Web Routing Designing an Interface Charles Davis, Emily Van Horn, Joshua Fustich and Nicholas Core

Introduction The ‘Web Routing’ project is a collection of group efforts to create a Java based web application for managing users, contractors, vehicles, shipments and locations, and determining the best path route for shipments based on the resources available. Our Goals: Improve the existing interface Implement a Genetic Algorithm

Abstracting a Database Databases are extremely useful at storing large amounts of data, but they are not the ideal solution for a large group of untrained individuals to manage shared data. Issues: Fewer options for validation More difficult to hide data Not as intuitive for some

Abstracting a Database The Enterprise Routing System’s primary goal is to create an interface that abstracts a database and adds validation, security, data hiding, and other features to make a simple program usable with little training.

Database UML Diagram

Additional Software Spring – Open source application framework. Responsible for controlling data and managing beans. Hibernate – Object-relational mapping tool used to create the database in Java on top of Spring Framework. Tomcat – Apache server used for deploying the project as a “.war” file.

File Structure Entity – A java representation of a table in java. Each instance of an entity class is a row in the relative table. Dao – Data access object with methods to interact with the database such as saving, adding, and deleting. Actions – Classes that are used to define other things that should occur when an action is performed.

Each entity has a member that is linked through hibernate to a field in the database. The relationships between the entities are created similarly.

Adding, editing (left), and deleting (right) information from the database.

Management UML – Underlying actions and framework that allow the user to interact with the page.

Graphical User Interface Overhaul The major additions to the interface were made for the GUI. The interface has been overhauled to be user friendly, reliable, and easily navigable. Within the program, there is a large amount of CSS and XML in a separate source folder from Java files.

The Expanding Row New to the GUI is a feature that makes looking at the relationships between data easier. Clicking on a row that contains a foreign key allows one to sort through the related data and choose what they would like to see in their display.

Model-View-Controller The MVC pattern separates a program into three distinct parts. One of the pieces connecting these is Struts. Struts – MVC framework for linking actions to Java classes and linking these to parts of the view. Allows one file to dictate what happens within the code when the user interacts with the GUI.

Testing New tests were added for every entity. They test if the program is only accepting valid values. If these tests are working effectively, then no bad data should be able to be entered into the database. Accompanying these are many new validation methods. These are the methods that the tests call to ensure that data is correct.

Adding

Editing & Choosing from Foreign Keys

Project Results The interface is much more user friendly and contains a greater number of features. Expanding row view Tabular structure Close examination of rows with many fields A larger number of tests and better data validation have been added. The controllers and actions have been overhauled for a better system.

Future Work Combining the routing issues with a genetic algorithm to automatically figure out the best shipping solutions. Enhanced user customizability. A greater variety of tests. Dynamic creation of page structure based on different types of databases.