WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.567 --> 00:00:02.814 Hey, welcome back. 2 00:00:02.814 --> 00:00:03.956 In this video, we're gonna get 3 00:00:03.956 --> 00:00:06.623 a behind-the-scenes tour of JSF. 4 00:00:08.792 --> 00:00:10.711 We'll cover the following topics. 5 00:00:10.711 --> 00:00:12.573 First off, we'll take a look at the components 6 00:00:12.573 --> 00:00:15.839 of a JSF application, then we'll take a sneak peak 7 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:18.932 behind the scenes to see how JSF actually works. 8 00:00:18.932 --> 00:00:21.711 Next, we'll discuss the various JSF versions 9 00:00:21.711 --> 00:00:22.852 that are out there, 10 00:00:22.852 --> 00:00:26.729 and finally we'll discuss application support for JSF. 11 00:00:26.729 --> 00:00:28.821 Alright, so we have a lot of stuff in store. 12 00:00:28.821 --> 00:00:32.198 Let's go ahead and get started. 13 00:00:32.198 --> 00:00:34.773 Alright, so what makes up a JSF application 14 00:00:34.773 --> 00:00:38.767 as far as what's required to build a JSF application? 15 00:00:38.767 --> 00:00:41.870 Well, a JSF application is basically a set of web pages 16 00:00:41.870 --> 00:00:43.294 to lay out components. 17 00:00:43.294 --> 00:00:46.520 We'll make use of special JSF technology called Facelets. 18 00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:49.401 And then also a JSF application is composed 19 00:00:49.401 --> 00:00:51.416 of a set of managed beans. 20 00:00:51.416 --> 00:00:53.591 So this is Java code that you'll have in the background 21 00:00:53.591 --> 00:00:56.315 for holding your form data, and also performing 22 00:00:56.315 --> 00:00:59.573 your back-end operations like talking to a database. 23 00:00:59.573 --> 00:01:00.811 Then also, there's an idea 24 00:01:00.811 --> 00:01:03.802 of the web deployment descriptor on your web.xml. 25 00:01:03.802 --> 00:01:06.688 If you've done some web development before with Java, 26 00:01:06.688 --> 00:01:10.640 you may have seen this file before for Servlets and JSPs. 27 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:13.395 We'll basically put a special configuration in that file 28 00:01:13.395 --> 00:01:16.000 to handle the JSF request. 29 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:17.591 And then optionally, you can have 30 00:01:17.591 --> 00:01:19.688 some additional application config files, 31 00:01:19.688 --> 00:01:21.844 like the faces-config.xml. 32 00:01:21.844 --> 00:01:24.914 You can drop in some custom objects, components, 33 00:01:24.914 --> 00:01:27.178 custom tags, and validators. 34 00:01:27.178 --> 00:01:29.346 We'll talk about all that stuff later, 35 00:01:29.346 --> 00:01:30.881 but at a very high level, 36 00:01:30.881 --> 00:01:35.048 these are the actual components of a JSF application. 37 00:01:36.634 --> 00:01:39.638 Alright, so how does JSF work behind the scenes? 38 00:01:39.638 --> 00:01:41.855 So we have a user over here, they're on their browser, 39 00:01:41.855 --> 00:01:44.612 they'll submit a request to our application server. 40 00:01:44.612 --> 00:01:47.125 This'll come into our JSF Faces Servlet. 41 00:01:47.125 --> 00:01:50.365 So this Faces Servlet is part of the JSF library. 42 00:01:50.365 --> 00:01:52.467 You, the developer, you don't have to write this Servlet, 43 00:01:52.467 --> 00:01:53.913 it's given to you. 44 00:01:53.913 --> 00:01:57.226 This Faces Servlet handles routing the request 45 00:01:57.226 --> 00:01:59.107 to the appropriate pages. 46 00:01:59.107 --> 00:02:01.477 Now, this Faces Servlet, in the background, 47 00:02:01.477 --> 00:02:04.451 it can read information from the Faces config file. 48 00:02:04.451 --> 00:02:06.822 It can also make use of managed beans. 