Pro JSF & Ajax: Building Rich Internet Components

Description

Pro JSF and Ajax shows you how to leverage the full potential of JavaServer Faces (JSF) and Ajax. This is not an entry-level tutorial, but a book about building Ajax-enabled JSF components for sophisticated, enterprise-level rich Internet applications. Written by JSF experts and verified by established community figures including Adam Winer (member of the JSF Expert Group, Java Champion), Kito D. Mann (JSFCentral.com and JSF in Action), and Matthias Weendorf (MyFaces), this JSF 5-compatible book provides reliable and groundbreaking JSF components to help you exploit the power of JSF in your Java web applications.

This book provides a blueprint for building custom JSFuser interfacecomponents and shows how to leverage the best browser technologies, such as Ajax, Mozilla XUL and Microsoft HTC, to deliver rich Internet applications.

This book covers standard best practices for behavioral and renderer-specific component classes, renderers, events and event listeners, and JSP tag handlers for each. It also covers advanced techniques such as dynamic content type negotiation, JAR-based resource delivery, and dynamic render kit selection.

Foreword

"Does the world really and truly need another JavaServer Faces book?

I was fairly well convinced the answer could only be a resounding 'no!' After all, there's a good half dozen books out in stores today, by a whole host of web luminaries, and I've even personally helped as a technical reviewer on half of those. So what more could really be said on the subject?

But when I thought about this a bit more, it became clear that all of these books only go so far. They'll show you how to use what JSF gives you out of the box, throw you a bone for writing your own components and renderers, maybe even a bit more. But none that I've seen get to the heart of why JSF is really and truly cool and important technology; they make JSF look like YAMVCF (Yet Another Model-View-Controller Framework) for HTML - more powerful here and there, easier to use in many places, a bit harder to use in others, but really nothing major. And certainly nothing that takes us beyond the dull basics of building ordinary-looking web applications.

This book goes a lot further. It'll cover the basics, of course, and show you how to build components, but then it keeps going: on to AJAX, on to HTC, on to XUL - and how you can wrap this alphabet soup up underneath the heart of JSF, its component model, and how you can leverage it to finally develop web applications that don't need radical re-architecting every time the winds of client technologies blow in a different direction. Along the way, you'll learn a wide array of open source toolkits that make web magic practical even when you're not a Javascript guru.

So, heck, I'm convinced. The world does need another JSF book."

 - Adam Winer, Architect, ADF Faces, JSF Expert Group Member, and Java Champion. (From the Foreword)

 Table of Contents
* The Foundation of JSF: Components
* Defining the Date Field Component
* Defining the Deck Component
* Using Rich Internet Technologies
* Loading Resources with Weblets
* Ajax Enabling the Deck Component
* Ajax Enabling the Date Field Component
* Providing Mozilla XUL Renderers
* Providing Microsoft HTC Renderers
* Switching RenderKits Dynamically

CONTENTS:

Jonas Jacobi and John R. Fallows
Pro JSF and Ajax
Building Rich Internet
Components
Pro JSF and Ajax: Building Rich Internet Components
Copyright © 2006 by Jonas Jacobi and John R. Fallows
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval
system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-580-0
ISBN-10: 1-59059-580-7
Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence
of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark
owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark.
Lead Editor: Tony Davis
Technical Reviewers: Peter Lubbers, Kito D. Mann, Matthias Wessendorf
Editorial Board: Steve Anglin, Dan Appleman, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Jason Gilmore, Jonathan
Hassell, James Huddleston, Chris Mills, Matthew Moodie, Dominic Shakeshaft, Jim Sumser, Matt Wade
Project Managers: Beckie Stones, Elizabeth Seymour
Copy Edit Manager: Nicole LeClerc
Copy Editor: Kim Wimpsett
Assistant Production Director: Kari Brooks-Copony
Production Editor: Laura Cheu
Compositor: Molly Sharp, ContentWorks
Proofreader: Elizabeth Berry
Indexer: Carol Burbo
Artist: Kinetic Publishing Services, LLC
Cover Designer: Kurt Krames
Manufacturing Director: Tom Debolski
Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor,
New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail orders-ny@springer-sbm.com, or
visit http://www.springeronline.com.
For information on translations, please contact Apress directly at 2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219, Berkeley,
CA 94710. Phone 510-549-5930, fax 510-549-5939, e-mail info@apress.com, or visit http://www.apress.com.
The information in this book is distributed on an as is basis, without warranty. Although every precaution
has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to
any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly
by the information contained in this work.
Contents at a Glance
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
About the Technical Reviewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
PART 1 Developing Smarter with
JavaServerTM Faces
CHAPTER 1 The Foundation of JSF: Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
CHAPTER 2 Defining the Date Field Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
CHAPTER 3 Defining the Deck Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
PART 2 Designing Rich Internet Components
CHAPTER 4 Using Rich Internet Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
CHAPTER 5 Loading Resources with Weblets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
CHAPTER 6 Ajax Enabling the Deck Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
CHAPTER 7 Ajax Enabling the Date Field Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
CHAPTER 8 Providing Mozilla XUL Renderers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
CHAPTER 9 Providing Microsoft HTC Renderers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
CHAPTER 10 Switching RenderKits Dynamically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
v