RichFaces and Facelets, a good combo? - jsf

I've been programming using RichFaces and JSF for quite some time now, and like the features that Facelets offer (especially as part of JSF 2), but haven't used it yet. Are there any gotchas to watch out for or incompatibilities between RichFaces and Facelets? I use A4J ajax functionality a lot as part of RichFaces, so I am concerned about that also.
Thanks in advance.

Keep in mind that Facelets is just a view layer for JSF 2. JSF2 and RichFaces have some incompatibilities. Check this to see a list of them:
http://community.jboss.org/wiki/RichFaces333andJSF20
RichFaces used with standalone Facelets (I currently use 1.1.14) works great.

The RichFaces demo application uses Facelets, so I'd even say it's recommended.

I'd go a bit further and say that not using Facelets with JSF is crazy.
It's such a handy framework. No wonder they used many concepts from it for JSF2.

We use them together without any problem. I have not encountered any gotchas.

No worry about this combination, it's definitely the way to go with JSF !

I'm used configuration: richfaces4 + facelets + netbeans 6.9, and the only problem detected betwen facelets and rich is a two(2) click for ajax or include page dynamic

Related

What is an alternative of a4j:JsFunction in JSF 2.0?

I am new to JSF 2.0.
My current project is build on JSF 1.3 and Richfaces 3.3.
We are trying to migrate to JSF 2.0.
There is limitation to not use Richface 3.3 or 4.0 in Current Project or any third party tool/library. Our goal is to only use JSF 2.0 functionality/feature.
In my project there is lot of use of
<a4j:jsFunction data="action" oncomplete="JavaScriptFunction(data); >
<a4j:actionaram name="nm" assignTo="#beanName.methodName"> </a4j:actionparam>
</a4j:jsFunction>
I want to remove this type of a4j:jsFunction with h:commandButton or
any jsf 2.0 standard mechanism.
I am not able to find out best way to call Bean function which return some value and assign this return value to JavaScript function.
JSF 1.3? I thought 1.2 was the latest?
On to your question. The idea to only use JSF 2.x is invalid and you should have the decision maker reconsider because skimping on OmniFaces will impede your productivity and the general code quality.
The way I see it you have three choices:
OmniFaces
Click button with display:none using javascript. Said button can have f:ajax as a child
Rip o:commandScript http://showcase.omnifaces.org/components/commandScript it's open source.
I can fully understand that a company today says no to Primefaces or Richfaces and honestly I would recommend it for many applications. Omnifaces however is to be seen as a proper for JSF.

Iterating over a list in JSF 1.2

Is there any way of iterating over a list in JSF 1.2 without using any third party components? I know I can do it using Tomahawk. I also know that it can be done using JSTL, but I am keeping that as my last resort. Also I cannot use <ui:repeat> since we are using JSF 1.2. Is there any elegant way like <ui:repeat> to do it in jsf 1.2?
The only JSF 1.2 component which can iterate over a List is the <h:dataTable>.
In JSP, the only other "standard" (i.e. not "3rd party") tag which can iterate over a List is the JSTL <c:forEach>. Using JSTL shouldn't harm that much if the List which you'd like to iterate over is already available during view build time. You'll only run into trouble when it's only available during view render time, for example because it's been nested in a <h:dataTable> and should be iterating over a property of table's var. This just won't work due to reasons also mentioned in JSTL in JSF2 Facelets... makes sense?
There are no other ways without using a 3rd party library such as Tomahawk's <t:dataList>, unless you're open to reinventing the wheel by creating a custom UIComponent yourself. This is however not a trivial job.
It's however possible to integrate Facelets 1.x in JSF 1.2. A guide is described in the Facelets 1.x docbook. This is only going to be quite some of work if you already have an existing JSF application using JSP as view technology; you'd need to convert JSP to Facelets. But it'll in end make the upgrade path to JSF 2.x so much easier. See also a.o. Migrating from JSF 1.2 to JSF 2.0 and Why Facelets is preferred over JSP as the view definition language from JSF2.0 onwards?

<button> with JSF 1.2

Simple question:
Is there any way of rendering a html <button>-element using JSF or any other framework (RichFaces, Tomahawk etc.)? Or would I have resort to writing a custom component for this?
No, there isn't. Since a <button> is usually only used in GET requests, you can also just put it plain vanilla in the JSF template. You don't need to bind any action to a JSF managed bean anyway.
In JSF 2.0, there's by the way the <h:button> which renders a GET button and offers the option to include view parameters and/or to perform implicit navigation. Both features aren't available in JSF 1.2, so there's not really a point of having similar component in JSF 1.2 anyway.
On the other hand, if you actually intend to use a <button> to invoke a POST managed bean action method, then you should really be using a <h:commandButton> instead. If you're having a specific problem with it for which you thought that using <button> was the solution, then you'd need to reframe your question to elaborate in more detail about that specific problem so that we can answer how to achieve the same with <h:commandButton>.

Migrating from JSF1.2 to JSF2.0: What to do with JSTL?

we are going to migrate our JSF 1.2 project to JSF 2. We are already using facelets (not JSPs) as our presentation technology.
We are using lot of JSTL -> "xmlns:c="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core"
We are using lot of <c:if> statements. I know that JSF2 brings rendered attribute, which should also evaluate boolean expressions.
Should I bother rewriting stuff to new rendered attribute or is it ok to continue using JSTL in JSF2?
JSTL works the same way in JSF2 as it worked in JSF1. The rendered attribute is not JSF2 specific, it has been in JSF all the lifetime long. If those JSTL tags have always worked as intended in your JSF 1.2 application, then you don't necessarily need to migrate them for JSF2. You only need to change the taglib uri to include the /jsp (!!) path.
xmlns:c="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"
However, whenever possible, using the rendered attribute definitely is more recommended than relying on JSTL tags. For sure if you plan to bind JSTL tag attributes to a #ViewScoped bean. See also Communication in JSF 2.0 - #ViewScoped fails in taghandlers.

JSF and PrimeFaces Strategy

What is or could be a best practice?
Using standard JSF components and combine them by PrimeFaces components when needed (for example when DHTML or AJAX components are needed)
Forget all JSF Components and try to use all PrimeFaces components as much as possible
Please explain it and tell me about your experiences.
Thanks in advance...
PrimeFaces is your AJAX framework, so if you need to send ajaxical request, then use PrimeFaces components.
Even though, you dont need to send ajax request, but you can still use PF component, if u need to provide a consistency look for your web page. For example, h:commandButton and p:commandButton. Use p:commandButton if u need to send ajax request, but u can also do this
<p:commandButton ajax="false" action="Your Action here"/>
This will provide the same result as:
<h:commandButton action="Your Action here"/>
but this way, you can provide the same consistent look for your button throughout the page.
PrimeFaces does not have replacements for h:panelGrid, h:panelGroup, h:inputText, h:outputText ...
Depends on the sole functional requirement. If you're already using PrimeFaces and whatever you want to achieve can better/easier be achieved using a PrimeFaces component, use it.
Option 1 comes close, but option 2 goes overboard. PrimeFaces for example doesn't have a <p:form>, <p:panelGroup>, <p:outputText> or something.
With Primefaces it's very easy to get a consistent look for your application since it comes with Themeroller CSS framework. And you can easily switch designs. Although it is not difficult to let plain jsf components look like primefaces components if you apply the right css classes.
I think primefaces is a great component library. However some components are still buggy (e.g. date picker). So if you get some unexpected behavior with a primefaces component, it is alway good to have a jsf fallback (or an alternative from another component library or from jquery).
I have no experience with mixing different component libraries. Would be interesting to know, how they interact. But that would be subject of another question ...

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