JSF 2 - construct a page from two files - main and current content - java

I'm quite new to using JSF and I'm not sure if that's the right way to go, but in Rails you usually have a main application file into which the current page is loaded. That way I don't have to worry about copy-pasting the menu, etc. every time.
How can I achieve that with JSF 2? Can I navigate to the same main page every time and tell it to load a current content? Or do I tell the current page that I navigate to to load the "main frame around the content"?
Thanks!

Yes of course, JSF 2.0 has page-templating feature. You define a template that defines a generic layout to all the view pages.
Facelets tags to create basic page:
ui:insert – defines content that is going to replace by the file that load the template;
ui:define – defines content that is inserted into tag ui:insert;
ui:include – includes content from another page;
ui:composition – the specified template is loaded, if used with template attribute, and the children of this tag defines the template layout. In other case, it’s a group of elements, that can be inserted somewhere.
For example:
<ui:composition
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
template="/templates/myLayout.xhtml">
<ui:define name="menu">
<ui:include src="/mypath/menu.xhtml"/>
</ui:define>
<ui:define name="content">
<ui:include src="/mypath/content.xhtml"/>
</ui:define>
</ui:composition>
or
<ui:insert name="content">
<ui:include src="/mypath/mycontent.xhtml"/>
</ui:insert>

JSF doesn't support what you want to archive. Instead, it support the views and basic layout(template). What you need it this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ui:composition xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
template="path/to/template.xhtml>
<your custom content here/>
<ui:composition/>

Related

Templates in JavaServer Faces 2.0

I'm trying for the first time to use templates with JSF 2.0 with Eclipse, but I'm having problems.
The original index.xhtml page works correctly, and when I click on a button, everything works fine. However, if I change the index page so that it uses a template file it no longer works properly. The modified index.xhtml page is here:
<ui:composition xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
template="/templates/main-template.xhtml">
<ui:define name="title">
Simulator using JSF 2.0 - Test Version 2
</ui:define>
<ui:define name="header">
Home Page of the Simulator using JSF 2.0 - Test Version 2
</ui:define>
<ui:define name="body">
Click on the button to select the required option
<h:outputText value="and login" rendered="#{!login.loggedIn}"/>
<h:form prependId="false">
<h:commandButton value="Option 1" action="#{login.option1}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Option 2" action="#{login.option2}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Option 3" action="#{login.option3}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Logout" disabled="#{!login.loggedIn}" action="#{login.logout}"/>
</h:form>
</ui:define>
</ui:composition>
and the template file, main.template.xhtml, is in the sub-folder templates, is here:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html">
<h:head>
<title>
<ui:insert name="title">Title</ui:insert>
</title>
</h:head>
<h:body>
<ui:insert name="header">Header</ui:insert>
<br/>
We are in template.xhtml
<br/>
<ui:insert name="body">Body</ui:insert>
</h:body>
</html>
If I remove all code with the "h" tags in index.xhtml, the file picks up correctly the code in templates/main-template.xhtml, so the path is correct. However, if I include code with the "h" tags, as is here, Eclipse complains that the tags are not recognized and the page fails.
If I include the line xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" at the top, then Eclipse recognized the "h" tags and the page is correctly rendered, but the application fails when I click a button, and returns the error:
javax.servlet.ServletException: javax.el.PropertyNotFoundException:
/index.xhtml #15,68 action="#{login.option1}": Target Unreachable,
identifier 'login' resolved to null
Perhaps somehow the line xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" in the template file is messing things up, but the whole idea of templates is to include as much common code in a template file.
Does anybody have any idea what is going on, and what the solution to this is?
The web.xml and faces-config.xml are standard, and don't think anything has to be done with them.
Your idea of how templates should work seems correct, but there are some points that we should clarify. Maybe this would help you:
Namespaces
About namespaces, whenever you use a tag library in a page, you should declare it's namespace. Even if you're using templates and you've declared them in your template. You could think that namespace declarations are not inherited, if it helps.
In this case I see that you index.xhtml page is using h:commandButton but hasn't declared its namespace.
Beans
For a bean to be found by EL you should have the following:
A class annotated with #ManagedBean importing from javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean package, like this:
import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
#ManagedBean
#ViewScoped
public class Login
{
// ...
}
In this case your bean should be found by EL by the name login, by convention. (Decapitalize the first letter of your class name)
Or you could give it a name:
import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
#ManagedBean(name="login")
#ViewScoped
public class MyLoginBean
{
// ...
}
In this case, by convention it would be called myLoginBean but we gave it a name, in this case login, so EL should find it by the name login.
If you want to use CDI instead of plain JSF, you could use #Named annotation to define how your bean should be found by EL, following the same naming convention.
import javax.inject.Named;
import javax.enterprise.context.RequestScoped;
#Named(value="login")
#RequestScoped
public class MyLoginBean
{
// ...
}
Remember that data that you want EL to find and change must have the proper getters and setters.
Hint
I would kindly suggest that you create simpler code in order to test funcionality. In this case you could test templating first and then bean, actions, etc...
I hope it helps.

