Download and Multi-file Upload JSF Components At work, we have run into two issues several times: 1) We haves app that create PDFs, and we need our JSF apps to send that to the user, and 2) we need to be able to upload multiple files to one of our JSF apps. The solutions we’ve used have been less than exciting. For the first problem, we’d make the backing bean.....
Read More ›Using Acegi Security With JSF A question that often comes up in when looking through JSF <a target="blank" href="http://forum.java.sun.com/forum.jspa?forumID=427&start=0">forums</a> or idling on IRC is, "How do I secure my JSF app?" to which, of course, there are a myriad of options. At <a target="blank" href="http://www.iec-okc.com">IEC</a.....
Read More ›Review: Building Ajax JSF Components If you’re doing web development, you have likely at least heard of Ajax, and, if you’re not currently using it, you’ve likely investigated its possible use. One of the tricky aspects of working with a technology like Ajax is integrating it with various frameworks. JavaServer Faces, now a standard part of the Java EE stack, is no different. For both a page and component.....
Read More ›Two 'Quick' Notes I thought I’d take a second to make two quick fairly self-congratulatory announcements: Last Friday, I took and passed the Sun Certified Java Programmer exam. To be honest, going in, I was extremely nervous and wondering if it was worth it, as the practice exams title: "A book for which I give a qualified and hesitant recommendation" were extremely difficult and tended to focus on little, annoying gotchas like.....
Read More ›A Disappointing Wait Several months ago at work, we evaluated a handful of methods for dependency downloads. We looked at extending our home grown solution, ivy, maven ant tasks, and even the unthinkable: migrating to maven2. In the end, we decided to stay with our home grown solution, as we were led to believe that the next version of ant would have transitive dependency management built in. We concluded that it would be a waste.....
Read More ›JSF, PhaseListeners, and GET Requests Redux In an earlier post, I detailed how my company got around JSF’s dependence on POST requests in our efforts to implement pretty URLs. While this approach has worked well for us for quite some time, a pretty major flaw in the approach revealed itself to us in the past few days. In the application for which this PhaseListener was written, we display order information for our customer.....
Read More ›Debugging jsf-extensions One of the things that has been frustrating with trying to come up to speed with jsf-extensions is that I just didn’t know where to look in all the Javascript involved to see what was going on. Today, I "watched" as Ed Burns walked a fellow extensions learner through debugging his app. Here’s what I learned. Assuming you’re using it (and if you’re.....
Read More ›Ajaxifiying JSF In October, I will be presenting Ajax at the <a target="_newwindow" href="http://wiki.okcjug.org">Oklahoma City Java Users Group</a>, of which I am a member (and vice president now, by the way, for what that’s worth). As I’ve prepared for that talk, I’ve thought quite a bit about the web apps I write, which are, for the most part.....
Read More ›The Tyranny of Choice As I’ve mentioned before, my company is trying to decide if we really need to keep using Spring now that we’re in a "full" JEE environment. As I’ve pondered this over the past few days, I’ve realized (as I figured we would) that the choice is not so simple. Our desire in this evaluation is to try to make the best decision for.....
Read More ›The Front Porch Test Everyone knows that one of the most important things a software project is a good name, but coming up with a good name is not easy. To help with the process, we apply what my boss, Mitch, refers to as the front porch test, which is actually a rule of thumb from the pet world. It goes like this: When picking a name for a dog, imagine yourself standing on the.....
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