JSF - how easy or hard is it for web designers?

[John Dahlstrom]

Hi,

I'm in the process of evaluating web app frameworks for an upcoming project. I've been looking at JSF. I like the page-level events and reusable components, but what's troubling me is the way in which the page is marked up with tag library tags.

Our web designer is not a programmer, and will not become one, and she is very comfortable with Dreamweaver. However, the jsp's that are generated by Sun's Studio Creator cannot be viewed in DW's WYSIWYG editor. Is this the case with all the JSF IDE's?

Is there anyone that has dealt with this issue out there that can give me a some advice?

Thanks,
John

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

John,
Welcome to JavaRanch!

I haven't used JSF on a real project, but we've had the same problem in Struts. We have our web designer create HTML "mock ups", which we then copy and insert tags into. This approach would work for JSF too.

[John Dahlstrom]

Thanks Jeanne,

I'll try that approach.

John

[Doug Wang]

Hi John & Jeanne,

In my company, most web designers are comfortable with Dreamweaver too.
Looking forward to a DreamWeaver with enablement of JSF!

Doug.

[John Dahlstrom]

I don't understand it, its a new UI framework, and I can't find any trace of activity regarding Dreamweaver support, the most popular web UI tool!

Maybe Sun should focus less on selling their own IDEs and more on getting the majority of the people (Dreamweaver users) to adopt the technology!

Anyway, when I get a chance, I'm gonna look for ways to ease development for designers (maybe Velocity or similar tool could help?), or just hold off on JSF.

John