As with all other libraries, we start by downloading ExtVal and installing it in our project. As with many other JSF libraries, the ExtVal project has different branches for JSF 1.1 and 1.2. The first two digits of ExtVal’s version number are the JSF version they are made for. So ExtVal 1.1.x is the xth version of ExtVal for JSF 1.1, whereas ExtVal 1.2.x is the xth version for JSF 1.2. Versions of ExtVal are not released very often. At the time of writing this book, only two official releases have been published for each branch. According to the lead developer of ExtVal, a third release (1.1.3 and 1.2.3) is in the works for both branches, as well as a first release from the new JSF 2.0 branch.
Apart from stable releases, ExtVal offers snapshot builds that are created on a regular basis. The snapshots are created manually, which gives some guarantees about the quality compared to automatically-created daily releases. No snapshots with major bugs will be created. According...