JSF One

JSF 2.0 and the upcoming GA release of JSFUnit

Stan Silvert — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:08:00 CST

I don't work on JSFUnit full time. A big part of my responsibility at JBoss/Red Hat is to make sure that JSF and Seam integrate nicely with the JBoss Application Server.

So I've been looking at the JSF 2.0 Public Review release. Using JSF 2.0 with JBoss AS 4.2 and AS 5.0 seems to be just a matter of replacing jsf-api.jar and jsf-impl.jar. I'm sure that I'll come across some things that need more/better integration. And when I do, I'll have to implement something new. But for now I'm happy to be able to play with the JSF 2.0 PR release as-is on JBoss AS.

To see how much would run without error, I decided to go ahead and upgrade JSFUnit to work with the new JSF 2.0 API. That required adding methods to JSFUnitFacesContext and JSFUnitExternalContext. There were some other code changes, including a change to the Environment class that detects which version of JSF is running.

Anyhow, I'm happy to report that JSFUnit now works with JSF 2.0. You can download the latest JSFUnit snapshot if you'd like to play with it. The part of the JSFUnit test suite that doesn't run is execution of the applications that use Facelets and Ajax4Jsf/RichFaces together. I've filed a bug on it, so hopefully that problem will be resolved soon. Please leave me feedback on the JSFUnit Forum if you decide to give it a try.

Lastly, I've been asked several times when JSFUnit is going to go GA. There is really nothing stopping me now except that I'd like to fix a few more bugs and maybe add support for IceFaces. Look for a release in mid-February.

So long and thanks for all the fish,

Stan

My Thoughts on AT&T U-verse

Jason Lee — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:00:21 CST

JSFDays*09, Vienna, Austria

Max Katz — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:53:00 CST

JSFDays*09 will be held for the second year in beautiful Vienna, Austria on April 1-3, 2009. The conference is full of JSF superstars: Ed Burns, Matthias Wessendorf, Martin Marinschek, Cagatay Civici, Kito Mann, Pete Muir, Pourya Harirbafan and many more. It’s going to be a great conference.

I have two sessions and a full day RichFaces workshop.

April 1st, 2009
Building RIA applications with JBoss RichFaces

April 2nd, 2009
Buillding RIA applications with JavaFX

April 3rd, 2009
Full day, hands-on RichFaces workshop

If you want to quickly learn RichFaces, definitely attend the full day workshop.

Keeping rich:panelMenu state

Max Katz — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:45:00 CST

This example is in response to this post.

The solution uses two managed beans, one in request and one in session scope. The session bean will keep the menu state. You can easily extend this example to use Seam. I need to remember two things. First is which group was opened/closed and second which item inside the group was clicked. Remembering which item inside the group was clicked is done via selectedChild=”#{menuState.selectedMenuItem}”. Remembering which group was opened is done via value attribute on each group. The value is saved automatically.

I’m setting action=”page.xhtml” because I’m using a custom navigation handler. Standard navigation rules will work the same way.

start.xhtml:

<h:form>
<rich:panelMenu style="width:200px" mode="client" 
  selectedChild="#{menuState.selectedMenuItem}"
  iconExpandedGroup="disc" 
  iconCollapsedGroup="disc" 
  iconExpandedTopGroup="chevronUp" 
  iconGroupTopPosition="right" 
  iconCollapsedTopGroup="chevronDown" 
  iconCollapsedTopPosition="right" >
  <rich:panelMenuGroup label="Group 1" id="group1" 
                value="#{menuState.menu['group1']}">
	<rich:panelMenuItem label="Item 1" id="group1_item1" 
		actionListener="#{menuBean.select}"
		action="/select.xhtml"
		mode="server"/>
	<rich:panelMenuItem label="Item 2" id="group1_item2" 
		actionListener="#{menuBean.select}"
		action="/select.xhtml"
		mode="server"/>
	<rich:panelMenuItem label="Item 3" id="group1_item3" 
		actionListener="#{menuBean.select}"
		action="/select.xhtml"
		mode="server"/>
   </rich:panelMenuGroup>
   <rich:panelMenuGroup label="Group 2" id="group2" 
               value="#{menuState.menu['group2']}" >
       <rich:panelMenuItem label="Item 1" id="group2_item1" 
		actionListener="#{menuBean.select}"
		action="/select.xhtml"
		mode="server"/>
	<rich:panelMenuItem label="Item 2" id="group2_item2" 
		actionListener="#{menuBean.select}"
		action="/select.xhtml"
		mode="server"/>
	<rich:panelMenuItem label="Item 3" id="group2_item3" 
		actionListener="#{menuBean.select}"
		action="/select.xhtml"
		mode="server"/>
   </rich:panelMenuGroup>
</rich:panelMenu>
</h:form>