primefaces components not working with own css

i am using ready-made template(with css and j-queries) in my java ee app. all the primefaces components are rendered properly except the panelgrid control of primefaces 3.2.
it is displayed with border. i want it without border.
i have removed all the table styling from the css of custom ready-made template.
still the border is there.
when i remove the readymade template, the panelgrid is rendered perfectly without any border. how do i remove the border and what is the cause of this problem?
edited:
xhtml file:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
xmlns:p="http://primefaces.org/ui">
<h:head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>AP administration panel - A massive administration panel</title>
</h:head>
<h:body>
<div>
<h:form>
<p:panelGrid columns="2" style="border: none">
<h:outputText value="scrip symbol"/>
<p:inputText value=""/>
<p:commandButton value="submit"/>
</p:panelGrid>
</h:form>
</div>
</h:body>
</html>
When overriding PrimeFaces default styles, you have to specify a CSS selector of at least the same strength or to specify a stronger selector. The strength of a CSS selector (the cascading rules) is specified in the W3 CSS specification and clearly explained in this article: Understanding Style Precedence in CSS: Specificity, Inheritance, and the Cascade.
Based on PrimeFaces own CSS, the following selectors should do:
.ui-panelgrid tr, .ui-panelgrid td {
border: none;
}
Just put them in a .css file which you include by <h:outputStylesheet> inside the beginning of the <h:body> so that it will be included after PrimeFaces own style.
<h:body>
<h:outputStylesheet name="layout.css" />
...
</h:body>
See also:
How to remove border from specific PrimeFaces p:panelGrid?
How do I override default PrimeFaces CSS with custom styles?
Update: As per your update, your CSS doesn't seem to be loaded at all. You should have noticed this by verifying the HTTP traffic in browser builtin webdeveloper toolset (press F12 in Chrome/IE9/Firebug) and seeing that it returned a HTTP 404 error. When using <h:outputStylesheet> you need to put the CSS file in the /resources folder of the webcontent. So you must have a /resources/css/mycss.css in order to be able to use <h:outputStylesheet name="css/mycss.css" />.
See also:
How to reference CSS / JS / image resource in Facelets template?

How include page in JSF?

i'm new in jsf, i would like to know how i can reuse others .jsf pages without 'copy paste' them.
In .jsp i do:
// head.jsp
<head> ... </head>
// top.jsp
<body> ... </body>
Then i include them in my new .jsp
// index.jsp
<%#include file="head.jsp" %>
<%#include file="top.jsp" %>
...
How can i do this with jsf ?
i'm trying this way:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets">
<h:head>
<ui:include src="components/head.xhtml" />
</h:head>
<h:body>
<ui:include src="components/top.xhtml" />
</h:body>
</html>
But is not working..
Any idea ?
Best regards,
Valter Henrique.
Facelets is the default view technology for JSF2, so I would use its <ui:include> tag here. Make sure your paths are correct - they should start with webapp root, one containing WEB-INF - and also make sure the included facelets contain <ui:composition> tag around the included content. Anything outside this tag will be ignored.
Try looking for the "import" tag in the core library.
I think ui:include might be for facelets rather than plain jsf.

