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Integrating JSF with OPS

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Merin Shaji

Integrating JSF with OPS

Hi,

We have an OPS application. Is it possible to integrate JSF with it just like we integrate JSP? I saw an article about JSF integration in OPS User Guide. But I did not understand much from this. Is there any examples or detailed documents on this?

Thanks & Regards

Merin

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Erik Bruchez

Re: Integrating JSF with OPS

Administrator

Merin Shaji wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We have an OPS application. Is it possible to integrate JSF with it just
> like we integrate JSP? I saw an article about JSF integration in OPS
> User Guide. But I did not understand much from this. Is there any
> examples or detailed documents on this?

In the end it all comes down to one question: what do you want to
achieve with this integration?

First, we wrote an article more than 3 years ago on the topic, which
mainly covered using XSLT to style JSF:

http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=BestBothWorlds

While you could still try to follow the same approach, the XML renderkit
has not been maintained and we no longer support it in Orbeon Forms.

Second, you could technically write a page in JSP + JSF that produces
XForms, but we don't think that it makes much sense to do so and we
think that it is better to use either JSF in a given page, or use
XForms. Both have their own components and controls and live best in
their own world.

But you could very well use JSF for some pages, and XForms for other
pages. That works quite well.

-Erik

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Merin Shaji

Re: Integrating JSF with OPS

Erik,

We were thinking of JSF integration in order to improve the look and feel of our portal. We were not planning to develop a few pages alone using JSF. We would like to know whether there are any UI component libraries/ toolkits that are pluggable with Orbeon. This is intended only for creating an attractive user interface. We want to continue using Orbeon with it.

Thanks & Regards

Merin

On 12/1/06, Erik Bruchez <[hidden email]> wrote:

Merin Shaji wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We have an OPS application. Is it possible to integrate JSF with it just
> like we integrate JSP? I saw an article about JSF integration in OPS
> User Guide. But I did not understand much from this. Is there any
> examples or detailed documents on this?

In the end it all comes down to one question: what do you want to
achieve with this integration?

First, we wrote an article more than 3 years ago on the topic, which
mainly covered using XSLT to style JSF:

http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=BestBothWorlds

While you could still try to follow the same approach, the XML renderkit
has not been maintained and we no longer support it in Orbeon Forms.

Second, you could technically write a page in JSP + JSF that produces
XForms, but we don't think that it makes much sense to do so and we
think that it is better to use either JSF in a given page, or use
XForms. Both have their own components and controls and live best in
their own world.

But you could very well use JSF for some pages, and XForms for other
pages. That works quite well.

-Erik

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Erik Bruchez

Re: Integrating JSF with OPS

Administrator

Merin,

"Creating an attractive user interface" remains vague to me. I think you
can create attractive user interfaces with XForms ;-)

I can see how to produce a page that contains both JSF and XForms
components: use the filter approach described in our JSP doc, whereby
the JSP pages produces (X)HTML which then goes through the XForms
engine. That much is doable.

But some problems can arise when you use two component frameworks
together on the same page (JSF and XForms).

Here is an example of such a problem: in non-AJAX mode, the default JSF
components (buttons, etc.) perform form submissions to the server, when
then reevaluates the JSF component tree to produce an updated page that
is then sent back to the client. If you do this and your page contains
XForms components as well, then you lose the state of the XForms
controls. If you don't care that using JSF buttons resets all the XForms
controls, then that could work.

If, on the other hand, you use AJAX-ified JSF components (I have no
experience whatsoever with those), there could be conflicts due to the
JavaScript libraries those components use vs. the ones we use in Orbeon
Forms. This is something you could try though.

I think you should come up with a more specific description of what
exact JSF components you would like to use, and what is the expected
behavior of your user interface when you mix JSF and XForms components.

