Creating JavaServer Faces Applications in Eclipse
In this article we will investigate how to create a simple application using JavaServer Faces (JSF) framework in the Eclipse IDE. First let us see what are the tools required to create our Hello World JSF application.
- JDK 1.5 above (download)
- Tomcat 5.x above or any other container (Glassfish, JBoss, Websphere, Weblogic etc) (download)
- Eclipse 3.2.x above (download)
- Sun Reference Implementation of JSF: (download). Following are the list of JAR files required for this application.
- jsf-impl.jar
- jsf-api.jar
- jstl.jar
- common-logging.jar
- common-beanutils.jar
- common-collections.jar
- common-chain.jar
- common-digester.jar
We will implement a JSF application with an Add User screen containing two fields, ID and User Name. Once the user has entered these values and pressed submit, she will be redirected to a welcome page displaying the user name.
Let us start with our first JSF based web application.
Step 1: Create Dynamic Web project
Open Eclipse and goto File -> New -> Project and select Dynamic Web Project in the New Project wizard screen.
Select Dynamic Web application and click Next.
Write the name of the project HelloWorldJSF. Once this is done, select the target runtime environment (e.g. Apache Tomcat v6.0). This is to run the project inside Eclipse environment. In configuration select JavaServer Faces v1.2 Project and press Next.
On Project Facets window, select Java 5 and JSF 1.2 and press Next.
Skip Web module window and press Next.
Select JSF component library. Click New in Component Libraries and add jstl.jar, jsf-api.jar and jsf-impl.jar. In URL Mapping Patterns add /faces/* and then click Finish.
Once the project is created, you can see its structure in Project Explorer.
Step 2: Create Package and Managed bean
Create a package net.viralpatel.jsf.helloworld in the source folder and create a Java file UserBean.java. Copy following content into UserBean.java.
package net.viralpatel.jsf.helloworld;
public class UserBean {
private int id;
private String name;
//Action method to add user
public String addUser() {
return "success";
}
public int getId() {
return id;
}
public void setId(int id) {
this.id = id;
}
public String getName() {
return name;
}
public void setName(String name) {
this.name = name;
}
}
Above is the Java class for a User bean that we will use to store our user’s information. This class acts like a form bean and action class. The addUser() method will get called when we click Add button on our Add User page.
Step 3: Create JSP files
Create two JSP files: AddUser.jsp and ListUser.jsp in WebContent folder. Copy following content in each of these files.
AddUser.jsp<%@taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" prefix="f"%>
<%@taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" prefix="h"%>
<html>
<head>
<title>Add New User Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<f:view>
<p>
<h:message id="errors" for="User_ID" style="color:red"/>
</p>
<h:form>
<h:panelGrid border="1" columns="2">
<h:outputText value="ID"></h:outputText>
<h:inputText id="User_ID" value="#{userBean.id}" required="true">
<f:validateLongRange minimum="1" maximum="500"/>
</h:inputText>
<h:outputText value="Name"></h:outputText>
<h:inputText value="#{userBean.name}"></h:inputText>
<h:commandButton action="#{userBean.addUser}"
value="Add Customer"></h:commandButton>
</h:panelGrid>
</h:form>
</f:view>
</body>
</html>
We have added a validation rule for ID using f:validateLongRange tag and required=”true” attribute. The ID must be between 1 and 500.
ListUser.jsp
<%@taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" prefix="f"%>
<%@taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" prefix="h"%>
<html>
<head>
<title>List of Users</title>
</head>
<body>
<f:view>
<h:form>
<h:outputText value="User #{userBean.name} is added successfully.">
</h:outputText>
</h:form>
</f:view>
</body>
</html>
Step 4: Modify faces-config.xml file
Open faces-config.xml from WebContent -> WEB-INF folder and copy following content into it.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <faces-config xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_1_2.xsd" version="1.2"> <managed-bean> <managed-bean-name>userBean</managed-bean-name> <managed-bean-class> net.viralpatel.jsf.helloworld.UserBean </managed-bean-class> <managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope> </managed-bean> <navigation-rule> <display-name>AddUser</display-name> <from-view-id>/AddUser.jsp</from-view-id> <navigation-case> <from-outcome>success</from-outcome> <to-view-id>/ListUser.jsp</to-view-id> </navigation-case> </navigation-rule> </faces-config>
In Faces config we have defined a managed bean UserBean with scope session and mapping from AddUser.jsp to ListUser.jsp.
Step 5: Execute and run the project
Final step is to execute the project and view it in browser.
For this, right click on Project Name in Project Explorer -> Run As -> Run on Server (Shortcut Alt+Shift+X, R).
Once you enter ID and Username and press Add User, following success screen will appear.
Download complete WAR file with source
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Comments
Martijn Verburg replied on Mon, 2009/02/23 - 7:22am
Chandra Lakshm... replied on Wed, 2009/02/25 - 7:12pm
Saju Sam replied on Tue, 2009/03/03 - 6:22pm
Saju Sam replied on Tue, 2009/03/03 - 6:49pm
in response to:
Chandra Lakshmipathy