Partial rendering JSF components

dwelling over how to partial render (divs), by including different source files (with panels and components). Depending on menu actions. If understood the JSF phases correctly, the View is rebuilt during the Render Response, the last phase. And if I have events and actions, they will be invoked during the Invoke Application phase, the phase before.
All I want to do is to set the including xhtml page for a specific menu command via ajax, before the View is re-rendered. But the ui:include always get invoked before the menu action. I've tried with richfaces 4 (a4j:param, rich:panel, etc) and standard JSF 2.0 (f:param, h:panelGroup) components, but the the ui:include always get invoked before the action.
What should I do to process the menu action (to set the including page), before the ui:include gets invoked?
PS. This must be the standard patter, instead of including static content. But I find very few examples on this on the net ?!
Menu.xhtml
<rich:toolbar itemSeparator="line">
...
<rich:dropDownMenu mode="ajax">
<f:facet name="label">
<h:panelGroup>
<h:outputText value="Menu 1" />
</h:panelGroup>
</f:facet>
<rich:menuItem id="newActivityMenu" action="#{navigationBean.menuAction}" render="content" label="New">
<a4j:param id="newActivityParam" name="includeContentPage" value="/user/Create.xhtml" />
</rich:menuItem>
...
NavigationBean.Java
#ManagedBean
#RequestScoped
public class NavigationBean {
public String menuAction() {
String param = JsfUtil.getRequestParameter("includeContentPage");
this.includedContentPage = param;
JsfUtil.log(this, "Including Content Page : " +param);
FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().renderResponse();
return "";
}
public String getIncludedContentPage() {
if(includedContentPage == null)
return "";
else if(!includedContentPage.endsWith(".xhtml"))
includedContentPage += ".xhtml";
JsfUtil.log(this, "Get Content Page : " +includedContentPage);
return includedContentPage;
}
layoutClient.xhtml
...
<ui:define name="top">
<ui:include src="/resources/viewComponents/menuTop.xhtml"/>
</ui:define>
<ui:define name="content">
<ui:include src="#{navigationBean.includedContentPage}"/>
</ui:define>
...
masterLayout.xhtml (added)
...
<h:body>
<div id="top" >
<ui:insert name="top">Top Default</ui:insert>
</div>
<div id="left">
<ui:insert name="left">Left Default</ui:insert>
</div>
<ui:insert name="content">Content Default</ui:insert>
</h:body>
..
You must have a template page as well since you are defining top and content in layoutClient.xhtml so I think you are trying to be too general with the layoutClient.xhtml page as it appears to be functioning as a template as well. Lets assume your template page is called template.xhtml. The standard pattern you eluded to is to make your template page something like this:
template.xhtml
...
<ui:insert name="top">
<ui:include src="/resources/viewComponents/menuTop.xhtml"/>
</ui:insert>
...
<ui:insert name="content" />
...
This means that all your pages contain the menu at the 'top' (by default, they can override this) and that they must specify their own content, which makes sense.
Now, instead of trying to make a page like layoutClient.xhtml that does tricky stuff to determine which content is inserted, create each page seperately like this:
page1.xhtml
<ui:composition template="template.xhtml">
...
<ui:define name="content">
<p>This is a page that defines some content and also includes my menu that it inherits from template.xhtml</p>
</ui:define>
...
</ui:composition>
page2.xhtml
<ui:composition template="template.xhtml">
...
<ui:define name="content">
<p>This is another page that defines some content and also includes my menu that it inherits from template.xhtml</p>
</ui:define>
...
</ui:composition>
Both of these pages inherit your menu and put the content in the appropriate place.
With that kind of configuration, all your menuAction() method needs to do is return a link to page1.xhtml or page2.xhtml. Also, you don't need any complex use of parameters or manual calls to renderResponse() or a4j:param tags!

How to define an onLoad function in JSF template that will be defined elsewhere

I'm designing the view for my site, which has a standard login and landing page, and I want to have an onLoad function called for my login page, but not for my other pages (yet). I've got a template.xhtml file, which has this insert:
<div id="content">
<ui:insert name="content"/>
</div>
Then in login.xhtml I have:
<ui:define name="content">
...
</ui:define>
Normally I would put this in login.xhtml:
<body onload="document.getElementById('login_form:name').focus();">
But since I'm using JSF's ui composition tags, I can't have the <body/> tag in login.xhtml (at least the way I am attempting to do it).
Is there a way to accomplish this with the structure I've described? The way I would think of doing it is to have onLoad call a function in the template, and then each page with ui:define would populate this function. Is that possible?
Thanks!
I can think of at least two ways:
define the header section with <ui:define name="header">, and put a javascript function (function bodyLoaded(){..}) in it - different on every page, and then reference it via <body onload="bodyLoaded();">
use facelets params. I.e. <body onload="#{onLoadJS}"/> and on each page including the template use <ui:param name="onLoadJS" value="document.getElementById(..)" />

Categories