Chapter 1: Introduction gives an introduction to the world of Spring Web Flow. Additionally, the chapter covers important definitions that you need to know to understand the following chapters.

Chapter 2: Setup for Spring Web Flow 2 shows how to install Spring Web Flow and create the first small application. It also shows the usage of the examples that are provided in the Spring Web Flow distribution.

Chapter 3: The Basics of Spring Web Flow 2 covers all the basics that are essential to build applications with Spring Web Flow. It also explains all the essential things about the flow definition file.

Chapter 4: Spring Faces gives an overview and also a detailed explanation on the usage of Spring Faces with Spring Web Flow. For better understanding, it also explains the essential basics around JavaServer Faces.

Chapter 5: Mastering Spring Web Flow covers advanced topics, for example, the usage of subflows and the new Spring JavaScript library that ships with Spring Web Flow for the first time. The chapter also covers an in-depth look into the flow definition file.

Chapter 6: Testing Spring Web Flow Applications covers the important topic of testing applications that are developed with Spring Web Flow. It shows the integrated support of JUnit (http://www.junit.org) and includes step-by-step instructions showing how to test your applications.

Chapter 7: Security shows how to secure applications that are developed with Spring Web Flow using Spring Security.

Appendix A: flow.trac—The Model for the Examples describes the classes in the sample project, flow.trac. These classes are used in the examples of this book.

Appendix B: Running on the SpringSource dm Server explains how to run a Spring Web Flow application on the SpringSource Application Platform (AP).

For the examples in this book, we have used the following software packages:

This book is targeted at Java web application developers who work with Spring Web Flow. This book is a must-read for those who wish to bridge the gap between the popular web framework and the popular application framework, and also for those who want to create powerful and re-usable web applications. It requires prior knowledge of Spring.

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 are shown as follows: "Next, we define a custom view resolver with a special viewClass property."

A block of code will be set as follows:

<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.webflow</groupId>
<artifactId>org.springframework.js</artifactId>
<version>2.0.5.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items will be shown in bold:

<end-state id="success" commit="true" />
<end-state id="failedView" view="failedView.jspx" />

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

mvn clean compile war:exploded

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 our text like this: "If you click on the Next button, a request to the server will be sent which renders a new web site using Tiles."

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