MenuBean managed bean (in request scope):

 
package test;
 
import javax.faces.event.ActionEvent;
 
public class MenuBean {
 
   private MenuState menuState;
 
   public MenuState getMenuState() {
	return menuState;
   }
   public void setMenuState(MenuState menuState) {
	this.menuState = menuState;
   }
   public MenuBean() {}
 
   public void select (ActionEvent event) {
	menuState.setSelectedMenuItem(event.getComponent().getId());
   }
}

In select listener, we are remembering which rich:panelMenuItem was clicked. When we come back to the page, the clicked item will be italicized via selectedChild=”#{menuState.selectedMenuItem}”.

MenuState bean (in session scope) keeps the menu state.

package test;
 
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import javax.annotation.PostConstruct;
 
public class MenuState {
 
private Map <String, Boolean> menu;
 
   private String selectedMenuItem;
 
   public String getSelectedMenuItem() {
	return selectedMenuItem;
   }
   public Map<String, Boolean> getMenu() {
	return menu;
   }	
   public void setMenu(Map<String, Boolean> menu) {
	this.menu = menu;
   }
   public void setSelectedMenuItem(String selectedMenuItem) {
	this.selectedMenuItem = selectedMenuItem;
   }
   public MenuState() {
   }
   @PostConstruct
   public void init () {
	menu = new HashMap <String, Boolean>();
	menu.put("group1", false);
	menu.put("group2", false);
   }
}

rich:panelMenuGroup value attribute is bound to the menu HashMap and is saved automatically.

JSF configuration file:

 <managed-bean>
  <managed-bean-name>menuBean</managed-bean-name>
  <managed-bean-class>test.MenuBean</managed-bean-class>
  <managed-bean-scope>request</managed-bean-scope>
  <managed-property>
   <property-name>menuState</property-name>
   <property-class>test.MenuState</property-class>
   <value>#{menuState}</value>
  </managed-property>
 </managed-bean>
 
 <managed-bean>
  <managed-bean-name>menuState</managed-bean-name>
  <managed-bean-class>test.MenuState</managed-bean-class>
  <managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope>
 </managed-bean>

select.xhtml is very simple:

<body>
   <h:form>
  	Go <h:commandLink action="/start.xhtml" value="Back" />
   </h:form>
</body>

United 1K again

Max Katz — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:05:00 CST

I made it United 1K again. This means I flew more then 100,000 miles this year. I did have to do a number of mileage runs (I flew a little bit less as my daughter was born this year), but trust me it’s worth it. Being an elite flyer, the travel experience is usually enjoyable compared to the horror stories you hear in the news. You get priority everything - checking in, boarding, seating. You also get free upgrades. For example, when you fly to Europe (that’s about 11+ hours from San Francisco) I have a good chance of being upgraded to Business class basically for free (after purchasing a regular economy ticket). To buy a Business class ticket would cost at least $5,000.

If you fly a lot, it makes a lot of sense to fly the same airline.

Two articles in Top 10 on JavaLobby.com of 2008

Max Katz — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:55:00 CST

Two articles I wrote are in JavaLobby’s Top 10 Articles of 2008 by James Surgue. Thank you, it’s nice to be in top ten.

The placement is based on number of clicks the article received. If this article was published today my An Introduction To JBoss RichFaces article would take first place as it has 42,012 clicks while Interview: John De Goes Introduces a Newly Free Source Code Editor has 41, 380. Oh well, next year :).

Early next year an article on how to use RichFaces with Spring will be published.