49 00:02:06.822 --> 00:02:09.110 And these managed beans are basically just beans 50 00:02:09.110 --> 00:02:12.245 that hold form data, or talk to your back-end processes 51 00:02:12.245 --> 00:02:14.335 like maybe a database or something. 52 00:02:14.335 --> 00:02:16.429 Alright, so this Faces Servlet, it'll determine 53 00:02:16.429 --> 00:02:18.284 which page that it needs to rout to, 54 00:02:18.284 --> 00:02:20.524 it'll route it to that appropriate web page. 55 00:02:20.524 --> 00:02:22.681 At the bottom, here, we have xhtml. 56 00:02:22.681 --> 00:02:26.066 This web page can make use of the managed beans, also, 57 00:02:26.066 --> 00:02:29.055 to maybe retrieve information, or display information 58 00:02:29.055 --> 00:02:31.902 from the back-end system, and this web page is rendered 59 00:02:31.902 --> 00:02:34.180 and sent back to the web browser. 60 00:02:34.180 --> 00:02:36.597 So this web page, it could have very basic information 61 00:02:36.597 --> 00:02:40.011 like hey, welcome, and give the user's name. 62 00:02:40.011 --> 00:02:41.935 Or, this webpage could be more sophisticated 63 00:02:41.935 --> 00:02:45.084 where it would display the results of a database query. 64 00:02:45.084 --> 00:02:48.501 But anyway, that's how JSF works at a very high level. 65 00:02:48.501 --> 00:02:51.345 So again, web browser makes the request to the Servlet, 66 00:02:51.345 --> 00:02:53.553 Servlet will route it to the appropriate page, 67 00:02:53.553 --> 00:02:56.386 and the page renders the response. 68 00:03:00.237 --> 00:03:03.052 Alright, so let's talk about the different versions of JSF. 69 00:03:03.052 --> 00:03:04.161 There's a lot of different versions 70 00:03:04.161 --> 00:03:05.100 that are floating out there, 71 00:03:05.100 --> 00:03:07.694 so if you Google for some JSF tutorials, 72 00:03:07.694 --> 00:03:09.974 you may find some outdated information. 73 00:03:09.974 --> 00:03:11.804 So I just wanted to lay out the versions, 74 00:03:11.804 --> 00:03:14.862 and then talk about JSF 2.2. 75 00:03:14.862 --> 00:03:17.402 So, JSF has been around for a long time. 76 00:03:17.402 --> 00:03:20.227 So JSF 1.0 was released in 2004, 77 00:03:20.227 --> 00:03:22.216 so that's ancient days, alright? 78 00:03:22.216 --> 00:03:25.586 Then there was JSF 1.2, that came out in 2006. 79 00:03:25.586 --> 00:03:28.501 JSF 2.0 came out in 2009, 80 00:03:28.501 --> 00:03:31.086 and that was aligned up with the Jave EE 6. 81 00:03:31.086 --> 00:03:34.266 And then most recently, it's JSF 2.2 82 00:03:34.266 --> 00:03:37.494 that was released in 2013, and that's Java EE 7. 83 00:03:37.494 --> 00:03:39.522 So when you look for different information 84 00:03:39.522 --> 00:03:41.314 like books and so on, you wanna make sure 85 00:03:41.314 --> 00:03:44.337 that you're using at least JSF 2.2, 86 00:03:44.337 --> 00:03:46.950 because there was some significant changes between 2.2 87 00:03:46.950 --> 00:03:49.380 and all the previous versions, alright? 88 00:03:49.380 --> 00:03:50.694 Now, you also wanna make sure that you have 89 00:03:50.694 --> 00:03:54.428 an application server that can support JSF 2.2. 90 00:03:54.428 --> 00:03:56.349 So you wanna make sure your app server has support 91 00:03:56.349 --> 00:03:58.349 for Java EE 7 or higher. 92 00:04:00.079 --> 00:04:02.745 Now there's a new version of JSF that's coming out, 93 00:04:02.745 --> 00:04:05.341 I've been checking the different blog posts and so on, 94 00:04:05.341 --> 00:04:09.508 and JSF 2.3 is slated to come out late 2016, early 2017. 95 00:04:13.078 --> 00:04:14.997 So you can kinda think it'll hit mainstream 96 00:04:14.997 --> 00:04:19.164 around the 2017 timeframe, so just a little indicator there. 