Chapter 10

JavaServer Faces Technology

JavaServer Faces technology is a server-side user interface component framework for Java technology-based web applications.

The main components of JavaServer Faces technology are as follows:

• An API for representing UI components and managing their state; handling events, server-side validation, and data conversion; defining page navigation; supporting internationalization and accessibility; and providing extensibility for all these features

• Two JavaServer Pages (JSP) custom tag libraries for expressing UI components within a JSP page and for wiring components to server-side objects

The well-defined programming model and tag libraries significantly ease the burden of building and maintaining web applications with server-side UIs. With minimal effort, you can

• Drop components onto a page by adding component tags

• Wire component-generated events to server-side application code

• Bind UI components on a page to server-side data

• Construct a UI with reusable and extensible components

• Save and restore UI state beyond the life of server requests