Apache MyFaces Trinidad 1.2: A Practical Guide

292 Pages·2009·2.2 MB·English

by  David Thomas

Apache MyFaces Trinidad 1.2
A Practical Guide
Develop JSF web applications with Trinidad and Seam
David Thomas
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Jillian Fraser on 20th November 2009
111 Sutter Street, Suite 1800, San Francisco, , 94104
Apache MyFaces Trinidad 1.2
A Practical Guide
Copyright © 2009 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy
of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is
sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt
Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages
caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: November 2009
Production Reference: 1031109
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-847196-08-8
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Vinayak Chittar ([email protected])
Download at WoweBook.Com
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Jillian Fraser on 20th November 2009
111 Sutter Street, Suite 1800, San Francisco, , 94104
Credits
Author Editorial Team Leader
David Thomas Akshara Aware
Reviewers Project Team Leader
Cagatay Civici Lata Basantani
Simon Lessard
Project Coordinator
Rajashree Hamine
Acquisition Editor
Rashmi Phadnis
Proofreader
Jeff Orloff
Development Editors
Rakesh Shejwal
Siddharth Mangarole Graphics
Nilesh Mohile
Technical Editor
Mehul Shetty Production Coordinator
Shantanu Zagade
Indexer
Monica Ajmera Cover Work
Shantanu Zagade
Download at WoweBook.Com
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Jillian Fraser on 20th November 2009
111 Sutter Street, Suite 1800, San Francisco, , 94104
About the Author
David Thomas is a developer and technical project manager of Java-based web
applications, and has well over 10 years of experience in various web technologies.
He began writing applications based on the Common Gateway Interface (CGI),
HTML and Javascript, with a short Java Applets interlude.
The main occupation with Java began when Java took charge of the server. A series
of Java Servlet applications were developed using an early, self-built Model-2
controller architecture.
Java Server Pages (JSP) took hold for a rather long time and a couple of major,
increasingly complex, web applications were developed in combination with Struts.
This also included the development of major portal applications in the finance and
banking sector.
Shortly after Java Server Faces 1.2 (JSF) emerged, began the development of a major
JSF web application including the development of a high-level framework based on
Apache My Faces Trinidad, Facelets and JBOSS Seam in the area of controlling.
This project spawned a couple of sub projects, so development continues up to the
present day.
This is the author's first book which is highly influenced by the accumulated years of
his experience in web technology.
Apart from his work and the writing of this book, David Thomas likes to write
music, sing his own songs, and accompany them on piano and guitar. Other hobbies
of his are going on holidays, reading books, walking, swimming, making tea, and
taking trains.
Furthermore, he is a firm believer in vegetarianism and the responsibility of each
human being for her or his well-being and surroundings—in short, of acting locally
while thinking globally.
Regarding this book he hopes it will be of great value to many people to enjoy an
effective and efficient use of Trinidad.
I would like to thank my wife for her patience during the writing of
this book.
Download at WoweBook.Com
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Jillian Fraser on 20th November 2009
111 Sutter Street, Suite 1800, San Francisco, , 94104
About the Reviewers
Cagatay Civici is the PMC member of open source JSF implementation Apache
MyFaces and the project lead of popular PrimeFaces framework. In addition to being
a recognized speaker in international conferences such as JSFSummit, JSFDays,
and local events, he's an author and technical reviewer of books regarding web
application development with Java and JSF. Cagatay is currently working as a
consultant and instructor in the UK.
Simon Lessard has been using Java since 2000 with a focus first on game server
development, and since 2005 on Web development, when he joined Fujitsu Canada
team. Since then, he joined the Apache community working mainly on Apache
Trinidad and Apache MyFaces 2.0, and also represents Fujitsu Limited on the
JSF 2.0 Expert Group.
Download at WoweBook.Com
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Jillian Fraser on 20th November 2009
111 Sutter Street, Suite 1800, San Francisco, , 94104
Download at WoweBook.Com
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Jillian Fraser on 20th November 2009
111 Sutter Street, Suite 1800, San Francisco, , 94104