97 00:04:19.164 --> 00:04:20.932 But you can always go online to Google, 98 00:04:20.932 --> 00:04:24.045 and you can simply say JSF release date, 99 00:04:24.045 --> 00:04:26.231 and you should get the latest hits as far as news reports 100 00:04:26.231 --> 00:04:28.603 on when JSF is coming out. 101 00:04:28.603 --> 00:04:32.436 But anyway, this course will focus on JSF 2.2. 102 00:04:34.565 --> 00:04:37.161 In terms of application server support, 103 00:04:37.161 --> 00:04:40.637 if you make use of a full Java EE 7 server, 104 00:04:40.637 --> 00:04:44.191 then the JSF 2.2 libraries are already included. 105 00:04:44.191 --> 00:04:48.327 So, when I say a Java EE 7 server, some examples include 106 00:04:48.327 --> 00:04:52.212 JBoss Wildfly 8, GlassFish 4, and so on. 107 00:04:52.212 --> 00:04:53.542 So for you to give an app server, 108 00:04:53.542 --> 00:04:58.014 you wanna make sure that it supports Java EE 7 or higher. 109 00:04:58.014 --> 00:04:59.549 Not all of the servers are up to date, 110 00:04:59.549 --> 00:05:01.404 so you wanna make sure you look at the actual specs 111 00:05:01.404 --> 00:05:03.278 for your server accordingly. 112 00:05:03.278 --> 00:05:06.555 But I know out of the box at Wildfly 8 and GlassFish 4 113 00:05:06.555 --> 00:05:09.347 already have full support for Java EE 7, 114 00:05:09.347 --> 00:05:12.874 and so that includes the JSF 2.2 libraries. 115 00:05:12.874 --> 00:05:14.700 So the key thing here is that when you deploy 116 00:05:14.700 --> 00:05:17.225 your JSF application, there's no need to include 117 00:05:17.225 --> 00:05:19.426 the JSF JAR files in your app. 118 00:05:19.426 --> 00:05:23.593 It's already part of those given server environments. 119 00:05:23.593 --> 00:05:27.140 Now, if you wanna deploy a Tomcat 8, you can still do that. 120 00:05:27.140 --> 00:05:28.944 The only thing is that you simply need to add 121 00:05:28.944 --> 00:05:32.891 the JSF libraries, preferably JSF 2.2 or higher. 122 00:05:32.891 --> 00:05:36.071 So that means that you need to bundle the JSF libraries 123 00:05:36.071 --> 00:05:38.322 in your WAR file application. 124 00:05:38.322 --> 00:05:40.130 So in your WEB-INF lib directory, 125 00:05:40.130 --> 00:05:41.896 you'll need to include those JAR files. 126 00:05:41.896 --> 00:05:44.889 I'll show you how to do this in the next video 127 00:05:44.889 --> 00:05:46.515 when we build our Hello World application. 128 00:05:46.515 --> 00:05:48.966 So don't worry if you don't totally understand all of this, 129 00:05:48.966 --> 00:05:51.045 I'll walk through the steps when we go through 130 00:05:51.045 --> 00:05:53.921 our Hello World app and show you which check box 131 00:05:53.921 --> 00:05:56.703 that you need to set up in the Eclipse and Environments 132 00:05:56.703 --> 00:05:58.263 for getting this work in, alright? 133 00:05:58.263 --> 00:06:01.513 But anyway, that's the big thing there. 134 00:06:03.061 --> 00:06:04.930 Alright, so this wraps up the video. 135 00:06:04.930 --> 00:06:07.223 We covered some good items in this video. 136 00:06:07.223 --> 00:06:10.215 We discussed the components of a JSF application. 137 00:06:10.215 --> 00:06:13.505 We also learned how JSF works behind the scenes. 138 00:06:13.505 --> 00:06:16.188 I also have you a discussion of the various JSF versions 139 00:06:16.188 --> 00:06:18.640 that are out there, and then finally we wrapped up 140 00:06:18.640 --> 00:06:22.723 by discussing application server support for JSF. 141 00:06:24.970 --> 00:06:25.909 Stay tuned. 142 00:06:25.909 --> 00:06:28.131 In the next video, we'll actually get our hands dirty. 143 00:06:28.131 --> 00:06:30.709 We'll build a Hello World application with JSF, 144 00:06:30.709 --> 00:06:33.518 and then we'll actually deploy it to our application server. 145 00:06:33.518 --> 00:06:34.685 See you then.