jCV is a powerful multilingual J2EE web application designed for the creation and administration of resumes. jCV is 100% developed in Java using "best-of-breed" Open Source J2EE frameworks (SOFIA) and reporting tools (JasperReports / iReport).
 
Release 1.0 includes:
- Resume creation wizard: 10 different sections included to structure your resume in a clean way).
- Exporting to a well structured PDF format.
- Sharing of common information: Information such as names of companies, institutions, skill areas, and skills
are shared among all resumes to provide standardization.
- Resume search engine: search for keywords in any resume section and export the resulting resumes to PDF.
- Administrator interface: mantain shared information and give access to other administrators.
- i18n (English and Spanish frontends).
 
Tested configurations:
- Servlet Container: Tomcat 4.1.24, 4.1.30, 5.0.x
- Databases: MySQL 4.0.x, 3.23.x, 5.x.
- Web Browser: IE 5.0, IE 6.0, Mozilla 1.6, Netscape 7.1, Opera 7.23
 
Download source and binaries versions of jCV at: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=101903

More information on jCV at: http://jcv.sourceforge.net
 
Want to join the development team of jCV ? Contact me at: claudiopi at users dot sourceforge dot net

I hope you find this application, useful for your company or personal use. Comments and suggestions are welcomed.
 
Claudio Pi.

Almost every Java web app uses the same framework, we all have been convinced to use common design patterns, and now our resumes will be in the same format. No wonder management thinks of developers as a commodity. This field sucks.

Hi Race Condition !

First of all, the possible uses I was thinking of when I elaborate jCV were:

1. Recruiters/headhunters

2. Job-Seekers : By using jCV they can create professional resume in a few minutes and export it to different professional formats and styles.

3. Companies:
    3.1 By using jCV they can have all the resumes between their company following the same standard. This is useful for both internal, and external situations (ex: presenting resumes to a client).
    3.2. I have found that most companies somehow do their own recruiting by having only a link where the user can send his/her email as an attachment. I think the process behind this in most cases is being done in a manual manner. jCV should be adequate for handling this situation.

If you took a look at the "Future Directions" there is one that says: Allow exporting the resume to the XML Résumé Library and HR-XML resume standards.
So you would be able to export your resume to a standard format also, not locking you into jCV formats.

But if you don't like all this you can build your own format by adding an extra report. After all jCV is opensource, don't you think ?

Regards,
Claudio.

Itz so good to see such an Structured Efforts,You guys really need a Pat,Kudos!!!!

"best-of-breed" Open Source J2EE frameworks (SOFIA)

???

Dorel:

jCV is powered by SOFIA, a very productive and powerful opensource framework for the development of J2EE applications. SOFIA is based on the MVC pattern along with other ones. From my point of view it is much better than other frameworks out there and based on personal expierence, developers get productive with SOFIA in a very short time.

That's why I consider it a ?best-of-breed? J2EE development framework.

For more information on SOFIA please visit http://salmonllc.com/sofia

Regards,
Claudio.

I am currently hooked to SOFIA after using Struts for some time. SOFIA gives me what I look for in a framework.

In my opinion SOFIA is the best one out there...cuts down development time a whole lot !!

Robert:

I totally agree with you !
SOFIA is a complete and mature J2EE development framework with a lot of productivity features. The Java community should be looking at it more closely.
  
Long ago I was a Struts developer (for 1.5 years) and since adopting SOFIA (mid 2002) my productivity increased a lot and my headaches decreased a lot ;). For example having code jCV with Struts would have taken much more time and lines of code if at all possible to replicate the same kind of functionality in a tidy way as I did with SOFIA (just take a look at jCV code: cero Java code inside the JSP and very little code in the controller).

From my point of view SOFIA makes the J2EE developer life much easier !

Regards,
Claudio.

Just think ... If a big company had of done this ... MS would not be so dominant. !!!

cheers
Peter

Dorel:jCV is powered by SOFIA, a very productive and powerful opensource framework for the development of J2EE applications. SOFIA is based on the MVC pattern along with other ones. From my point of view it is much better than other frameworks out there and based on personal expierence, developers get productive with SOFIA in a very short time. That's why I consider it a ?best-of-breed? J2EE development framework.For more information on SOFIA please visit http://salmonllc.com/sofiaRegards,Claudio.

