2010

June

• Book Review: JSF 1.2 Components

  Some time ago, I was given a copy of JSF 1.2 Components by Ian Hlavats and asked if I’d write a review for it. It’s long overdue, but here are my thoughts on this book.

February

• New Components in Mojarra Scales: Part IV – sc:combo

  Yesterday brought us Part III in our look at some new components in Mojarra Scales. Today, Part IV brings us sc:combo, combination, if you can imagine that, of a h:selectOneMenu and h:inputText.

• New Components in Mojarra Scales: Part III – sc:imageZoomer and sc:lightbox

  In Part II of this series, I introduced the new auto complete component in Mojarra Scales. In this installment, we’ll take a look at two new closely related components, sc:imageZoomer and sc:lightbox.

2009

December

• New Components in Mojarra Scales: Part II – sc:autoComplete

  In Part I, I introduced the new YUI-backed Scales dataTable component. In this installment in the series, we"ll take a look at another new component available in Scales 2.0, sc:autoComplete.

• New Components in Mojarra Scales: Part I - sc:dataTable

  The migration of Mojarra Scales to JSF 2, adding new components has become much easier due to JSF 2’s new composite component feature. In the past couple of weeks, this new capability has paid off in spades as Mojarra Scales has gotten (so far) three new components in rapid succession. In this, the first part of a multi-part series, we’ll take a look at the most complex of the new components, sc:dataTable.

November

• The Mojarra Scales Demo Has Moved

  With the recent migration of Mojarra Scales to JSF 2, the old location of the Mojarra Scales demo was no longer adequate (upgrading that server posed some issues). For that reason, I have moved the demo to a new home. This server should be more up-to-date (both in terms of the application as well as the application server — which is GlassFish v3, of course — that runs it). When accessing the application, please keep in mind that it’s on an old server that’s running on an AT&T U-verse line, and the download times will reflect that. :)

  I’d also like to not that this showcases a couple of new components at the moment. I’ve begun an implementation of the YUI data table widget. At the time of this posting, basic table functions work, including client-side sorting. More complex functionality, such as Ajax updates, are in the offing.

  Another new component, which the demo uses extensively, is the excellent SyntaxHighligher script from Alex Gorbatchev. The demo uses this new component to show the page source for each demo, finally allowing you to see a given component in action, as well seeing the page markup that makes those components. The demo is still in flux, so some things aren’t quite "perfect" yet. For example, Safari really hates the markup the demo produces, which is a bug in the demo application itself. Hopefully, that will soon be fixed. For now, Safari users will need to use another browser.

  As I’ve noted, Scales has been migrated to JSF 2. While most components are working as expected, there are likely some minor issues to work out. If you run into any of these issues, or if you’d like to see extra functionality in any of the components, please feel free to file an issue on the Scales issue tracker on the Kenai project site.

August

• Mojarra Scales 1.3.2 Has Been Released

  Late last night, I published Mojarra Scales 1.3.2. This is mostly a bug and performance fix, but here are some highlights from the release:

  • <sc:links /> (and related supporting classes and components) was modified to allow files only from /scales to fix a pretty glaring security hole in some scenarios

  • When multiple, local requests for a given resource type (CSS or JS) are queued, they are now rendered to the page in such a way that they will be returned in a single request. That is to say, Mojarra Scales will now concatenate these files into one response, so as to reduce the number of network operations.

  • Scales now correctly handles cached files. When a CSS or JS resource is sent, Scales now employs etags to help the client cache the file properly. On subsequent requests, if the client sends the last modified header, Scales properly handles the date, returning 304 when appropriate

  • <tab/> now supports the style and styleClass attributes.

  • The multi-file upload component has been moved out of the main jar into its own artifact so that those not using the component will have a smaller deployment. This component can be found under the upload artifactId in the maven repository.

  The jar files, including the demo app, can be downloaded from kenai.com or via maven (the demo is not in maven).

