John Fallows

In our last article - "JSF and AJAX" (JDJ, Vol. 11, issue 1) - we discussed how JavaServer Faces component writers can take advantage of the new Weblets Open Source project (http://weblets.dev.java.net) to serve resources such as JavaScript libraries, icons, and CSS files directly from a Java Archive (JAR) without impacting the application developer. In this article we'll address the need to fetch data using AJAX with JavaServer Faces (JSF) components. The most common use cases for fetching data with AJAX are to populate dropdown lists and add type-ahead functionality in text fields. In contrast to using AJAX postbacks for events, fetching data shouldn't affect the surrounding components on the page. And if fetching data isn't affecting other parts of the DOM tree, then you don't have to go through the full JSF lifecycle just to get the data, right? This article int... (more)

AJAX and Mozilla XUL with JavaServer Faces

In our previous JDJ article - Rich Internet Components with JavaServer Faces - we discussed how JavaServer Faces can fulfill new presentation requirements without sacrificing application developer productivity building Rich Internet Applications (RIA). We discussed how JSF component writers can utilize technologies, such as AJAX and Mozilla XUL, to provide application developers with rich, interactive and reusable components. In order to use AJAX and Mozilla XUL with JSF, component writers have to make sure to provide any resource files need by these technologies, such as images... (more)

Real-World AJAX Seminar, New York: AJAX and Faces - Friends or Foes?

Can a client-side AJAX solution and server-side Faces solution co-exist and play well together? Or are they each solving a similar problem in a different and incompatible way? The authors of Pro JSF and Ajax,  Jonas Jacobi and John R. Fallows, will discuss how the JavaServer Faces framework can be used to embrace AJAX today, while protecting Web applications from radical re-architecture each time there is a change in direction of client-side technology. Jonas and John will address the key aspects of Faces component development, and will introduce innovative techniques to adopt AJ... (more)

JavaServer Faces and AJAX for Google Fans

This is our last article in a series of four that have been introducing the concepts of creating AJAX-enabled JavaServer Faces (JSF) components. In this article we are going to summarize and encapsulate the concepts that were introduced in the three previous JDJ articles starting with the "Rich Internet Components with JavaServer Faces" (Vol. 10, issue 11), and design a Google-like JDJ InputSuggest component. We will show you how to use Mabon to create a simple and powerful input component with built-in suggest functionality similar to what Google Suggest provides. To make it ea... (more)

The Benefits Of The AJAX RenderKit

In an effort to provide developers with a productive environment, Oracle has been working on a very rich UI component framework for several years. This framework - ADF Faces - has now been donated to the open source community. More precisely, it has been donated to the Apache Software Foundation and is currently hosted in the Apache Incubator - http://incubator.apache.org/projects/adffaces.html. Craig McClanahan is mentoring the project during the Apache incubation. The Apache MyFaces community is also involved in the project to assist with graduation from the incubator, into t... (more)