This is a book about the Java EE 7 platform and web digital development, and it is a continuation of the first book Java EE 7 Developer Handbook. The entire focus of this tome is the space and software architecture between the frontend technologies and business logic tier. While there was a lack of printing space and working balance between life and time for this subject in my first book, in this book Digital Java EE 7, there is plenty of effort and determination to write exclusively about the Java presentation tier. This book was written for the developers who want to become superior and adept at building a web application on JVM with the standard Java EE 7 platform.
This book mostly covers the presentation tier from the Java standard's point of view. Therefore, there are entire chapters dedicated to JavaServer Faces as it is the most important and oldest dedicated web framework on the Java EE 7 platform. Even though the technology has been around since 2004, there are commercial organizations and businesses around the world that rely on JSF. They range from blue-chip companies to well-respected investment banks. Yet, with the Java EE 7 release, JSF 2.2 has several key features that web developers will enjoy and find incredibly helpful such as the HTML5 friendly markup support and Faces Flow.
As a reader, it is my hope that you will become enlightened on the path to build software that enables you to stride up the mountainous paths of the contemporary Java web technology and that you will gain the qualification of an accomplished master (or mistress) in your mind.
So, starting with JSF, we will learn about the framework with a thorough introduction to its concepts. We will progress to the building of the JSF input forms and learn how to validate their input in several ways. The most important task of developing Create Retrieve Update and Delete (CRUD) for JSF web applications will hit the nail squarely on the head. Afterwards, we will add more style and finesse to the JSF applications. On the way, we will write applications that validate with AJAX for an immediate effect. We will continue our adventure into the elegant world of conversational scope backing bean controllers. We will find that these are handy little things that we will map together and capture our stakeholders' customer journeys. Finally, we will learn about Faces Flows, which are a standout addition in JSF 2.2.
No Java web technology book would be complete without telling the reader about the JavaScript programming language and emerging technologies. Many senior Java engineers would agree that Java on the Web has—to some degree—conceded ground on the presentation tier to the JavaScript client-side frameworks. Building REST/UI frontend applications are now so common that it is difficult for the so-called digital Java engineer to ignore the influence of jQuery, RequireJS, and others. There are several known JavaScript frameworks out there in the wild. In this book, we will cover AngularJS. We will step into the middle of that blustery windy bridge in between the two major landscapes of Java, JVM, and JavaScript. I can't promise you that it will not be scary, but you might find yourself pleasantly surprised by the way that you will stand comfortably and negotiate the ledges and handholds between both the JAX-RS services and AngularJS controllers.
At the far end of this book, we have a special just-in-time release for you. We dedicate an entire single chapter to the upcoming Java EE 8 Model-View-Controller, which may become an alternative sizzling emerald in the way we build future REST/UI applications. Beyond this book's finish line, we have put together three essential appendices that I hope will act as excellent reference material.
At the end of each chapter, we have dedicated a special section to educational exercises, which I hope you find relevant and decent, and you have fun learning while your thought processes are being conveniently stretched. This was written for you, the Java web developer on a mission to innovate. Enjoy!
You can find my blog at http://www.xenonique.co.uk/blog/. You can follow me on Twitter at @peter_pilgrim.
The source code for this book is available on GitHub at https://github.com/peterpilgrim/digital-javaee7.
Chapter 1, Digital Java EE 7, introduces the topic of the enterprise Java platform with a perspective to web technology. We will see a brief JSF example, study the JavaScript module pattern, and examine the Java EE modern web architecture.
Chapter 2, JavaServer Faces Lifecycle, starts with the essential elements of the JSF framework. We will learn about the JSF phases and the lifecycle, custom tags, common attributes, and expression language.
Chapter 3, Building JSF Forms, gets us started with how to build the JSF Create-Update-Retrieve-Delete application forms. We will build the forms in a modern web method with JSF custom tags around the Bootstrap HTML5 framework.
Chapter 4, JSF Validation and AJAX, dives deep into the validation of the customer's data from the input form. We will study the various ways of checking the data from the backend and the persistence layer to the frontend with client-side AJAX.
