Product Description

JavaServer Faces (JSF) is quickly emerging as the leading solution for rapid user interface development in Java-based server-side applications. Now, Core JavaServer™ Faces–the #1 guide to JSF–has been thoroughly updated in this second edition, covering the latest feature enhancements, the powerful Ajax development techniques, and open source innovations that make JSF even more valuable.

Authors David Geary and Cay Horstmann delve into all facets of JSF 1.2 development, offering systematic best practices for building robust applications, minimizing handcoding, and maximizing productivity. Drawing on unsurpassed insider knowledge of the Java platform, they present solutions, hints, tips, and “how-tos” for writing superior JSF 1.2 production code, even if you’re new to JSF, JavaServer Pages™, or servlets.

The second edition’s extensive new coverage includes: JSF 1.2’s improved alignment with the broader Java EE 5 platform; enhancements to the JSF APIs; controlling Web flow with Shale; and using Facelets to replace JSP with XHTML markup. The authors also introduce Ajax development with JSF–from real-time validation and Direct Web Remoting to wrapping Ajax in JSF components and using the popular Ajax4jsf framework.

This book will help you

• Automate low-level details and eliminate unnecessary complexity in server-side development
• Discover JSF best practices, ranging from effective UI design and style sheets to internationalization
• Use JSF with Tiles to build consistent, reusable user interfaces
• Leverage external services such as databases, LDAP directories, authentication/authorization, and Web services
• Use JBoss Seam to greatly simplify development of database-backed applications
• Implement custom components, converters, and validators
• Master the JSF 1.2 tag libararies, and extend JSF with additional tag libraries

Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Getting Started
Chapter 2: Managed Beans
Chapter 3: Navigation
Chapter 4: Standard JSF Tags
Chapter 5: Data Tables
Chapter 6: Conversion and Validation
Chapter 7: Event Handling
Chapter 8: Subviews and Tiles
Chapter 9: Custom Components, Converters, and Validators
Chapter 10: External Services
Chapter 11: Ajax
Chapter 12: Open Source
Chapter 13: How Do I . . .
Index 

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79534 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

From the Back Cover

JavaServer Faces (JSF) is quickly emerging as the leading solution for rapid user interface development in Java-based server-side applications. Now, Core JavaServer™ Faces–the #1 guide to JSF–has been thoroughly updated in this second edition, covering the latest feature enhancements, the powerful Ajax development techniques, and open source innovations that make JSF even more valuable.

Authors David Geary and Cay Horstmann delve into all facets of JSF 1.2 development, offering systematic best practices for building robust applications, minimizing handcoding, and maximizing productivity. Drawing on unsurpassed insider knowledge of the Java platform, they present solutions, hints, tips, and “how-tos” for writing superior JSF 1.2 production code, even if you’re new to JSF, JavaServer Pages™, or servlets.

The second edition’s extensive new coverage includes: JSF 1.2’s improved alignment with the broader Java EE 5 platform; enhancements to the JSF APIs; controlling Web flow with Shale; and using Facelets to replace JSP with XHTML markup. The authors also introduce Ajax development with JSF–from real-time validation and Direct Web Remoting to wrapping Ajax in JSF components and using the popular Ajax4jsf framework.

This book will help you

• Automate low-level details and eliminate unnecessary complexity in server-side development
• Discover JSF best practices, ranging from effective UI design and style sheets to internationalization
• Use JSF with Tiles to build consistent, reusable user interfaces
• Leverage external services such as databases, LDAP directories, authentication/authorization, and Web services
• Use JBoss Seam to greatly simplify development of database-backed applications
• Implement custom components, converters, and validators
• Master the JSF 1.2 tag libararies, and extend JSF with additional tag libraries

Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Getting Started
Chapter 2: Managed Beans
Chapter 3: Navigation
Chapter 4: Standard JSF Tags
Chapter 5: Data Tables
Chapter 6: Conversion and Validation
Chapter 7: Event Handling
Chapter 8: Subviews and Tiles
Chapter 9: Custom Components, Converters, and Validators
Chapter 10: External Services
Chapter 11: Ajax
Chapter 12: Open Source
Chapter 13: How Do I . . .
Index 

About the Author

David Geary, who worked at Sun Microsystems from 1994 through 1997, was a member of the JSF 1.0 Expert Group. He is president of Clarity Training Inc., a training and consulting company focusing on server-side Java technology, and is the author of eight books on Java technology, including the best-selling Graphic Java™ 2 series, Advanced JavaServer Pages, and Google™ Web Toolkit Solutions (all from Prentice Hall). David was also a member of the JSTL Expert Group, was the Second Apache Struts committer, and wrote questions for Sun's Web Developer Certification Exam. David is a regular speaker on the popular No Fluff Just Stuff tour and is a JavaOne Rock Star, by virtue of his Shale Presentation with Craig McClanahan in 2005.

Cay S. Horstmann is a professor of computer science at San Jose State University. He has served as vice president and chief technology officer of Preview Systems Inc., and as a consultant on C++, Java, and Internet programming for major corporations, universities, and organizations. Cay is also the author of the classic Core Java™ books.