JSF 2 Gets Declarative Event Handling

Jason Lee — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 08:11:00 CST

JSF 2 Gets Declarative Event Handling

Jason Lee — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:38:15 CST

XML-less JSF Navigation

Max Katz — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:32:00 CST

Cagatay Civici posted a very neat example of using JSF navigation without XML (without defining navigation rules in JSF configuration file). I simplified the custom navigation handler even further. It is safe to assume that most people today use Facelets (I do in all my projects and trainings, plus it’s going to be used in JSF 2.0), so we don’t have to check the javax.faces.DEFAULT_SUFFIX context param. So, instead of using:

public String navigate () {
  return "somepage"
}

it’s now possible to use this:

public String navigate () {
  return "/somepage.xhtml"
}

<h:commandButton value="Submit" action="#{bean.navigation}"/>

or even like this if there is no action:

<h:commandButton value="Submit" action="/somepage.xhtml"/>

getTargetViewId method now looks like this:

private String getTargetViewId(FacesContext facesContext, String outcome) {
   String targetViewId;
 
   if (isRedirect(outcome)){
      targetViewId = outcome.split(":")[1];
   } else {
      targetViewId = outcome;
   }
}

Thanks Cagatay for posting this!

Practical RichFaces - available on Amazon

Max Katz — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:47:00 CST

Practical RichFaces book hard copy is now available on Amazon.

Changes Are Coming to the GlassFish Admin Console

Jason Lee — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:07:20 CST

Changes Are Coming To the GlassFish Admin Console

Jason Lee — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:51:09 CST

Interested in Servlet 3.0?

Jason Lee — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:20:15 CST

Answering questions at JavaRanch + free books

Emmanuel Bernard — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:29:48 CST

Practical RichFaces - final PDF version uploaded

Max Katz — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:38:00 CST

If you downloaded a PDF copy of Practical RichFaces book before December, the publisher has uploaded the final version. Download the new version.

Hard copy will be available very soon as well I’m told (1-3 weeks).

A One-Man JSF 2 Blog Storm

Jason Lee — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 09:47:19 CST

Seam, WebBeans and GlassFish

Jason Lee — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:29:00 CST

JBoss AS 5 is out, Hibernate Search 3.1, Devoxx is warming up and

Emmanuel Bernard — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:51:04 CST

Practical RichFaces book - few free PDF copies left

Max Katz — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:54:00 CST

I’ve got a few free PDF copies left of my Practical RichFaces book. Email me (max at exadel dot com) if you want one.

Google Chrome - WebKit update ?

Matthias Wessendorf — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:29:00 CST

Today I had to download Google Chrome, to work (verify) a bug. Same issue is present in Safari 3.2.1. Perhaps I should mention that both aren’t using the latest greatest WebKit as its core… So, I gave the nightly a shot… The bug wasn’t reproducibly with the nightly WebKit. Nice.

Since there is a huge G in Chrome… folks want to see fixes in there. Kinda more pressure instead of fixing a “Safari only” bug

This all is fine, sure. But it is interesting that the Chrome browser uses an older WebKit than Safari 3.2.1…

Let’s hope there is an update out soon, that bundles the G browser with the latest, greatest WebKit.

JavaFX - Rich Internet Applications with Java

Max Katz — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 07:09:00 CST

Tomorrow, December 4th, 2008 JavaFX 1.0 is going to be released. JavaFX is a new open source scripting language that runs inside the new, more lightweight, but still familiar, Java runtime environment.

I’m (mildly) excited. Excited - Java is a great technology for building web user interfaces, but it failed in a few areas in the past. Mildly - JavaFX was announced at JavaOne 2007 but only now we are getting version 1.0. JavaFX has a long way to go before companies are using it to build real world RIA applications. Today the choice is still Flex or Silverlight. However, I do believe with the 1.0 release, companies will start playing with it. Enterprise tools for building RIA applications is shaping to be something like this:

HTML/AJAX (pure browser)
Flash/Flex (browser + plug-in)
Silverlight (browser + plug-in)
JavaFX (browser + plug-in)

Exadel already offers some basic JavaFX tooling for enterprise applications. With Exadel Flamingo you can easily connect JavaFX with Seam or Spring back ends.

MyFaces 2.0 - A community driven JSF 2.0 implementation

Matthias Wessendorf — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:14:00 CST

It is pretty cool to see that there is lot’s of activity on the JSF 2.0 implementation of the Apache MyFaces project. Lot’s of folks contribute via the JIRA issue tracker (filing bugs/tasks, submitting patches), or the mailing list.

Really, a good community driven effort!

Btw. it is still time to join. Just subscribe to our dev-mailing list

JavaFX 1.0 Release Set for December 4

Jason Lee — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:05:21 CST

Rich editor is coming to RichFaces

Max Katz — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:40:00 CST

rich:editor is one of the new components in RichFaces 3.3.0 (December 2008) . It’s based on tinyMCE.