In the hyper-competitive and opinionated world of Java web frameworks, the strength of the community surrounding the framework is at least as important as the quality of the technology in framework. This statement is supported by the fact that no technology is perfect, there are always omissions and bugs, and the best remedy for these imperfections and flaws is a vibrant developer community from which everyone can pull ideas, workarounds, and help. I've long known of Ian Hlavats and his JSF Toolbox product but finally had the pleasure of meeting him in September 2008 at the first annual North American JavaServer Faces Developer conference. Ian's JSF Toolbox is the realization of one of the core ideas of JavaServer Faces: it takes a team of individuals with varying skills and expertise to build enterprise software, and not everyone on the team is an Object-oriented software developer. In fact, the great majority of the talented web designers practicing today use Adobe Dreamweaver as their workhorse tool. Bringing the power of JavaServer Faces to these users is very important to the success of JSF, and therefore, very important to me.

Just as Ian's tool builds on a core idea of JSF, so does his book: that of the power and centrality of UI components. In this book you'll find a detailed treatment of the most popular JSF component libraries in use as of this writing. Mastering the use of these components is just as important as mastery of the core JSF technology on which they are built. From his vantage point as the developer of JSF Toolbox, and the leader of the successful JSF consulting company Tarantula Consulting, Ian is very well placed to understand how JSF components are used in practice. Complementing this understanding is his sure skill in explaining their use in clear, easy-to-follow prose. I'm sure you'll find this book a valuable addition to your JSF toolbox.

Ed Burns

JavaServer Faces Specification Lead and Expert Group Member

Altamonte Springs 2009