Eclipse Corner Article

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# WTP Tutorials - JavaServer Faces Tools Tutorial

> Summary
> In this tutorial we will build and execute a JavaServer Faces application, and highlight the features contributed by the JSF Tools Project.

> By Raghu Srinivasan, Oracle Corporation.
> June 15, 2009

### Introduction

In this tutorial we will create and execute a web application with JavaServer Faces capabilities. The WTP JSF Tools project has provided features that simplifies application building, configuration and execution. These include the Web Page Editor for visually editing a JSF-JSP web page, syntactic and semantic validation of a JSF-JSP page, the Faces Configuration Editor for editing the application configuration resource file.
You may wish to visit Building and Running a Web Application before attempting this tutorial. That tutorial covers setup of the server instance that this tutorial does not.

### Setup

- The Java SE 6 Development Kit (JDK)
- Eclipse 3.5
- Eclipse Web Tools Platform Project(WTP) 3.1
- Apache Tomcat 6.0
- JavaServer Faces RI v1.2
- JSP (tm) Standard Tag Library 1.2 implementation

### Make the Web Page Editor the default editor for JSP pages

The JSF Tools Project-contributed Web Page Editor (WPE) is NOT registered as the default editor for JSP files. You can make the WPE the default editor for JSP files by following these steps:

- Navigate to "Window" -> "Preferences..." -> "General" -> "Editors" -> "File Associations"
- In the "File types" section, select "*.jsp"
- In the "Associated editors" section, select "Web Page Editor"
- Select the "Default" button

### Create a JavaServer Faces Project

Create a New Dynamic Web Application with the name of JSFTutorial. Set the target runtime to the Apache Tomcat 6.0
In the configuration section, select the JavaServer Faces Project v1.2. Skip the next two panels to get to the JSF Capabilities page.

On the JSF Capabilities page, from the drop-down for the Type of the JSF Library, select User Library.

Click on the Download library icon. The Download Library dialog is displayed with the list of providers for the JSF implementation JAR files. Select the library from Sun Microsystem. Click Next. Accept the license and hit Finish

The tool downloads the JAR files, creates a JDT User Library and adds it to the current project. Select the checkbox for the new library if it is not selected. Next, select the Manage libraries icon.
Create a JDT User Library to hold the JSTL jar file. Seelct OK.
The JSTL library is displayed in the JSF Capabilities dialog. Select the libray and hit Finish

Your JSF application has been created. Note that the web.xml file has been updated with the Faces Servlet and servlet-mapping, a stub JSF application configuration file (faces-config.xml) has been created, and the build path has been updated with the implementation jars.

If you have an existing Dynamic Web Application, it is possible to add JSF capabilities by going to:
Project Properties > Project Facets > Add\Remove Project Facets…

### Create a JSF JSP Page

Use the JSP Page wizard to create a page called login.jsp in the Web Content folder of the new application. In the Select Templates page of the wizard, select the New JSP(html) template. Click Finish. The page will be opened in the Web Page Editor as shown below

Open the Properties View. Right-mouse click on the designer canvas and from the context menu, select Show->Properties. Wait for the "Reading Properties" dialog to disappear.

##### Add a CommandButton to the canvas.

- In the Palette View, click on the section JSF HTML to display the list of components.
- Drag-and-drop the CommandButton to the canvas. Note that the editor wraps the CommandButton with <f:view> and <h:form> tag.
- In the properties view, click on Quick Edit.
- Set the Value attribute to Login.
- Set the Action attribute to login

##### Add a PanelGrid

- From the Palette View, Drag-and-drop the PanelGrid to the canvas. Notice the feedback on the drop target.
- Drop the Panel Grid before the Command Button, but inside the Form tag. The Panel Grid is created with a predefined set of OutputText components.

##### Modify the components inside the Panel Grid

- Click on the OutputText Item2 and hit Delete
- Add a InputText (Text Input in the Palette view) tag after Item1 and before Item3
- Delete the OutputText, Item 4
- Add a InputSecret (Secret Input in the Palette view) tag after Item3
- Click on the OutputText, Item1. Change its value in the Source View to Name
- Click on the OutputText, Item3. Change its value in the Source View to Password
- Click on the Preview tab to see the page rendered in a browser
- Click on the InputText tag next to Name. In the Property View, set the value attribute to #{loginBean.name}.
- Save the page. The editor will flag a warning indicating that the variable, loginBean cannot be resolved.