-Erik

Merin Shaji wrote:

> Erik,
>
> We were thinking of JSF integration in order to improve the look and
> feel of our portal. We were not planning to develop a few pages
> alone using JSF. We would like to know whether there are any UI
> component libraries/ toolkits that are pluggable with Orbeon. This is
> intended only for creating an attractive user interface. We want to
> continue using Orbeon with it.
>
> Thanks & Regards
> Merin
>
> On 12/1/06, *Erik Bruchez* <[hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
> Merin Shaji wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > We have an OPS application. Is it possible to integrate JSF with
> it just
> > like we integrate JSP? I saw an article about JSF integration in OPS
> > User Guide. But I did not understand much from this. Is there any
> > examples or detailed documents on this?
>
> In the end it all comes down to one question: what do you want to
> achieve with this integration?
>
> First, we wrote an article more than 3 years ago on the topic, which
> mainly covered using XSLT to style JSF:
>
> http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=BestBothWorlds
>
> While you could still try to follow the same approach, the XML renderkit
> has not been maintained and we no longer support it in Orbeon Forms.
>
> Second, you could technically write a page in JSP + JSF that produces
> XForms, but we don't think that it makes much sense to do so and we
> think that it is better to use either JSF in a given page, or use
> XForms. Both have their own components and controls and live best in
> their own world.
>
> But you could very well use JSF for some pages, and XForms for other
> pages. That works quite well.
>
> -Erik
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> You receive this message as a subscriber of the
> [hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]> mailing list.
> To unsubscribe: mailto: [hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>
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> <mailto:[hidden email]>?subject=help
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>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> --
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--
Orbeon Forms - Web Forms for the Enterprise Done the Right Way
http://www.orbeon.com/

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Merin Shaji

Re: Integrating JSF with OPS

Eric,

We understand the technical issues that can happen when we use JSF and XForms together on the same page. We are not keen on using JSF components, but we want richer UI controls in our pages. I will explain our requirements. Could you please tell whether these are possible with Orbeon.

1) Customizable trees

We saw the basic tree control available in the latest release - OPS 3.5. Is it possible to customize the tree and add different icons for different group items in the tree? Currently we have a JSP tree where we can add controls conditionally. For example, we can add check boxes to all nodes in the tree other than the root node. Is it possible with OPS tree?

2) Dynamic Sections

By dynamic sections I mean a control just like a pop-up window, but it is not actually a pop-up window. Its part of the same window. It is a section which gets displayed on the top of the page without changing the page contents. We should be able to maximize and minimize the section. When we minimize it, the content at the background should be retained as it was. It should also be possible to load an independent URL inside that section.

3) Portlet Reload

How far does Orbeon support portlets? Is it possible to reload a single portlet without reloading the entire page?

Thanks & Regards

Merin

On 12/6/06, Erik Bruchez <[hidden email]> wrote:

Merin,

"Creating an attractive user interface" remains vague to me. I think you
can create attractive user interfaces with XForms ;-)

I can see how to produce a page that contains both JSF and XForms
components: use the filter approach described in our JSP doc, whereby
the JSP pages produces (X)HTML which then goes through the XForms
engine. That much is doable.

But some problems can arise when you use two component frameworks
together on the same page (JSF and XForms).

Here is an example of such a problem: in non-AJAX mode, the default JSF
components (buttons, etc.) perform form submissions to the server, when
then reevaluates the JSF component tree to produce an updated page that
is then sent back to the client. If you do this and your page contains
XForms components as well, then you lose the state of the XForms
controls. If you don't care that using JSF buttons resets all the XForms
controls, then that could work.

If, on the other hand, you use AJAX-ified JSF components (I have no
experience whatsoever with those), there could be conflicts due to the
JavaScript libraries those components use vs. the ones we use in Orbeon
Forms. This is something you could try though.

I think you should come up with a more specific description of what
exact JSF components you would like to use, and what is the expected
behavior of your user interface when you mix JSF and XForms components.

