC dropdown in Ocean Carrier, Company and Forwarding Agent.

Very soon I'll be able to finish Air Carrier.

SCAC and IATA

2005-10-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

I'm done with the SCAC and IATA items in my TODO list. Tomorrow I'll move on US Customs and FMC.

TODO List

2005-10-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

I'm done with the Overactive Renderer refactoring. Now I was able to put down the TODO list of things that I have to get done before moving to Shipments.

SCAC
-Do a maintenance module for Scac
-Reuse Scac dropdown in Company

IATA
-Do a maintenance module for Iata
-Import Iata codes
-Reuse Iata dropdown in Forwarding Agent
-Reuse Iata dropdown in Company

US Customs
-Reuse US Customs dropdown in Company

FMC
-Do a maintenance module for Fmc
-Import Fmc codes
-Reuse FMC dropdown in Ocean Carrier
-Reuse FMC dropdown in Company
-Reuse FMC dropdown in Forwarding Agent

AIR CARRIER
-Do Airline details

DEV ENVIROMENT
-Migrate to latest JBoss Version
-Migrate to latest Eclipse Version
-Migrate to latest JDK Version
-Migrate to latest MySQL Version
-Integrate xsd into Overactive Renderer Jar file
-Create Entity Beans deployment descriptor merging utility.

Still on refactoring.

2005-10-04T06:46:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been very interesting. I found that in order to improve functionality I was in a huge need to get a JInternalFrame compoment with modal capabilities. I found some very nice tips on how to solve this issue at:

http://java.sun.com/developer/JDCTechTips/2001/tt1220.html

I spent most of the Saturday adapting this tip to the current JInternalFrame renderer, once I got it working I started cleaning up all the code that was not required anymore in Overactive Logistics due to this change and was almost done last night.

Since I'm currently focused on the refactoring of the Overactive Renderer I thought it was a good moment to work on porting the current DTD to XSD, before start typing I was lucky enough to find a very nice tool called Oxygen I downloaded it and gave it a try and a few minutes after there it was! The whole DTD ported into an XSD! This really saved me a lot of time and I'll be able to start focusing on the last part of the refactoring which is making the Overactive Renderer elements namespace qualified.

Refactoring progress

2005-09-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

The refactoring is moving on. The changes allow to reuse screens in a clean and easy way. The carrier modules share much of the same components and with the new changes I'm able to run both at the same time.

I started planning how the toolbars will be composed, for the moment I added some as a place holders.

Overactive Renderer refactoring.

2005-09-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

While working on Agent I realized that some reafactoring is really needed in order to make component reusability cleaner. I was able to promote limited reusability by restricting access to modules that shared the same components as the active one, however components like an scac list could be used in more than four modules at the same time causing this a huge problem.

I did some analisys and came up with some enchancements to the Overactive Renderer. The basic idea is to add a form key that will be passed as an attribute of an xml element (button, panel, etc). This plus the name will give each component in the form a unique key that will allow reusability.

Agent progress.

2005-09-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

I was able to persist the first Agent into the db. Tomorrow I'm moving on the rest of the crud stuff.

Agent module.

2005-09-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

Moving to agent maintenance module, currently I have created the entity and session beans plus database definitions. Customer and carrier maintenance have been completed in a 90% .

Customer module progress.

2005-09-09T23:45:00.000-07:00

The development of the customer maintenance module has been very smooth mainly because the reuse of the address, rates, custom charges and pmt term components as depicted above, I only had to do small refactoring changes to the rates since there was a dependency with carrier. The create, update, and view functions have been completed and tomorrow I'll continue with the delete function.

Customer maintenance on the works.

2005-09-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

After a well deserved vacation I'm back on track again. I'm focusing all my efforts on getting the customer maintenance module done. I started creating the required entity beans plus database tables yesterday.

The customer module is very similar to carrier and it makes reuse of the rates and custom charges components previously created so its development should go very fast.

Vacation time!

2005-08-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

Ok... this is it!, I'm going on vacation for two weeks starting tomorrow......

Carrier maintenance module progress.

2005-08-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

Still working on the carrier maintenance module. Tonight I was able to retreive a carrier from the database and display all its data but its custom charges. Retrieving its rates required a little muscle and a lot of typing however the design patterns used are in place and the code is clean and easy to read. 2 more days left to go on vacation.

Carrier on the works.

2005-08-14T15:38:00.000-07:00

Another busy weekend, I'm currently working on finishing the carrier maintenance module. Today I finally got to persist a carrier in the database including its address, billing address, rates and custom charges. My goal is to finish this asap before going on vacations next Saturday, since I'll be offline for 2 weeks.

Busy weekend.

2005-08-07T11:45:00.000-07:00

Wow!!... it has been a very very busy but productive weekend. Finally I was able to do a big data retrieval using entity beans and got caught into some problems that my core framework had. It results that my remote session bean controller was retrieving always DOM objects, remote session beans use RMI which in turs uses serialization.... bad mistake! with small retrievals this was always working ok, however now I retrieved a huge DOM made of 2812 database rows and oh! oh!... bugs! It took me a good effort to understand what the problem was and how to come up with the best fix, now the DOM gets serialized into an XML string representation and sent over RMI without problems.

In other news, I made the import of real world scac into the system and now I got to play with real data.

I decided to make some screenshoots of my development enviroment showing the application running in debug mode. This screenshoot shows the application running in web based mode.

This screenshoot shows the application running in standalone mode.

Custom charges done.

2005-08-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

The custom charges component is completed. It will be used in carriers, forwarding agents and customers, same as the rates component.

I'm now moving to finish the carrier maintenance module.

Source Forge.

2005-08-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I got approval from Source Forge to host my project, however I've been kind of reluctant to publish anything yet since there is still too much work left to do before I can achieve something worth of getting people's attention. In the meantime I'm working on a custom charges component which is quite similar to rates.

Got rates component!

2005-07-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

The rates component is now ready to be used and reused!. Before moving to carrier I found a better way to post hidden data within a SwingML form which is using the data-store element.

Before I used to set the desired data in a textfield an hide it, just like it is normally done in HTML. The problem with this is that sometimes the rendering was taking a little bit more time and you could see the the hidden textfield before the rest of the elements were positioned above it.

Using the data-store is cleaner since its value is added to the post transaction and it is not a visual component.

Now I just have to implement this change in the 94 stylesheets that I have written so far :P

Doing some refactoring....

2005-07-19T19:57:00.000-07:00

This is how my development enviroment looks like.

I'm currently working on refactoring a component written for rates in order to make it easy to reuse. This component is currently used in carrier maintenance and will be in customer and agent maintenance too. This effort is a little bit of a challenge since the name of every component in the gui should be unique across the whole application, however the trick can be easly implemented using XSLT.

Overactive Logistics

2005-07-17T15:54:00.000-07:00

This is an early screenshoot of Overactive Logistics. Currently I'm coding only the necesary maintenance modules to move later on the development of incoming and outgoing shipments.