Chapter 3. Apache MyFaces Tomahawk Components
In the previous chapter, we learned how to use the Facelets view definition framework as a templating system for JSF. In this chapter, we will look at how to implement a number of typical web application development scenarios using the Tomahawk JSF component library.
What is a component library? The JSF framework is highly extensible, and this is especially true for UI components. JSF includes a flexible class hierarchy that developers can extend to create their own custom components. The Tomahawk component library is an excellent example of the extensibility of JSF as a UI component framework.
The Tomahawk library contains more than 75 custom JSF components. We will look at a subset of these components to highlight some of the strengths of this library and how it can be used to implement common web development use cases, such as:
Validating user input
Accepting time information from the user
Working with files
Using tree components
Creating navigation...