JavaServer Faces:

The Fundamentals
Compiled from
Sun TechDays workshops
(JSF Basics, Web-Tier Codecamp:
JavaServer Faces,
Java Studio Creator; IBM RAD)

JavaServer Faces (JSF)
is a server side user interface component
framework for Java technology-based web
applications
is a specification and reference implementation
for a web application development framework
Components
Events
Validators
Back-end-data integration
is designed to be leveraged by tools
NetBeans, RAD (Rational Application Developer),
Eclipse, JDeveloper, etc.

Why JSF?
MVC for web applications
Easy to use
Extensible Component and Rendering
architecture
Support for client device independence
Standard
Huge vendor and industry support
Built-in UI component model (unlike JSP and
Servlet)


Why JSF? (contd)
Offers finer-grained separation of behavior
and presentation than JSP
Component-specific event handling
UI elements as stateful objects on the server
UI-component and Web-tier concepts
without limiting you to a particular scripting
technology or markup language
Can work with any presentation technology
including JSP
JSF is a UI Framework for Java Web
Applications
JSF Architecture
Important Basic Capabilities
Extensible UI component model
Flexible rendering model
Events-based interaction model (as opposed to
the old request/response model)
Validation framework
Basic page navigation support
Internationalization
Accessibility
How the JSF Specification Fits In
(prior to Facelets)
Facelets
Facelets is a powerful but lightweight page declaration
language that is used to build JavaServer Faces views
using HTML style templates and to build component
trees.
Facelets features include the following:
Use of XHTML for creating web pages
Support for Facelets tag libraries in addition to JavaServer Faces
and JSTL tag libraries
Support for the Expression Language (EL)
Templating for components and pages

Facelets (contd)
Advantages of Facelets for large-scale development
projects include the following:
Support for code reuse through templating and composite
components
Functional extensibility of components and other server-side objects
through customization
Faster compilation time
Compile-time EL validation
High-performance rendering

In short, the use of Facelets reduces the time and
effort that needs to be spent on development and
deployment.

Source: Java EE 6 Tutorial
JSF Developer Roles
Roles Definition
Page Author
Creates the user interface of a web application
Familiar with markup language(s) to be used
Assembler of prebuilt components
Component Writer
Creates reusable components, renderers, and libraries
Components Render-independent properties
Renderers Render-dependent properties

Roles Definition
Application Developer
Creates the server-side functionality of a web
application not directly related to the user interface
Business logic components implemented in standard
J2EE ways (EJBs, JavaBeans, Connectors)
Persistence tier components implemented in standard
J2EE ways (EJBs, JDBC, Connectors)
Model data exposed to user interface via JavaBean
programming model
Validator, Converter, Event handler
Roles Definition
Tool Provider
Creates tools to assist page authors, component writers,
and application developers
GUI-oriented page development tools
IDEs to facilitate creation of components
Application generators (from high level description)
Web application frameworks that utilize JSF
components for their user interface
JSF Implementor
Provides runtime environment to execute JSF webapps
J2EE SDK 1.4
Criteria for choosing Struts or
JavaServer Faces
JSF JSP JSP and Struts
Components Rich UI-data-bound
components with events
provided
Custom components
Standard tags (JSTL) that
are non-UI and very basic
Custom components
through tag libraries
Struts-specific tag library
Only very basic, form-
bean-bound components
provided
Device independence Reader kits that provide
device independence
None

None
Error handling and
validation

Validation framework
Many predefined
validators
None Validation framework
driven by an XML file
(validation.xml)
Scripting



Scripts can be attached to
events
All components
accessible from scripts
Embedded Java in the
page

Scripts written in Java
Action classes
Form data but not
components accessible
Page flow Simple navigation file
(faces-config.xml)
None Sophisticated, flexible
framework
XML file based
Session and object
management
Automatic Manual Manual