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This tutorial covers JSF 2.0 using the Mojarra JSF 2.0 implementation, but the
the JSF 1.x tutorial covers JSF 1 with Apache MyFaces.
Click on a topic below to get the detailed tutorial or download the source code. The examples
here were developed and deployed on Tomcat, but they will run on any Java server that supports
servlets 2.5 or later.
If you find these free tutorials helpful, we would appreciate it if you would
link to us. Send corrections or feedback on any tutorial to
hall@coreservlets.com.
This section describes the software and setup needed to run JSF 2.0 with Eclipse and either Tomcat 6 or Glassfish 3. It also
gives a brief example with annotated code.
jsf-basics.zip Sample JSF 2 application that
you can import into Eclipse
and deploy to Tomcat 6, Glassfish, or any other server that supports servlets 2.5 or later.
If you deploy to Tomcat 6, use the project exactly as is.
If you deploy to Glassfish 3 or another Java EE 6 server, you can save space and
delete the two unneeded JAR files from WEB-INF/lib.
Details on importing into Eclipse and deploying to Tomcat or Glassfish are given in the tutorial section
above. The actual code is explained in detail in later tutorial sections.
Individual files for you to import into your own Dynamic Web Project,
so that you can confirm that you know where each type of file belongs.
Locations of each file and the code itself is explained in the tutorial section above.
jsf-api.jar and jsf-impl.jar.
The two JAR files you need if you deploy to Tomcat or any other non-Java-EE-6 server.
You can get the very latest versions from the Mojarra JSF 2.0 project
here.
These JAR files are already in all the projects in this tutorial; they are only needed
if you build your own project.
jsf-test.zip This is what your
app should look like after you import the individual pieces above.
Topics covered:
Overview of JSF 2.0
Needed software
Installing Java SE 6
Installing Eclipse 3.5
Installing a server for JSF 2.0
Tomcat 6 (also needs jsf-api.jar and jsf-impl.jar) or
Here is a brief summary of the most important JSF 2.0 features. Details and annotated source code are in the
next section (JSF 2.0 Whirlwind Tour).
You have more debugging help during project development.
To get started with JSF 2.0, at the very least you need a web.xml
with a url-pattern for *.jsf or something similar,
and a faces-config.xml with valid start and end tags, just as in JSF 1.x.
However, in JSF 2.0, you can optionally add
a PROJECT_STAGE setting of Development to web.xml. By doing this, many errors that would silently fail
in JSF 1.x now result in explicit error messages.
Facelets, not JSP, is the standard technology for all your JSF pages.
Name the pages blah.xhtml, but use the URL blah.jsf (assuming a url-pattern of *.jsf in web.xml). Use xhtml format for the pages
themselves. Don't use @taglib, but instead use xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html". Then, use h:head, h:body, and h:form
(but not f:view) in the page.
You can find a representative sample here.
You can use default bean names.
Instead of declaring beans with managed-bean in faces-config.xml, you can put @ManagedBean above the class definition.
Then, take the bean classname, change the first letter to lower case, and use that as the managed bean name.
For example, if the class is package1.package2.MyBean, you would use #{myBean.whatever} in your code.
You can also do @ManagedBean(name="someName"). Beans are request scoped by default, but there are
annotations like @SessionScoped to change the default.
This sample bean and the sample .xhtml page
from above illustrate this.
You can use default mappings of outcomes to results pages.
In the absence of explicit navigation rules, the return values of the action controller method correspond to the
file names that should be used.
Suppose that your form (file form.xhtml, URL form.jsf) says <h:commandButton ... action="#{someBean.someMethod}"/>.
When the button is pressed, the bean named someBean is instantiated (assuming request scope),
setter methods corresponding to the h:inputBlah elements are run, validation occurs, and then
someMethod is executed. This is the same as in JSF 1.x, except that the managed bean name (someBean) can be derived
from the bean class name (SomeBean). But now, if someMethod returns "foo" and "bar", and there are no explicit navigation
rules in faces-config.xml for those outcomes, then JSF will assume that they correspond to foo.xhtml and bar.xhtml (from the same
folder as form.xhtml), respectively.
For example, in the this sample bean, the outcomes correspond to
accepted.xhtml and
rejected.xhtml.
You can usually use #{myBean.myProperty} instead of <h:outputText value="#{myBean.myProperty}"/>.
If you don't need any fancy options, the first form is much more concise. Both forms
escape HTML characters, and thus can be used for properties containing user input. You only need
h:outputText when you need escape="false" or want to compute the render property or need to assign an id or
want use another less-common feature of h:outputText.
You can easily Ajaxify your application.
Add xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" to the page header. Inside the start and end tags for h:commandButton, put
<f:ajax execute="@form" render="formId:resultId"/>. Then, also have
<h:outputText value="#{myBean.myProperty}" id="resultId"/>. This means that when the button is pressed,
all the form elements are sent to the server and executed normally. Then the action controller method is executed normally.
Then, the value of getMyProperty is computed and sent back to the server. JavaScript receives the value and inserts it into
the current page in the place where the h:outputText element initially was.
The next section has a detailed example.
Source code of examples in this section,
bundled as an Eclipse project.
If you deploy to Tomcat 6 or another servlet/JSP engine supporting servlets 2.5 or later, use the project exactly as is.
If you deploy to Glassfish 3 or another Java EE 6 server, you can save space and
delete the two unneeded JAR files from WEB-INF/lib.
Topics covered:
Setup review
New facelets page format
New annotations for managed beans
New default mappings of return values to results pages
Old-style explicit mappings of return values to results pages
Source code of examples in this section,
bundled as an Eclipse project.
If you deploy to Tomcat 6 or another servlet/JSP engine supporting servlets 2.5 or later, use the project exactly as is.
If you deploy to Glassfish 3 or another Java EE 6 server, you can save space and
delete the two unneeded JAR files from WEB-INF/lib.
Topics covered:
@ManagedBean and default bean names
Default mappings for action controller return values
Custom bean names
Using bean properties to handle request parameters
Source code of examples in this section,
bundled as an Eclipse project.
If you deploy to Tomcat 6 or another servlet/JSP engine supporting servlets 2.5 or later, use the project exactly as is.
If you deploy to Glassfish 3 or another Java EE 6 server, you can save space and
delete the two unneeded JAR files from WEB-INF/lib.
Source code of examples in this section,
bundled as an Eclipse project.
If you deploy to Tomcat 6 or another servlet/JSP engine supporting servlets 2.5 or later, use the project exactly as is.
If you deploy to Glassfish 3 or another Java EE 6 server, you can save space and
delete the two unneeded JAR files from WEB-INF/lib.
Coming October 2009. At some point I plan to cover validation, page templating,
composite components, bookmarking results pages, event handling, looping tags, and more.
Email me at hall@coreservlets.com if you have strong
opinions about which features should be covered next.
Source code for all examples in this tutorial can be downloaded from the
JSF 2 sample code repository. Each section also has links
to the code used in that section.
The PDF files in this tutorial contain the complete text of the original
PowerPoint files, so if your goal is learning JSF, just stick
with this tutorial. However, as a service to instructors teaching
full-semester courses at accredited universities, coreservlets.com
will release the original PowerPoint files for free. Please
see the instructor materials page
for details.