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Introducing Trinidad 7
Background 7
Overview of Trinidad 9
Characteristics of Trinidad 9
General key criteria for the choosing of Trinidad 10
Seamidad! Ease JSF development with Seam 13
Introduction and overview of Seam 13
Application of Seam with Trinidad 14
Seam conversations and other context management 16
Seam navigation 17
Seam authorization 18
Configuring Trinidad 24
Summary 28
Chapter 2: Structuring and Building Pages with Facelets 29
Facelet page composition—templating with Facelets 30
Using the template 34
Facelet composition components 36
Creating the composition component 37
The model attribute 38
The visible attribute 39
The msgLabel attribute 39
The labelStyle attribute 40
The required attribute 40
The readOnly attribute 41
The width attribute 41
The margin attribute 41
Declaring the composition component 42
Applying the composition component 43
Download at WoweBook.Com
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Jillian Fraser on 20th November 2009
111 Sutter Street, Suite 1800, San Francisco, , 94104
Table of Contents
Using JSTL for further refinement 45
Typical JSTL structures 45
Things to be aware of when using JSTL and Facelets 47
Other tags to be aware of 48
Experiencing Facelets in real life projects 48
Summary 49
Chapter 3: Most Wanted Tags and Tag Attributes 51
Component library structure 51
Trinidad’s XHTML tag library namespace (trh) 53
Trinidad’s core tag library namespace (tr) 54
Standard tag attributes 57
Standard tag attributes in tag groups 58
Attributes that occur in form and display tags 58
Attributes that occur in command and navigation components 60
Attributes that occur in large input and output components 60
The tag attributes for table, treeTable, and tree 61
The tag attributes for table and treeTable 61
The tag attributes for tree and treeTable 62
The tag attributes for treeTable 63
The tag attributes for tree 63
Summary 63
Chapter 4: Rendering Pages Partially 65
Tag-based PPR 66
Finding the trigger 67
Aspect 1: Ensure that the ID of the PPR trigger is correct 68
Aspect 2: Ensure that the Trinidad configuration is correct 68
Aspect 3: Ensure that the refreshed fields are reset 69
Aspect 4: Ensure proper MVC setup 69
Aspect 5: Ensure that the tag's partialTriggers work 70
Aspect 6: Beware of using PPR with the rendered attribute 70
PPR with server-side caching by means of the Trinidad pageFlowScope 70
PPR with a tr:selectOneChoice to refresh itself inside a component 71
PPR with a tr:selectOneChoice component and a valueChangeListener 73
PPR with a tr:selectOneChoice component and an actionListener 76
PPR and the rendered attribute 79
Applying PPR naively 79
The right way—a parent component with partial trigger 81
Java-side PPR using Trinidad's RequestContext 82
Application of PPR from the Java-side 83
Step I: Define the PPR source 84
Step II: Add the partial target 84
Summary 85
[ ii ]
Download at WoweBook.Com
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Jillian Fraser on 20th November 2009
111 Sutter Street, Suite 1800, San Francisco, , 94104
Table of Contents
Chapter 5: Web Application Groundwork 87
Navigation 87
Trinidad's Dialog Framework 90
Programmatically creating a dialog 91
Providing the data flow from dialog to dialog 91
Returning from a dialog 92
Authorization 93
Equipping each XHTML with authorization 93
User authorization 94
Internationalization (I18n) 95
I18n on single labels 95
I18n on internal Facelet composition components 95
Polling 96
Setting up the application with Seam-gen 97
Setting up an Eclipse project using Seam-gen 99
Deployment 101
Trinidad-specific and Facelet-related changes to the project files 102
Trinidad-specific changes to the Ant build script 105
Deployment from Eclipse 106
Browser client setup 109
Summary 111
Chapter 6: Building a Panel-based Content 113
Where the Trinidad panel components live and what they support 113
The accordion and showDetailItem components 115
How to play the panelAccordion 115
The showDetailItem component—press to play an accordion key 116
The combination of accordion and showDetailItem 120
An alternative to pure Facelets 122
The content panel—same soul, different incarnation 123
ControllerPanel keeps the panels under the same roof 124
The toolbar facet 125
Skinning the panels 128
Skinning the accordion and its children 128
Skinning specific properties of the accordion's children 130
Switching the skins on configuration level 130
Summary 132
Chapter 7: Building a Form 133
Building a form 134
Step I: Building the composition components 135
The fieldText component 135
[ iii ]
Download at WoweBook.Com
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Jillian Fraser on 20th November 2009
111 Sutter Street, Suite 1800, San Francisco, , 94104