Building JSF components with the Ajax4jsf CDK
This talk introduces the Ajax4jsf CDK, demonstrating how to setup a new JSF component project, how to author the component using the CDK descriptors, and how to bundle the component for use in another application. The resource framework in Ajax4jsf is also covered, which simplifies the task of serving JavaScript, CSS, and images necessary to support rich components.
For The pains of developing JSF components are fairly well documented. The extensible design of JSF components results in a plethora of required configuration files and classes which are reminiscent of EJB 2 artifacts (and no more fun to development and maintain). What's worse is that the rendered markup must be written in Java code, a step backwards towards Java servlets. Fortunately, the Ajax4jsf Component Development Kit (CDK) automates the task of creating the UI component and renderer classes from a single, descriptive XML configuration file and an accompanying JSP-style template. The Ajax4jsf CDK, a module of the RichFaces project, is a Maven 2-based development environment that takes away the monotonous coding and complexities of developing JSF components for both JSP and Facelets.
About Dan Allen
Dan Allen is a member of the Seam and Web Beans project teams at JBoss by Red Hat, author of Seam in Action and a frequent speaker at major industry conferences such as JavaOne, Devoxx, TSSJS, Jazoon and JSFOne. Dan is known for his passionate work, with nearly a decade of development experience using technologies that include Java frameworks (Seam, JSF, EJB3, Hibernate, Spring, Struts), testing frameworks (JUnit, TestNG), JavaScript and DOM scripting, CSS and page layouts, Maven 2, Ant, Groovy, and many others.
Quickly after graduating from college, Dan became captivated by the world of free and open source software (FOSS). His involvment in FOSS helped him transition into the software development industry. He soon discovered the combination of Linux and the Java EE platform to be the ideal blend on which to build his professional career. In his search for a robust Web framework, Dan discovered JBoss Seam, which was quickly granted this most coveted spot in his development toolbox. The rest, as they say, is history. Dan is also a dedicated open source and Linux advocate and blogs about his experiences regularly. You can keep up with his discoveries by subscribing to his blog at http://mojavelinux.com.