-Erik

Merin Shaji wrote:

> Erik,
>
> We were thinking of JSF integration in order to improve the look and
> feel of our portal. We were not planning to develop a few pages
> alone using JSF. We would like to know whether there are any UI
> component libraries/ toolkits that are pluggable with Orbeon. This is
> intended only for creating an attractive user interface. We want to
> continue using Orbeon with it.
>
> Thanks & Regards
> Merin
>
> On 12/1/06, *Erik Bruchez* <[hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
>     Merin Shaji wrote:
>      > Hi,
>      >
>      > We have an OPS application. Is it possible to integrate JSF with
>     it just
>      > like we integrate JSP? I saw an article about JSF integration in OPS
>      > User Guide. But I did not understand much from this. Is there any
>      > examples or detailed documents on this?
>
>     In the end it all comes down to one question: what do you want to
>     achieve with this integration?
>
>     First, we wrote an article more than 3 years ago on the topic, which
>     mainly covered using XSLT to style JSF:

>
>        http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=BestBothWorlds
>
>     While you could still try to follow the same approach, the XML renderkit
>     has not been maintained and we no longer support it in Orbeon Forms.
>
>     Second, you could technically write a page in JSP + JSF that produces
>     XForms, but we don't think that it makes much sense to do so and we
>     think that it is better to use either JSF in a given page, or use
>     XForms. Both have their own components and controls and live best in
>     their own world.
>
>     But you could very well use JSF for some pages, and XForms for other
>     pages. That works quite well.
>
>     -Erik
>
>
>
>
>

>
>     --
>     You receive this message as a subscriber of the
>     [hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]> mailing list.
>     To unsubscribe: mailto: [hidden email]
>     <mailto:[hidden email]>
>     For general help: mailto:[hidden email]
>     <mailto:[hidden email]>?subject=help
>     ObjectWeb mailing lists service home page: http://www.objectweb.org/wws
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> --
> You receive this message as a subscriber of the [hidden email] mailing list.
> To unsubscribe: mailto:[hidden email]
> For general help: mailto:[hidden email]?subject=help
> ObjectWeb mailing lists service home page: http://www.objectweb.org/wws

--
Orbeon Forms - Web Forms for the Enterprise Done the Right Way
http://www.orbeon.com/

--
You receive this message as a subscriber of the [hidden email] mailing list.
To unsubscribe: mailto:[hidden email]
For general help: mailto: [hidden email]?subject=help
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Erik Bruchez

Re: Integrating JSF with OPS

Administrator

Merin,

> We understand the technical issues that can happen when we use JSF and
> XForms together on the same page. We are not keen on using JSF
> components, but we want richer UI controls in our pages. I will explain
> our requirements. Could you please tell whether these are possible with
> Orbeon.
>
> 1) Customizable trees
>
> We saw the basic tree control available in the latest release - OPS
> 3.5. Is it possible to customize the tree and add different icons
> for different group items in the tree? Currently we have a JSP tree
> where we can add controls conditionally. For example, we can add
> check boxes to all nodes in the tree other than the root node. Is it
> possible with OPS tree?

The trees as implemented now really have the functionality of
xforms:select and xforms:select1, i.e. you use them to select one or
more values. So they are not full-fledged tree components.

> 2) Dynamic Sections
>
> By dynamic sections I mean a control just like a pop-up window, but
> it is not actually a pop-up window. Its part of the same window. It
> is a section which gets displayed on the top of the page without
> changing the page contents. We should be able to maximize and
> minimize the section. When we minimize it, the content at the
> background should be retained as it was. It should also be possible
> to load an independent URL inside that section.

This is supported with the new xxforms:dialog control.

> 3) Portlet Reload
>
> How far does Orbeon support portlets? Is it possible to reload a
> single portlet without reloading the entire page?

Orbeon Form is compatible with JSR-168. You can write an Orbeon Forms
application and use the Page Flow Controller and XForms within
portlets as you would within a Servlet.

I am not quite sure what you mean by "reload" here:

o If you mean that the portlet can display different pages without
affecting other portlets, yes that's possible, in fact that's the
idea behind portlets. But your portal will determine whether the
entire portal page is reloaded as an individual portlet's contents
changes.

o If you are asking whether XForms can use Ajax within a portlet to
update only parts of the portlet without changing pages, yes of
course.

-Erik

--
Orbeon Forms - Web Forms for the Enterprise Done the Right Way
http://www.orbeon.com/

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