I know what SOFIA is. My problem was with the 'best of breed'. Last year I came across a web app developed with SOFIA and it barelly scaled to over 100 concurrent users. I agree that you can be productive with it, no doubt, they have nice UIs, like integration with dreamweaver, (eclipse ?), standalone etc. My experience with SOFIA is that it is slow and has big memory footprint. (BTW, the problem with web app wasn't the architecture, I assure you. It was SOFIA alone).

btw, i just download it and tried to make it work. I cannot figure why isn't working. Aside the huge statements issued by SOFIA, I can't see nothing to help me. (Well, the first stack trace I figured it out myself, the email host wasn't properly set in system.properties ). All I can see is that the Registration.jsp cannot be displayed. No error message, no stack trace. I'll give a shot to the next bug fix version. I would really used such an app, even written in SOFIA (nothing is perfect :-) ) :-). Tx anyway.

jag.sourceforge.net

UML based framework, will also generate from database

jag.sourceforge.netUML based framework, will also generate from database

Jean:

I don't know much about JAG. (I'll take a look later on)
But being based in Struts I can now ask you the following:

1. Does JAG give you the power to control any attribute of any view component at runtime based on a complex condition ?. For example I want to dinamically select an image depending on a complex business logic. Or I want to change the color and disabled attributes of a button depending if the user has the appropiate role. And all these without having conditions inside the JSP.


2. Does JAG let you include validation rules at the Entity level and import that rules from the view components ? For example I want that each time a new person is created to have the person name being required and the related field that the person name binds to painted in red together with an alert message box, if that exception is raised.

3. Does JAG includes powerful view components like an updatable grid with group by options, pagging and sort buttons. For example in SOFIA I can have an updatable grid of persons . Let say the user retrieves the initial grid with 5 rows and then he deletes, adds two and modify one. SOFIA will automatically enforce the model validation rules and if sucessfull will issue 1 delete 2 inserts and one update into the underlaying database. All these with cero lines of extra code. That's what I am referring with productivity !

4. Does JAG abstract and helps the developer in the process of creating custom tags, (ie: by extending the framework components) without having to follow the complex J2EE specification.

And I can continue with more and more SOFIA features, but this should be other thread discussion. Here we should be targetting jCV pros and cons, not SOFIA ones ;)

Regards,
Claudio.

btw, i just download it and tried to make it work. I cannot figure why isn't working. Aside the huge statements issued by SOFIA, I can't see nothing to help me. (Well, the first stack trace I figured it out myself, the email host wasn't properly set in system.properties ). All I can see is that the Registration.jsp cannot be displayed. No error message, no stack trace. I'll give a shot to the next bug fix version. I would really used such an app, even written in SOFIA (nothing is perfect :-) ) :-). Tx anyway.

Darel:

Again you aren't giving much feedback of your problem.

Are you under one of the tested configurations ?

Tested configurations:
- Servlet Container: Tomcat 4.1.24, 4.1.30, 5.0.x
- Databases: MySQL 4.0.x, 3.23.x, 5.x.
- Web Browser: IE 5.0, IE 6.0, Mozilla 1.6, Netscape 7.1, Opera 7.23

Try setting the SOFIA log files to a proper location under the System.properties file.

It would be great to receive more feedback so that I can help you.
If you are willing to do so, you are welcomed to conctact me.

Regards,
Claudio.

Darel:

It's Dorel.

Again you aren't giving much feedback of your problem. Are you under one of the tested configurations ?
Tested configurations:- Servlet Container: Tomcat 4.1.24, 4.1.30, 5.0.x- Databases: MySQL 4.0.x, 3.23.x, 5.x.

Yes I am. I can read. I saw where you say it's working and I tried it under Tomcat 5.0.18 with MySQL as DB.

