Document Information

Preface

Part I Introduction

1.  Overview

2.  Using the Tutorial Examples

Part II The Web Tier

3.  Getting Started with Web Applications

4.  JavaServer Faces Technology

5.  Introduction to Facelets

What Is Facelets?

Developing a Simple Facelets Application

Creating a Facelets Application

Developing a Managed Bean

Creating Facelets Views

Configuring the Application

Running the guessnumber Facelets Example

To Build, Package, and Deploy the guessnumber Example Using NetBeans IDE

To Build, Package, and Deploy the guessnumber Example Using Ant

To Run the guessnumber Example

Using Facelets Templates

Web Resources

6.  Expression Language

7.  Using JavaServer Faces Technology in Web Pages

8.  Using Converters, Listeners, and Validators

9.  Developing with JavaServer Faces Technology

10.  JavaServer Faces Technology: Advanced Concepts

11.  Using Ajax with JavaServer Faces Technology

12.  Composite Components: Advanced Topics and Example

13.  Creating Custom UI Components and Other Custom Objects

14.  Configuring JavaServer Faces Applications

15.  Java Servlet Technology

16.  Uploading Files with Java Servlet Technology

17.  Internationalizing and Localizing Web Applications

Part III Web Services

18.  Introduction to Web Services

19.  Building Web Services with JAX-WS

20.  Building RESTful Web Services with JAX-RS

21.  JAX-RS: Advanced Topics and Example

Part IV Enterprise Beans

22.  Enterprise Beans

23.  Getting Started with Enterprise Beans

24.  Running the Enterprise Bean Examples

25.  A Message-Driven Bean Example

26.  Using the Embedded Enterprise Bean Container

27.  Using Asynchronous Method Invocation in Session Beans

Part V Contexts and Dependency Injection for the Java EE Platform

28.  Introduction to Contexts and Dependency Injection for the Java EE Platform

29.  Running the Basic Contexts and Dependency Injection Examples

30.  Contexts and Dependency Injection for the Java EE Platform: Advanced Topics

31.  Running the Advanced Contexts and Dependency Injection Examples

Part VI Persistence

32.  Introduction to the Java Persistence API

33.  Running the Persistence Examples

34.  The Java Persistence Query Language

35.  Using the Criteria API to Create Queries

36.  Creating and Using String-Based Criteria Queries

37.  Controlling Concurrent Access to Entity Data with Locking

38.  Using a Second-Level Cache with Java Persistence API Applications

Part VII Security

39.  Introduction to Security in the Java EE Platform

40.  Getting Started Securing Web Applications

41.  Getting Started Securing Enterprise Applications

42.  Java EE Security: Advanced Topics

Part VIII Java EE Supporting Technologies

43.  Introduction to Java EE Supporting Technologies

44.  Transactions

45.  Resources and Resource Adapters

46.  The Resource Adapter Example

47.  Java Message Service Concepts

48.  Java Message Service Examples

49.  Bean Validation: Advanced Topics

50.  Using Java EE Interceptors

Part IX Case Studies

51.  Duke's Bookstore Case Study Example

52.  Duke's Tutoring Case Study Example

53.  Duke's Forest Case Study Example

Index

 

Composite Components

JavaServer Faces technology offers the concept of composite components with Facelets. A composite component is a special type of template that acts as a component.

Any component is essentially a piece of reusable code that behaves in a particular way. For example, an input component accepts user input. A component can also have validators, converters, and listeners attached to it to perform certain defined actions.

A composite component consists of a collection of markup tags and other existing components. This reusable, user-created component has a customized, defined functionality and can have validators, converters, and listeners attached to it like any other component.

With Facelets, any XHTML page that contains markup tags and other components can be converted into a composite component. Using the resources facility, the composite component can be stored in a library that is available to the application from the defined resources location.

Table 5-3 lists the most commonly used composite tags and their functions.

Table 5-3 Composite Component Tags

Tag

Function

composite:interface

Declares the usage contract for a composite component. The composite component can be used as a single component whose feature set is the union of the features declared in the usage contract.

composite:implementation

Defines the implementation of the composite component. If a composite:interface element appears, there must be a corresponding composite:implementation.

composite:attribute

Declares an attribute that may be given to an instance of the composite component in which this tag is declared.

composite:insertChildren

Any child components or template text within the composite component tag in the using page will be reparented into the composite component at the point indicated by this tag’s placement within the composite:implementation section.

composite:valueHolder

Declares that the composite component whose contract is declared by the composite:interface in which this element is nested exposes an implementation of javax.faces.component.ValueHolder suitable for use as the target of attached objects in the using page.

composite:editableValueHolder

Declares that the composite component whose contract is declared by the composite:interface in which this element is nested exposes an implementation of javax.faces.component.EditableValueHolder suitable for use as the target of attached objects in the using page.

composite:actionSource

Declares that the composite component whose contract is declared by the composite:interface in which this element is nested exposes an implementation of javax.faces.component.ActionSource2 suitable for use as the target of attached objects in the using page.

For more information and a complete list of Facelets composite tags, see the documentation at http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/6/javaserverfaces/2.1/docs/vdldocs/facelets/.

The following example shows a composite component that accepts an email address as input:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
  xmlns:composite="http://java.sun.com/jsf/composite"
  xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html">

    <h:head>
        <title>This content will not be displayed</title>
    </h:head>
    <h:body>
        <composite:interface>
            <composite:attribute name="value" required="false"/>
        </composite:interface>

        <composite:implementation>
            <h:outputLabel value="Email id: "></h:outputLabel>
            <h:inputText value="#{cc.attrs.value}"></h:inputText>
        </composite:implementation>
    </h:body>
</html>

Note the use of cc.attrs.value when defining the value of the inputText component. The word cc in JavaServer Faces is a reserved word for composite components. The #{cc.attrs.attribute-name} expression is used to access the attributes defined for the composite component’s interface, which in this case happens to be value.

The preceding example content is stored as a file named email.xhtml in a folder named resources/emcomp, under the application web root directory. This directory is considered a library by JavaServer Faces, and a component can be accessed from such a library. For more information on resources, see Web Resources.

The web page that uses this composite component is generally called a using page. The using page includes a reference to the composite component, in the xml namespace declarations:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
  xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
  xmlns:em="http://java.sun.com/jsf/composite/emcomp">

    <h:head>
        <title>Using a sample composite component</title>
    </h:head>

    <body>
        <h:form>
            <em:email value="Enter your email id" />
        </h:form>
    </body>
</html>

The local composite component library is defined in the xmlns namespace with the declaration xmlns:em="http://java.sun.com/jsf/composite/emcomp". The component itself is accessed through the em:email tag. The preceding example content can be stored as a web page named emuserpage.xhtml under the web root directory. When compiled and deployed on a server, it can be accessed with the following URL:

http://localhost:8080/application-name/faces/emuserpage.xhtml