ADF Library to ViewController or to Model ?

Very recently, I got into the conversation when a friend got an external ADF library which had BC4J components and he wanted to use it to create a UI page.

As the library contained BC4J components or you can say an ApplicationModule so the first thought came was  to add the library to the model project and expecting the AM bundled in the library to show up in Data Controls. And when it was tried this way the AM did not show up in the Data controls. Refreshing, rebuilding the project or even restart did not help.

So, trying to dig further when we opened the model project properties and went to the business components import we could see the EOs,VOs and AM from the ADF library.

After a while, when the library was added to the ViewController project and the ApplicationModule immediately showed up in the data controls. So, what was actually happening here?


Well, that's actually how it should have been done. As a thumb rule, if you want to build UI based on the ADF library jar provided by third party then it should be a dependency of UI project not the model project. However, if you want to extend your BC4J components based on the provided components in the adf library then you should add it to the model project.