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Customer Reviews

The good the bad and the ugly. Could be much better.
- I don't think this book showcases JSF in a particularly good light.
- If you've used technologies like ASP.NET, you are used to IIS shielding you from the idiosyncrasies of web browser variations. It sniffs out your web browser and serves up a page that your browser will always work with. This is not the case with JSF. It's brittle. You need to have a good grasp of DHTML CSS XHTML to boot and have accumulated experiences to cope with browser variances.
- To help you achieve these goals an excellent companion to this book would be HTML Dog:The Best-Practice Guide to XHTML and CSS (Paperback) 0321311396 by Patrick Griffiths and his associated website HTMLDOG.
- I feel the authors could do with reading this to compensate for examples that don't behave well, predominantly in IE7, but sometimes with Firefox too.
- We all know Microsoft sticks two fingers up to standards and does its own thing. But in reality more users use IE7 than the better products like Firefox or Opera. So we developers have to compensate for this and cater for both in world of JSF.
- On top of this you have to cope with the complexities of the JSF lifecycle which gets pretty hairy when you start to add things like Ajax into the mix.
- The author does a sloppy job of packaging source code with all the pre-requisite jars. This happens in loads of places. Commons-logging being missing is a regular bug-bear.
- I particularly found tracking down the jars for Ajax4jsf to be a particularly painful experience, not helped by the missing jar dependencies in Maven repository and JBoss's acquisition of the project and being unable to download latest set from JBoss site. On top of the supplied ajax4jsf.jar (1.02) and oscache-2.3.2.jar, I found I needed commons-bean-utils (1.7) commons-digester 1.8 commons-logging-1.1.1, commons-collections-3.2.1.
- My gripes with the examples:
- Tiles examples. JSF and Tiles don't play ball from what I've been able to ascertain from forums. So the book should cut these examples out. Facelets is the answer. The book covers this topic in Ch10
- Shales-Validator in Ch13 won't deploy. Struts dependencies. Doesn't sound right.
- Ch13 SpinnerLib/ResourceLocatorTest example doesn't work in Glassfish.
- Seam example. Couldn't get to work in the configuration I wanted. I believe commons-el.jar was missing in this example too. The book recommends Tomcat 5.5 with JBoss embedded server to run this. Now I have Tomcat 6, Glassfish and JBoss 4.2.2.GA, and couldn't get it to play ball. The author flips to Myfaces implementation of JSF. I think JBoss 4.2.2.GA doesn't like Myfaces.
- See forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10296408?
- and jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4158195#4158195
- The basic Ajax example doesn't work in Firefox
- The custom JSF Spinner components are really lousy. Only the Javascript version approaches production ready quality, in either browser.
- The deletingRows example in Chapter 5 behaves lousily in IE7. The checkbox doesn't activate the rows, you have to click on rows themselves to get the controls to respond.
- In chapter 5 there is a database example. I initially Googled to work out how to set up a JDBC resource in Glassfish. The book actually covers this much later on, so a forward reference could have saved some time here.
- Unfortunately the references to setting up JDBC connection pools were dated.
- The Tomcat section was out of date and used Postgres. Nowadays, MySQL is shipped with Glassfish, so I'd have thought that would have been a better choice.
- See theserverside.com/discussions/thread.tss?thread_id=25459#254626 for my Tomcat 6/MySQL solution, after wading through the Tomcat 6 docs.
- A minor point is MySQL setup in Glassfish uses tabbed pages rather than a next button.
- Ch13 Popup technique 2 doesn't work in IE7.
- LDAP examples based on OpenLDAP. This is a pain to set up. You have to download source and use C compiler to get application working. Too much like hard work, if you're doing this for academic appreciation. If you need an LDAP server. Try OpenDS instead of OpenLDAP. Easier to setup.
- I also particularly disliked to smattering of API sound-bites. They really detracted from the overall flow of the book.
- Also disliked the way code snippets were referenced without being in context of class, so you don't know what you are looking at. If you are going to discuss things with code snippets, at least present the full source first. (James Holmes did the to good effect with Struts Complete Ref)
- Ch13 covers a lot of ground fast. Could have done with explaining things a little more.
- Other discrepancies:
- P534 Remove extra comma after ProcessZipCodeSelection. Wrong is source code too. Was a little devil to track down & debug. FadeAnything Ajax example in start.jsp for form-completion example of Ch11.
- P551 Accordion renderer. Refactored with helper method
- CH11 Extra spaces in one of Backing bean java source files with NO DATA/City/State
- Ant script doesn't work for some of scripts in Ch13.
Change path id="classpath" to include different fileset as follows:

< include name="**/*.jar"/ >

- (Ant still won't work for Applet. Have to fix source of Chart.java to:
for (double v : values) { to
in order to make variable v accessible.. Missing ChartPanel.class. I also packaged both classes at same time, manually compiled source & moved both classes to folder com/corejsf under web folder. Then ran ant script to package & deploy.
- On the flip side, the highlights for me were the a) The JSF-RicoAccordion example, and Shale. But the Shale example didn't work quite so well in IE7, There is an unexplained Javascript function call "nameChanged('clear')" in the onblur methods of Payee Information/name Bank Information/name. So once again some sloppy details spoils functionality. Also onblur seems to not work in IE7. Fields are supposed to return to original style as you tab out of them. HtmlDog probably has the answer for this. The layout of this example doesn't give particularly good visual cues as to when you enter the sub form. If I'd written the example, I'd at least have given the sub-form a different background colour so you realise you are in sub-form. Also I'd have begun a second row of tab markers, so you could still see where you are in the wizard process. I initially thought I'd gone back to first page of parent form!
- There are plenty of examples, which help give you good foundation in JSF.
- I've fired off countless posts on my findings through the books associated website, so hopefully when authors get a moment, they can reflect on these points to improve their product.

The best JavaServer Faces book I have ever read
I recommend this book to everyone. I started reading two other books (Mastering JavaServer Faces and JavaServer Faces in Action) and this one is, definitively, the best of them. With simple examples and a simple language, it explains very well what JSF is and how it works

Learning JSF
Good book, clearly presented and easy to read.

Many chapters include reference pages which the author suggests you skip until the next time round. I found these pages very useful when comming up against annoying bugs in testing.

JSF implementations are very hard to debug if you don't understand the API, reading this book will get you writing code and solving problems much quicker.