JavaServer Faces Programming

Target AudienceDevelopers who want to start using JavaServer Faces (JSF) technology for their web applicationsContentsThis is a comprehensive tutorial on the JSF technology, how it works, and how to code an application using it.The book has the following chapters: Overview Of Java Web Technologies; Introduction To JavaServer Faces; Objects For Request Processing; The User Interface Component Model; JSF Simple Components; JSF Advanced Components; JSF Event Handling; Page Navigation; Validators; Converters; Internationalization And Localization; Renderers; Custom User Interface Components; Online Store Application; The Application Configuration File; Summing Up: How JSF Works; The JSP 2.0 Expression Language; The JSP Standard Tag Library; Installing And Configuring Tomcat 5; The Web Application Deployment DescriptorReviewJavaServer Faces technology is gaining steam in the Java community as a standard framework for building web applications, much like Struts has become. If this is a primary part of your development activity, you'll need to get up to speed on how JSF works. This book will help you get started.Budi starts by reviewing servlet and javaserver page concepts, which is what JSF is based on. Once that area is reviewed, he starts with the basics of JSF coding and gives you plenty of examples of how they are coded. To me, the writing style and examples are clear and appropriate for someone just starting out in this area. The chapters build on each other and it all comes together in chapter 14 where an entire online application is built. After working your way through the book, you should have a basic mastery of the technology. With a little additional research, I found that there is a later release of the technology (JSF beta 1) that supercedes the release on which this book was written (JSF Early Access 4). Not yet being a JSF wizard, I can't tell you how much of a difference that will make in the accuracy of the information presented. The author has updated the examples on his web site to work with the beta 1 version, so be prepared for some of the examples to work a little differently than what you see in print. Unfortunately that's one of the drawbacks in trying to get a book in print about a technology who's foundational concepts are still in development. That's probably why they call it the "bleeding edge of technology".ConclusionI thought this was a well-written, understandable book on an emerging technology. Just keep in mind that what you currently read and what may be in the final release could change.

Like most programmers, I purchase a book for 1 or 2 chapters. I read this book cover to cover. It is written in a tutorial style that introduces a complete application in the second chapter. The remaining chapters spend time detailing individual components of the application.JSF is a very broad topic - not difficult, just broad. There are many different pieces that a programmer must put into place to get even the simplest application up and going. The Sun tutorial tries to force all of this information down your throat in one big chunk. This book, however, provides a working example early on. Then spends most of the remainder of the book looking at each piece of JSF individually - in small enough pieces that one can actually digest it and understand it.Budi took a topic that is large enough to be very confusing and made it simple to learn. I wish he had written a book on CORBA 10 years ago when I learned that! :-))The book is written using an Early Access release of JSF. I had no trouble getting all of the examples to work, without modification, on the version of JSF that comes with the Sun Web Services Developer Pack. After I had purchased the book, Sun released a separate Beta version of JSF which did change several of the JSP taglibs that JSF relies on. Budi provided updated samples of all of the applications in the book. I did however, go through the exercise of manually converting the original EA code to work with the Beta release to make sure I understood the concepts. That was a very good exercise.In short, this book has certainly been worth the price I paid for it - something that I do not often say about computer books. I look forward to his next book on Tomcat.

I bought this book last month, registered it at the author's web site, and minutes later received the sample applications in my mailbox. It was not until yesterday this wonderfully written book got my full attention. I received the updates for the more recent JSF version, JSF Beta 1, in my Inbox. There is a 4-page list of changes that took me 15 minutes to understand and there are also updated sample applications that run with Beta 1. I really appreciate the author's effort updating his book. This is like buying Windows 2000 and a year later got a free Windows XP CD from Bill Gates :) This is a great book. Very well written and easy to follow. The upgrade to Beta 1 is smooth if you already understand EA 4.

This is one of the best books that explain a new technology extremely well. I had struggled to have a grasp of JSF by reading Sun's JSF tutorial, which was not really helpful. This book really helped me a lot. The author did not waste time with unnecessary information. Instead, he showed JSF in action in very early chapters.The author also worked hard explaining difficult topics such as custom components and renderers. The project chapter is a bit too long but gives you detailed instructions on how to use JSF in a real world application. The last chapter is my fav. as it tells you how the JSF implementation and the Faces Servlet work.I'm looking forward to the author's other titles. Sun should let this guy write their tutorial.