In the Project Explorer, expand the node, JSFTutorial->WebContent. Double-click on faces-config.xml . This will launch the Faces Configuration editor. Select the ManagedBean tab.
Click on the Add button. This will launch the New Managed Bean wizard. Select the option, Create a new Java class . In the next wizard panel, enter the package as, com.tutorial and the Name of the class as LoginBean . Click the Finish button.
This will create the Java class and register it as a managed bean. Save the Faces Configuration editor.To edit the Java class, click on the hyperlink, ManagedBean class in the Managed bean page as shown in the figure below. This will launch the Java editor.

Edit the Java class, com.tutorial.LoginBean . Add the following code and save.
In the Project Explorer view, right-mouse click on the JSP page, login.jsp and from the context menu, select the Validate option. Note that the page should now be valid.
In the Source Page of the Web Page Editor, add the JSF tag, <h:inputSecret value="#{}"></h:inputSecret> . With the cursor inside the brackets, hit Ctrl+spacebar . You should see a pop-up with a list of all the implicit objects plus the managed bean defined above. Select the managed bean, loginBean
Enter the name of a property, say x, that is not defined in the managed bean and save the change. The editor will report a warning that the property cannot be resolved.
Delete the invalid property. Hit Ctrl+spacebar after the '.' in the bean name. You should see a pop-up listing the properties defined in the managed bean. Select password from the menu.
Create a Java class, com.tutorial.validatePassword that implements the Validator interface and save.
In the Project Explorer, expand the node, JSFTutorial->WebContent. Double-click on faces-config.xml . This will launch the faces-config editor. Select the Component tab. Expand the Validators section.
Click on the Add button. Select the Browse button associated with the Validator Class field and select the com.tutorial.ValidatePassword class. Save the changes.
Add the JSF tag, <f:validator id=""></f:validator > . With the cursor inside the double-quote, hit Ctrl+spacebar . You should see a pop-up with a list of all the standard validators plus those registered in the faces-config file. Select Validate Password .
We will now move the static strings we have used in the page to a resource bundle. To do this, add a file called, messages.properties in the folder com.tutorial . Define the properties as shown below and save the file.
Add the JSF tag, loadBundle as shown below. You can drag-and-drop the tag from the JSF Core section of the Palette View.
Delete the string, Name in the value attribute of the outputLabel tag. Position the curson inside the brackets and hit Ctrl+spacebar . You should see a pop-up with a list that includes the msg variable that you defined in the loadBundle tag. Select it.
Enter a dot after msg and and hit Ctrl+spacebar . You should see a pop-up with a list of properties defined in the messages.properties file. Select the property, name .
Complete the login page as shown below.
Create a new JSF page, welcome.jsp as shown below.

### Faces Configuration Resource Editor

The JSF Tools project includes a special editor for the faces configuration resource files. The following section gives a brief introduction to the editor. A comprehensive tutorial detailing all the features of the editor will be published soon.
Double-click on the faces-config.xml file to launch the Faces configuration editor. Switch to the Navigation tab.

- Add the login.jsp and welcome.jsp to the Navigation tab. Select the Page control from the Palette and drop it on the Navigation tab. Choose the page in the resulting Select JSP File dialog.
- Connect the two pages. Click on the Link control in the Palette, select the login page and draw a line to the welcome page. Select the line in the Navigation tab and in the property view, set the value of the from-outcome to login .

### Testing the JSF JSP Page

1) We will now execute the page against the Apache Tomcat server. Choose Run on Server using the context menu while selecting the login.jsp page in the navigator.

2) Choose your Apache Tomcat server and set it up as required if you had not already done so.
3) Click Finish. You should see from the Console view that the Tomcat server starts and then you should see the executing login page appear in the Web Browser like below.

Click on the login button. You should navigate to the welcome page.

Congratulations! You have created and executed your first JavaServer Faces application using the new Eclipse WTP JSF Tools.