- Web Browser: IE 5.0, IE 6.0, Mozilla 1.6, Netscape 7.1, Opera 7.23

C'mon, is there any ohter (than you have listed here) used browser these days ? I'm using IE 6.0 as 50% of the net.

Try setting the SOFIA log files to a proper location under the System.properties file. It would be great to receive more feedback so that I can help you. If you are willing to do so, you are welcomed to conctact me. Regards, Claudio.

No I won't try anything else. Because I won't spend any other minute debugging "enigmatic" applications. I hate apps that don't have proper default settings. I hate apps that instead usefull debug information, spam your console with tones of SQL statements. I hate apps that "must be mastered" before you can get something good from them. And I definatelly hate apps that instead of an error page or a message in the console will give you a "" Maybe I'm too lazy or maybe I'm too window-ish in my "click next until the end and it'll work" but hey.

Hi Dorel:

So far I've been trying to help you, but from what you are saying, it seems to me that you are not interested at all in jCV. May be because it has been developed with SOFIA or maybe because you hate anything that it's not "click-click-click" or maybe because you just hate computer sience.

Also this demostrates that you didn't went into SOFIA details at all when you have the chance to try it, since turning off SQL is a basic concept in SOFIA: just change LogSQLStatements=false in the System.properties file.

Regarding installation problems, so far I didn't receive a single complaint (you are the first one). Indeed I received congratulations such as Raghu one: "1) The set-up was a breeze. Simple enough atleast for developers..The docs literally hand-walks you" or some personal ones "Yes, the BINARY installation of JCV was awesome. I had no problems and it was extremely easy - so you definitely accomplished that goal.". I would have liked having more feedback from you regarding installation problems, but that doesn't seem possible with the atitude you are having.


Regards, and don't hate so much: life is much easier without that.
Claudio.

Regarding installation problems, so far I didn't receive a single complaint (you are the first one). Indeed I received congratulations such as Raghu one: "1) The set-up was a breeze. Simple enough atleast for developers..The docs literally hand-walks you" or some personal ones "Yes, the BINARY installation of JCV was awesome. I had no problems and it was extremely easy - so you definitely accomplished that goal.". I would have liked having more feedback from you regarding installation problems, but that doesn't seem possible with the atitude you are having.

Cool. So keep it up that way. Yes I am not interested specially in jcv. I am interested in any good piece of software.

Also this demostrates that you didn't went into SOFIA details at all when you have the chance to try it, since turning off SQL is a basic concept in SOFIA: just change LogSQLStatements=false in the System.properties file.

But I don't have time to debug all strange errors/framework bullshits like turning off SQL statements. It would be more natural to me to have them turned off by default and turn them on when I need them.

May be because it has been developed with SOFIA or maybe because you hate anything that it's not "click-click-click" or maybe because you just hate computer sience.

I don't hate computer science (Sofia is far from 'computer science' but anyways) I just hate those who say that, from the user's point of view, a program should be more complicated than a "click-click-click".

And by the way, 'hate' was too much. Don't take it literally. I 'don't like it at all' is more appropriate. Keep up the good work.

I know what SOFIA is. My problem was with the 'best of breed'. Last year I came across a web app developed with SOFIA and it barelly scaled to over 100 concurrent users. I agree that you can be productive with it, no doubt, they have nice UIs, like integration with dreamweaver, (eclipse ?), standalone etc. My experience with SOFIA is that it is slow and has big memory footprint. (BTW, the problem with web app wasn't the architecture, I assure you. It was SOFIA alone).

Darel:

You are not saying much with that. It isn't clear under which circumstances and hardware did you test your application. The SOFIA team has done an PetStore and this were the results running under a 1.7 GB Xenon processors, 2 gb of memory, running Windows 2000.

Tomcat 4.0.3

#Threads SOFIA .Pet Java Blueprints 1.3.1
5 14.50 6.00
10 21.69 6.15
15 28.30 6.12
20 30.25 9.58 (started to error)
50 30.15 N/A
75 33.47(started to error) N/A


Websphere 5
#Threads SOFIA .Pet Java Blueprints 1.3.1
5 22.08 16.02
10 42.44 22.19
15 53.82 21.41
20 56.73 19.61
50 52.46 3.35 (started to error)
75 48.96 N/A
100 46.67 (started to error) N/A


If you can post your results at the SOFIA forum you are welcomed to do so.

