Summary
In this chapter, we explored how the Facelets view definition framework can be used to enhance presentation tier development in a JSF application.
We looked at a brief history of web development on the Java platform and compared Facelets with JSP technology to understand the advantages that Facelets offers to the JSF developer.
Facelets provides a fresh and compelling alternative to JSP as the view technology for JSF. Designed specifically to support the UI component tree lifecycle, Facelets is a highly optimized technology that greatly simplifies user interface development with the JSF framework.
Facelets pages are different from JSP pages because they are not compiled to generate servlets and they do not contain JSP expressions and directives. JSF tag libraries can be included in Facelets pages by using XML namespaces. Faceletsand JSP (since JSP 2.0) both support inline JSF EL expressions.
Our discussion included tips on how to configure a JSF application to use Facelets by specifying...