JBoss RichFaces 3.3Enhance your JSF web application using powerful AJAX components

What is RichFaces?

RichFaces is a very useful open source framework that allows you to add Ajax capability to your JSF application (using the standard JSF components) without the need to write JavaScript code and manage JavaScript compatibility between browsers.

It offers the very powerful skinnability feature to customizes the look and feel of your JSF applications

Contains a lot of Ajax-ready components

RichFaces provides two sets of component libraries:

Core Ajax: components which are useful to "ajaxize" JSF pages and standard JSF components.

UI: a set of advanced JSF Ajax components used to add rich user interface features to your applications.

Another feature included in the RichFaces framework is the Component Development Kit (CDK)—the set of tools used for UI library creation that can be used to make new components with built-in Ajax and skinnability support.

The Ajax framework

The framework architecture is composed of five parts:

1. Ajax Filter: add Ajax capabilities to your JSF application using RichFaces.

2. Ajax Action Components: standard JSF components that you can use in order to send Ajax requests.

3. Ajax Containers: describe an area ("region") of the page, which should be decoded during an Ajax request. The biggest region is the whole view of a JSF page, but you can define how many regions you want inside the page.

4. Skinnability: adds skinning capability to your application.

5. RichFaces JavaScript Engine: It runs on the client browser and manages Ajax requests and responses. It is automatically managed by the framework, so you don't have to use it directly.

Important conceptsThe following component attributes are very important and you can find them in all the Ajax-enabled components of the RichFaces framework:

reRender: In order to decide which area must be updated after an Ajax request.

ajaxRendered: If it is true, the area is updated after every Ajax request (even if it is not in the reRender attribute).

limitToList: In order to force the JavaScript Engine to update the areas only in the reRender attribute.

UI Components

The RichFaces framework contains many JSF components to add Ajax to our applications in a very simple way, without needing to know anything about JavaScript (but if you know it, you have more features to use the framework inside your personalized JS code).

There are a lot of components for different kinds of tasks (such as interaction, input, output, drag-and-drop, validation, and so on).

Some components

Skinnability example (1/2)

Skinnability example (2/2)

Where to start?

JBoss RichFaces 3.3Demetrio Filocamo

This book goes beyond the documentation to teach you how to get the most out of JBoss RichFaces by explaining the key components and how you can use them to enhance your applications.

Most importantly, you will learn while developing a real sample application how to integrate AJAX into your applications without using JavaScript but only standard JSF components.

You will create and customize your own components and add them to your new or existing applications.

http://www.packtpub.com/jboss-richfaces-3-3

More in detail (1/2)First, the book introduces you to JBoss RichFaces and its components.

It uses many examples of AJAX components which, among others, include: Calendar, Data Table, ToolTip, ToolBar, Menu, RichEditor, Drag'n'Drop and more.

All these components will help you create the web site you always imagined.

Key aspects of the RichFaces framework such as the AJAX framework, skinnability, and CDK (Component Development Kit) will help you customize the look of your web application.

More in detail (2/2)As you progress through the book, you will see a sample application that shows you how to build an advanced contact manager.

You're also going to be amazed to know about the advanced topics you will learn like developing new components, new skins, optimizing a web application, inserting components dynamically using Java instead of XHTML, and using JavaScript to manage components.

This book is more than a reference with component example code: it's a manual that will guide you, step-by-step, through the development of a real AJAX JSF web application.

“Will I like it?”YESNO

Charts never lie! ;)

http://www.packtpub.com/jboss-richfaces-3-3

About the authorDemetrio Filocamo is a computer science engineer with more then 10 years of experience on both Desktop and Web applications development.

He works as a freelance in London and collaborates with some companies and universities in Italy.

Demetrio has been developing Enterprise Java Applications using open source solutions for the last five years.