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This application will make you understand how Model(M), View(V), Controller(C) architecture is implemented in Java Server Faces. This application will make use of UI components, Validator, Navigation and Bean component available with JSF. This application has the following pre-requisites:

  • WTP 2.0.1 - Download for wtp-all-in-one-sdk-win32

Briefly describing the application, this application will take a user First Name and Last Name. Later these fields will be validated by JSF and using the controller bean and Navigation rule the output will be displayed. This application will also introduce a UI component which is a submit button.

The application development will take you through the following

  1. Setting Eclipse for Application development 
  2. Define and implement the application Model(M)
  3. Define and implement Model(M) objects to Controller
  4. Define and implement View(V) in application
  5. Define and implement the Validator component
  6. Define and implement the View navigation by Controller(C)

Once you have all the pre-requisites installed follow the following steps to create a project with Eclipse

  1. Setting Eclipse for Application development
  • Launch Eclipse and Create a dynamic web project as shown in the figure

Unable to render embedded object: File (CreateWebProject.gif) not found.

  • Give the fields for the Web Project as shown in the following figure
    Unable to render embedded object: File (WebProjectFields.GIF) not found.
  • Check the box for JavaServerFaces and under the version tab select 1.2 as the version
    Unable to render embedded object: File (ProjectFileds.GIF) not found.
  • Once done you can give default values for web module and Geronimo Deployment Plan. On the JSF capabilities window check the box and select new as shown in the figure
    Unable to render embedded object: File (JSFCapabilities.GIF) not found.
  • The next window suggests to create JSF Implementation library. Give the library name as JSFCustomLibrary and add the following jars. Select Finish once done. See the figure below
  • <GERONIMO_HOME>\repository\commons-beanutils\commons-beanutils\1.6.1\commons-beanutils-1.6.1.jar
  • <GERONIMO_HOME>\repository\commons-collections\commons-collections\3.1\commons-collections-3.1.jar
  • <GERONIMO_HOME>\repository\commons-digester\commons-digester\1.8\commons-digester-1.8.jar
  • <GERONIMO_HOME>\repository\commons-logging\commons-logging\1.0.4\commons-logging-1.0.4.jar
  • <GERONIMO_HOME>\repository\org\apache\myfaces\core\myfaces-api\1.2.2\myfaces-api-1.2.2.jar
  • <GERONIMO_HOME>\repository\org\apache\myfaces\core\myfaces-impl\1.2.2\myfaces-impl-1.2.2.jar!JSFCustomLibrary.GIF!
    Unable to render embedded object: File (JSFCustomLibrary.GIF) not found.
  • Check Deploy and modify the URL pattern to *.jsf as shown in the figure. Select Finish.

       Unable to render embedded object: File (EclipseSetUpFinal.GIF) not found.
This finishes the setting up of Eclipse IDE for application development

    2. Define and Implement the application Model(M)

Model as suggested by MVC architecture handles data and logic of the application. In an enterprise application, Java Beans are used to represent collection of data and operation on that data. In JSF we use Java Beans to define the Model.

  • Under the project explorer right click on the SimpleJSF project and create a new class

Unable to render embedded object: File (Model1.GIF) not found.

  • Fill the New Java Class form with jsf as the package name and FirstName as the bean class name. Select Finish once done.

Unable to render embedded object: File (Model2.GIF) not found.

  • Add the following code to the bean class.

String username;
public String getName()

Unknown macro: { return username ; }

public void setName(String name)

Unknown macro: { username=name; }

* Create a second Bean class LastName and add the following code to the class String lastname; public String getLName()

Unknown macro: { return lastname; }

   
    public void setLName(String lname)
   

Unknown macro: { lastname=lname; }

This completes the Model definition and implementation of bean class. 

    3. Define and implement Model(M) objects to Controller

  • In an JSF application controller is implemented by a configuration file WebContent/WEB-INF/faces-config.xml. Double Click on the file. This will open a Faces Configuration Editor.

Unable to render embedded object: File (ModelController.GIF) not found.

  • Select the ManagedBean tab in the editor. Choose Managed Bean of scope request and select Add. 

Unable to render embedded object: File (ModelController2.GIF) not found.

  • Using the existing java class option, select Browse. Give the search element as FirstName and select ok.

Unable to render embedded object: File (ModelController3.GIF) not found.

  •  Select Finish on the next window. Similarly add the other bean LastName. Now select the Source tab in the Faces configuration Editor. It displays the bean components(Model) in the controller.
    Unable to render embedded object: File (ModelController4.GIF) not found.

