Introduction to JavaServer Faces

1. What is JSF

JavaServer Faces (JSF) is a UI component based Java Web

application framework. JSF is serverbased, e.g. the JSF UI

components and their state are represented on the server with

a defined life-cycle of the UI components. JSF is part of the

Java EE standard.

2. Prerequisites to use JSF

To use JSF you need:

JSF Implementation (in the form of the JSF jars)
The JSTL tags library
A Java runtime environment
A web-container to use JSF in (for example Tomcat)

3. JSF Main features

JSP has the following main features:

1.JSP is based on the Model-View-Controller concept

2.JSP has a stateful UI component model, e.g. each

component is aware of its data.

3.JSF separates the functionality of a component from

the display of the component. The renderer is responsible

of displaying the component for a certain client. This renderer

can get exchanged. The standard renderer for JSF components

is the HTML renderer.

4.JSP support listeners on UI components

5.JSP support data validation, data binding and data conversion

between the UI and the model

4. JSF configuration files

4.1. Overview

JSF is based on the following configuration files:

web.xml - General web application configuration file
faces-config.xml - Contains the configuration of the JSF application.

4.2. web.xml

JSF requires the central configuration list web.xml in the

directory WEB-INF of the application. This is similar to other

web-applications which are based on servlets.You must specify

in web.xml that a

1.FacesServlet is responsible for handling JSF applications.

2.FacesServlet is the central controller for the JSF application.

3.FacesServlet receives all requests for the JSF application

and initializes the JSF components before the JSP is displayed.