Regards,
Claudio.

This isn't going to go anywhere without the ability to produce output in Word format.

I know it's braindead, but 99% of recruitment agencies don't know what the hell a PDF is and won't look at your CV unless it's a Word doc. They also like to be able to rip out your contact details in order to ensure their client can't cut them out of the deal by talking to you directly.

This isn't going to go anywhere without the ability to produce output in Word format.I know it's braindead, but 99% of recruitment agencies don't know what the hell a PDF is and won't look at your CV unless it's a Word doc. They also like to be able to rip out your contact details in order to ensure their client can't cut them out of the deal by talking to you directly.

Neil:

I agree with you in that Word Output is needed.
That's why the jCV team is doing research for that feature.
The main problem is that Word is M$ property and as such it is closed in its API at least if you want a multiple platform solution.

For instance JasperReports doesn't give you the possibility to output to Word format.

I have done some research and found the following:
 
For .doc documents the only solution seems to be HWPF under the POI project:
1. http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/hwpf/index.html
 
For .rtf documents:
1. http://www.lowagie.com/iText/
2. The rtf included in the java swing api.
3. http://www.jfor.org/
  
If someone knows about other solutions, please let me know.

Regards,
Claudio.

PS: Also in the future jCV will target XML standards (ex: HR-XML and the XML Resume Library)

JFOR works reasonably well. A further option could be an export to OpenOffice, then the user could convert to Word from OO.

> If someone knows about other solutions, please let me know.Microsoft has released the MS Word 2003 XML reference schema and related documentation. AFAIK, you can use it royalty free. Have a look here:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fe118952-3547-420a-a412-00a2662442d9&DisplayLang=enBertrand

Betrand:

I don't know much yet but seems to me that exporting to Word 2003 would not be standard either because previous versions of word wouldn't open it.

What do you think ?

Thanks,
Claudio.

1) The set-up was a breeze. Simple enough atleast for developers..The docs literally hand-walks you
2)There is .doc format which is already mentioned in the thread, but the .pdf version looks sleek
Couple of lame questions:
3)Is there a way to add like italics, change fonts, create bullets etc?
4)Is there a way to add more new titles/sub-headings to the resume other than the default ones?

1) The set-up was a breeze. Simple enough atleast for developers..The docs literally hand-walks you2)There is .doc format which is already mentioned in the thread, but the .pdf version looks sleekCouple of lame questions:3)Is there a way to add like italics, change fonts, create bullets etc?4)Is there a way to add more new titles/sub-headings to the resume other than the default ones?

Thank you Raghu !

Regarding your questions:

3. For now jCV doesn't provide that feature. In a future version, may be we can provide some sort of formatting. The thing is that we should be storing data not formatting into the database. Different styles would be provided so as to give you more power over the output. Also we are targeting output to .doc format and XML standards.

4. If you mean changing the default titles. You can now do this changing the jcv.en.properties. Adding more titles would imply adding additional sections. If you have some in mind please let me know.

Regards,
Claudio.

Thanks! I will go and edit the properties, simple enough..
1) I was thinking of separating certifications, training from education..so 2 more headings + Tools from Skills (certifications and tools, no biggie but helps you cross the recruiter hurdle atleast)
2) I agree with you totally on not saving the format, but saving it up as an XML. Would like to use the same data, but different formats is what i meant..could throw in a formatter
Overall this is really awesome and would like to contribute in someways :)

Ok I'll add your sections requirements to the future list.

Regarding the output I think interacting with XML Resume Library (http://xmlresume.sourceforge.net/) would be good enough (I already contact the authors and are looking closely at jCV sourcecode, in a couple of weeks they will be contacting me again with directions on how we should proceed to integrate both projects).

Thanks again for supporting jCV and if you like to participate in its development just contact me.

Regards,
Claudio.