  With the architectural changes in 1.3 out of the way, the next version of Scales should include more components, as well as enhancements to existing components. At some point, the project will be branched for a migration to JSF 2. With the spec being final and Mojarra 2 scheduled to ship in a couple of weeks, it seems the time is right for the move. Time will tell, of course, how soon that move is made.

  If you have any issues, please comment in the forum.

April

• Mojarra Scales 1.3.1 Has Been Released

  Early this morning, I published Mojarra Scales 1.3.1. I’ve been remiss in making good updates where when I make release, so, rather than creating a new post for each release long after the fact, I’ll try to being everyone up to the current state in just one.

• Book Review: Practical RichFaces

  One of the great strengths and successes, I think, of the JavaServer Faces specification is the proliferation of third party components. One of the older and better known component sets is RichFaces, which started out under a company called Exadel and is now part of JBoss. For many, RichFaces is the first add-on component set for a new JSF project, and with good reason. I recently had the opportunity to serve as a technical reviewer on Max Katz’s Practical RichFaces from Apress. Read on for my review of the book.

March

• Webinar: From Ajax Push to JSF 2.0: ICEfaces on GlassFish

  The GlassFish webinar series is, I think, a pretty valuable resource for regular readers of my blog, as it covers a lot of topics that I cover here. Today’s webinar, "From Ajax Push to JSF 2.0: ICEfaces on GlassFish," is particularly relevant, as it’s a JSF-related session. Here’s the abstract:

  Ted will provide details on how to build and deploy rich web applications with Ajax and Ajax Push (aka Comet) and catch a glimpse of the future with an overview of JavaServer Faces 2.0.

  This presentation illustrates the fundamentals of Ajax Push, covering application design, development, and deployment, drawing on ICEfaces sample applications and implementation. Topics will include network protocols, application-level push APIs, GlassFish Grizzly integration, and the ramifications of the two-connection limit.

  Looking forward to JSF 2.0, we will cover Ajax integration, new scopes and annotations, and custom components.

  I had the opportunity to see Ted present Ajax Push (their term for Reverse Ajax or Comet, if you prefer those monikers) at last year’s JSFOne conference. The ICEfaces demos are very, very slick, and the level of simplicity they managed to achieve is absolutely amazing. If you have any interest in Ajax Push/Reverse Ajax/Comet, you should certainly attend this session. If you are currently using JSF, this is a really good example of the power of component-based frameworks like JSF.

2008

December

• A One-Man JSF 2 Blog Storm

  As the specification writing part of JSF 2 comes to a close, we’re getting a more complete implementation done on the reference implementation, Mojarra. One of the primary developers on Mojarra is Jim Driscoll (the other being Ryan Lubke, who has done such an excellent job on the 1.2 series). Jim, apparently, has been in a writing mood and has posted a number of very good (and small) posts on some of the features coming in JSF 2 (similar to Ryan’s series from earlier this year).

  I was about to start planning a smallish app, to be based on JSF 2, so I was perusing Jim’s entries, and it occurred to me that a list of the links would be helpful for those following JSF 2 but not Jim’s feed, so here it is. I hope it helps. :)

  • Writing a simple Composite Component with JSF 2.0

  • A simple Ajax JSF 2.0 example

  • JSF 2.0: Writing a Spinner component

  • JSF 2.0: Adding Styles to the Spinner Component

  • JSF 2.0: Writing fully reusable Ajax Component

  • Another JSF 2.0 Ajax Component: Editable Text

  • JSF 2.0: The Switchlist example

  • JSF 2.0: The f:ajax tag

  I know Jim has more planned, so subscribe to his feed. It should be well worth your time.

May

• Mojarra Scales 1.0 Release Candidate 1

  Today, I released the first release candidate for Mojarra Scales, the JSF component library I helped create. Rather than repeat myself, I’ll just paste the email announcement here:

2006

December

• JSF Component Writing Check List
  = JSF Component Writing Check List I've been doing a fair amount of JSF component writing of late, and, invariably, I miss one or more "minor" details, causing my component to explode in spectacular fashion at runtime. What follows, then, is a check list for writing JSF components, with notes on the differences between the 1.1 and 1.2 versions of the specification.