JSF Beginner

[Shilpa Reddy V]

Hi,

I have been using Swings for while and now my company has decided to move to server-side technology. We have decided to use JSF because of its Rich UI and migrate the Swing application to a Server-Side JSF Application.
I see couple of 3rd party JSF application like Oracle ADF Faces, IceFaces. My question is How do I start , if I have to develop a appliation using JSF do I HAVE to use OracleADF or IceFaces or can I just use plain JSF. Are these 3rd party applications free that I can just download the files and start using them in my application.

I would really appreciate your help.

Thanks!

[Vikram Kohli]

Hi Shilpa,

I dont know much about IceFaces, but I think its free to use.
But Oracle ADF faces are not . Check here link

[Tirumal Reddy Moolamalla]

Hi Shilpa,

As you see, there are couple of third party JSF implementations available in the market. Out of which some are commercial (like ORacle ADF etc) and some are open source (MyFaces, IceFaces and JBoss Rich Faces). basically these will provide JSF specification implementation and also provide some useful components (which you will not find in default JSF RI).

So if you want to start with JSF, try to start from basic JSF concepts like,

- JSF Introduction
- JSF Architecture and Lifecycle
- Why JSF is different from other server side frameworks like Struts, Spring etc.
- JSF basic Components and component Identifies
- Backing Beans/Managed beans and JSF Expression language (EL)
- How JSF will handle the Navigation
- Renderers/Validators/Convertors
- Events and Event Listeners
- JSF Messages

After tou are fine with the above concepts, you can evaluate any open source framework depends on your requirement.

You can freely download any open source third party one. According to me, MyFaces and RichFaces are the best. In my present project, we are using JBoss RichFaces.

All the Best.

Regards,
Tirumal Reddy M

[Shilpa Reddy V]

Thank you Vikram & Tirumal. Appreciate your immediate response.

[Sagar Kale]

Which book is good to start learning JSF.

[Tirumal Reddy Moolamalla]

Hi Sagar,

I will suggest 2 books for learning JSF from scratch.

1. JSF in Action
2. Mastering Java Server Faces

In these two, i like "JSF In Action". It is very good in terms of explanation and depth.

Regards,
Tirumal Reddy M

[lshiva siva]

if you have netbeans then just start working on by creating a jsf hello world application .
provided you must have some knowledge about servlets and JSP.

So that you can understand the above mentioned books easily

[Sagar Kale]

Hi Tirumal Reddy,
Thank you. I have both the books. But since I know struts and spring mvc, which book will you suggest which will help me to work with JSF in quick time. Right now I am referring to tutorials because I want to get started quickly and in parallel I have decided to read JSF in Action. Since it has more than 1000 pages, it will take time for me to finish it.

Hi lshiva,
Thank you for help
I have learned basics like Hello World etc.

[Tirumal Reddy Moolamalla]

I will always suggest "JSF In Action". It will be very useful for the beginner. If you think, you are familier with some topics you can escape.

Since it has more than 1000 pages, it will take time for me to finish it.

Yes it has more than 1000 pages but again its depends on your requirement. If you literally don't want to go depth into advanced topics, it will only contains 100 pages.

Regards,
Tirumal Reddy M

[Sagar Kale]

Thanks Tirumal Reddy. I read some part today and it is good book, hoping to finish it quickly. Thank you.

[saqib sarwar]

Dear All,

I want to know which IDE you people suggest for easy development in JSF.

I have experience with Eclipse already and work very little on NetBeans, want to know your thoughts ?

Regards

[Tirumal Reddy Moolamalla]

I think there will not be any difference if you use any IDE. but some IDE's provide extra features (like, UI editor, some sort of automatic code etc ). But normally it is better to start with our own code rather than IDE is doing everything for you (if you want learn anything). otherwise i heard that, NetBeans provide better facilities compared to eclipse.

But again if you are familier with eclipse, go with eclipse, its hardly take time.

Regards,
Tirumal Reddy M

[saqib sarwar]

thanks Tirumal Reddy Moolamalla ..