Flex Data Services JOTM, JTA and JMX downloads

[castlemac]

I am not a Java developer. I am an Information Architect/UI
Designer and up until a few months ago, I designed GUIs using MS
Studio.Net -- Tomcat is a little different IIS, to say the least.
=)





I have downloaded the trial software of Flex Builder 2 and
Flex Data Services to test it with intent to purchase.





I was getting real happy with Flex Builder 2. Breezing
through the "Getting Started" and all the tutorials. Absolutely
Love it.





Then along comes Flex Data Services. This application has
bought me to a screeching halt.





I've downloaded the files according to the instructions at:
http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flex/2/install.html#flexj2ee.






I placed the files in my webapps directory running on tomcat.
However, according to the instructions at:


http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flex/2/install.html#tomcat,






I need to download additional applications in order to
correctly use FDS. I have tried to download the JOTM 2.0.10.tgz
from


http://forge.objectweb.org/project/download.php?group_id=19&file_id=3926






without success. When I try to unzip the file (I am running
Windows XP Professional), I get the following error:





"Error reading header after processing 0 entries."







I've tried to download three different versions of JOTM, no
luck. Our Java developer suggested that I save the "tar" file as a
"zip" file and try to open it after download. However, when I try
to open the archive in WinZip it returns this error:





"Cannot open file: it does not appear to be a valid archive.
If you downloaded this file, try downloading the file again."







Both of these errors occur when trying to open the downloaded
JOTM 2.0.10.tgz and JOTM 2.0.8.tgz files.





How can I get these applications? Has anyone had any success
in downloading these files from:
http://forge.objectweb.org/project/showfiles.php?group_id=19&release_id=1024





The downloaded archive files are empty. I can not run any of
the Data Service samples.





When I tried at:


http://localhost:8080/samples/dataservice/flexcab/flexcabDispatcher.mxml





A service error prompt returns: "Unable to access
UserTransaction in Dataservice".







I'm assuming this is because the JOTM (et. al) is not on my
box, because the archive is empty when I try to open it in WinZip.





Also, while I was reading the installation instructions for
Tomcat at:


http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flex/2/install.html#tomcat





it seems pretty complicated for a non-Java programmer to
understand. I asked one of our 6-year veteran Java developers here
to help me with this and he said it was a pretty a complicated
process for someone w/o Java programming experience. I thought it
was geared towards front-end developers. But he did say that if I
can't download the JOTM, I won't be able to do whatever it is that
Flex Data Services is supposed to do. I say the latter because I am
still in the "Getting Started" manual going through the last of the
tutorials (which is the Flex Data Services distributed application
tutorial) before I start reading "Using Flex", so I'm not really
sure what lessons I will be doing that require FDS to work
correctly on my box.







Do I really need the FDS to build interactive applications in
Flex Builder?





I appreciate your answers. Thanks in advance.

[AndyWW]

I agree with you about the process of getting FDS installed
and working. I recommend that you try Christophe Coenraets FDMS
tutorial. The JOTM files are in "tar" format, and so I think you'll
have to extract them using a "tar" utility. This is included with
any Unix variant, and so I asked someone at work to extract the
files; on Windows I think you'll have to find a free "tar" program.
I downloaded jotm-2.0.10.tar from the JOTM Sourceforge. Use
parameters "-xf" if the tar file is not compressed, or "-zxf" if it
is compressed. Good luck!