Chapter 5, Conversations and Journeys, expands our JSF knowledge into the conversational scoped beans. We will learn how to map a digital customer's journey to a controller and apply other CDI scopes to our work.
Chapter 6, Faces Flows with Finesse, covers the JSF 2.2 release key highlight of the flow scope bean. We will grasp the differences between the Faces Flows and conversational scope beans, and along the way, add user-friendly features to our application.
Chapter 7, Progressive JavaScript Frameworks and Modules, provides you with a quick overview of modern JavaScript programming from a Java engineer's point of view. We will get up to speed with jQuery and other relevant frameworks such as RequireJS and UnderscoreJS.
Chapter 8, AngularJS and Java RESTful Services, builds on our new JavaScript knowledge. We will approach the writing of single page architecture applications with the popular AngularJS framework. We will also gain experience of writing the JAX-RS service endpoints.
Chapter 9, Java EE MVC Framework, takes a look under the hood of the upcoming Java EE 8 Model-View-Controller framework. We will utilize the port of the Handlebars templating framework in Java.
Appendix A, JSF with HTML5, Resources, and Faces Flows, provides references for using HTML5 support in JSF, Resource Library Contracts, and programmatic Faces Flows. It also includes important information on internationalization with the message and resource bundles.
Appendix B, From Request to Response, provides intense reference material on the architecture of the modern Java enterprise application. It answers the question about what happens when a web request is received and eventually when a response is sent back to the client.
Appendix C, Agile Performance – Working inside Digital Teams, covers the gamut of personalities and the variety of roles in modern digital and agile software development teams.
Appendix D, Curated References, is a set of specially selected bibliographic references, resources and links for further study.
For this book, you will need the following list of software on a laptop or desktop PC:
Java SE 8 (Java Development Kit) http://java.oracle.com/
GlassFish 4.1 (https://glassfish.java.net/)
A decent Java Editor or IDE for coding, such as IntelliJ 14 or better (https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/), Eclipse Kepler or better (http://www.eclipse.org/kepler/), or NetBeans 8.1 or better (https://netbeans.org/)
Gradle 2.6 or better for building the software, which is a part of this book (http://gradle.org/)
Chrome Web Browser with Developer Tools (https://developer.chrome.com/devtools)
Firefox Developer Tools (https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Tools)
Chris Pederick's Web Developer and User Agent Switcher extensions (http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/)
You should be a Java developer with a good command over the programming language. You should already know about classes, inheritance, and Java Collections. Therefore, this book is pitched at intermediate Java developers. You may have 1-2 years of experience in Java SE core development. You should have an understanding of the core Java EE platform, although an in-depth knowledge is not strictly required. You should be comfortable with Java persistence, Java servlets, and deployment of the WAR files to an application server such as GlassFish or WildFly or an equivalent server.
This book is aimed at people who want to learn JavaServer Faces or update their existing knowledge. You may or may not have experience in JavaScript programming; however, there is a dedicated start up topic in this book. This is mostly a Java EE web development book but covering AngularJS requires you to learn or reapply JavaScript coding skills.
Whether you come from a digital environment such as an agency or software house or have just stared a professional job with web development in mind, you will find this book a great help if you have to work with other staff members in your team. You will see industry terms, but I have kept the mentioning of them to a minimum so that you can focus on the technology at hand and achieve your learning goals. However, experts may recognize certain industry ideas creeping into the questions at the end of every of chapter.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."
A block of code is set as follows:
[default] exten => s,1,Dial(Zap/1|30) exten => s,2,Voicemail(u100) exten => s,102,Voicemail(b100) exten => i,1,Voicemail(s0)
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
[default]
exten => s,1,Dial(Zap/1|30)
exten => s,2,Voicemail(u100)
exten => s,102,Voicemail(b100)
exten => i,1,Voicemail(s0)Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
# cp /usr/src/asterisk-addons/configs/cdr_mysql.conf.sample /etc/asterisk/cdr_mysql.conf
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen".
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