This completes the description of Model to Controller.
    4. Define and implement View(V) in application

  • Right Click on WebContent and create a New Folder with the name pages
    Unable to render embedded object: File (View.GIF) not found.
  • Right Click on pages folder and create a jsp page login.jsp. Select Finish.
    Unable to render embedded object: File (View2.GIF) not found.
  • Similarly create another jsp page welcome.jsp.
  • Moving forward now we now have to include Tag Library Descriptors(TLD) in our application.

Geronimo comes packaged with the TLD's required for application. The TLD's can be found in

<GERONIMO_HOME>\repository\org\apache\myfaces\core\myfaces-impl\1.2.2\myfaces-impl-1.2.2.jar\META-INF\myfaces-html.tld

and

<GERONIMO_HOME>\repository\org\apache\myfaces\core\myfaces-impl\1.2.2\myfaces-impl-1.2.2.jar\META-INF\myfaces_core.tld

To add these two TLD's in the application, In Eclipse Under project Explorer right click on WEB-INF. Create a folder tld. Copy  myfaces-html.tld and myfaces_core.tld to this folder.

  • Next step is to populate login.jsp and welcome.jsp with data

Login.jsp

<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/tld/myfaces-html.tld" prefix="h" %>
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/tld/myfaces_core.tld" prefix="f" %>

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title>Welcome to Apache Geronimo</title>
</head>
<body>
<f:view>
     <h1>
      <h:outputText value="Welcome to Apache Geronimo"/>
     </h1>
     <h:form id="helloForm">
      <br><h:outputText value="Enter your first name"/>
      <br><h:inputText value="#

Unknown macro: {firstName.name}

" />

Welcome.jsp

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>

<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/tld/myfaces-html.tld" prefix="h" %>
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/tld/myfaces_core.tld" prefix="f" %>

Welcome

,

Lets now try to understand what each line of code represents.The first two lines in login.jsp defines two tag libraries<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/tld/myfaces-html.tld" prefix="h" %><%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/tld/myfaces_core.tld" prefix="f" %>These two sets of tags are defined by JSF. First one with the namespace "h" is used to generate html views. Second one with the namespace "f" handles the core functionalities of JSF like type conversions, validations and listeners for input from user.
The next few lines contains the usual html definitions

Welcome to Apache Geronimo

The next tagrepresents the start of JSF codeThe tagis to output data on the formConsider the code

this piece of code come from. Earlier we have defined a Java Bean FirstName . Going back to Faces Configuration Editor, Under Managed Bean tag select firstName bean. This will display the configuration of Managed Bean. The Managed Bean name is firstName as shown in the figure
This completes the implementation of View(V) in the application. The other tags <f:validateLength and <h:commandButton will be explained in the next section.

5. Define the Validator Component
The <f:validateLength minimum="4" maximum="10"/> defines the input text length to be minimum of 4 characters and maximum of 10 characters. This is the standard validation provided by core tag libraries. Other examples of validators are Validate Long Range Tag, Validate Double Range Tag etc. JSF also provides a Validator interface which can be implemented to create custom validators.

The code <h:message for="" style="color: red;"/> defines the error message. When the user inputs the controller Validates each of the inputs. If the inputs are invalid Controller displays the same page again with an error message for the errors. The color:red suggests that the error message will be displayed in red color.

6. Define and implement the View navigation by Controller(C)

This step suggests the JSP page navigation in the order of user inputs and validation by controller.  If all the inputs are valid than the controller performs the action as suggested by the HTML form. This action is submitted by the HTML for as a command button.

The code in the input.jsp <h:commandButton id="submit" action="validated" value="Enter" /> suggests that if all the inputs are valid. This is the button which submits the form to controller if all inputs are valid.

In this case the commandButton tells the controller to execute the validated action if all the inputs are valid.

The pages navigation in a JSF is defined by faces-config.xml. Follow the underlined steps to define the pages navigation.

  • Launch the Faces Configuration Editor by double clicking on faces-config.xml
  • Select the Navigation tab in the Configuration Editor. Under the Palette window select Page. This will select a GUI object, page.
    Unable to render embedded object: File (ViewController.GIF) not found.
  • Drag the mouse over the Navigation Rule Window and click on the window. This will give a Select JSP file window. Select login.jsp as shown in the figure and select OK.
    Unable to render embedded object: File (ViewController2.GIF) not found.
  • Similarly add the welcome.jsp page on the Navigation Rule window. See the figure below
    Unable to render embedded object: File (ViewController3.GIF) not found.
  • Select Link from the Palette window and join the two pages as shown in the figure
    !
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