Book Image

Seam 2.x Web Development

Book Image

Seam 2.x Web Development

Overview of this book

The Seam framework from JBoss allows developers to use JSF, Facelets, EJB, and JPA to write conversational web applications. But you will first have to learn how these standard technologies are integrated using Seam and how they can be built upon using additional Seam components. If you need to build a Java web application fast, but don't have time to learn all these complex features, then this book is for you. The book provides a practical approach to developing Seam applications highlighting good development practices. It provides a complete walk through to develop Web applications using Seam, Facelets, and RichFaces and explains how to deploy them to the JBoss Application Server. You can start using key aspects of the Seam framework immediately because this book builds on them chapter by chapter, finally ending with details of enterprise functionality such as PDF report generation and event frameworks. First, the book introduces you to the fundamentals of Seam applications, describing topics such as Injection, Outjection and Bijection. You will understand the Facelets framework, AJAX, database persistence, and advanced Seam concepts through the many examples in the book. The book takes a practical approach throughout to describing the technologies and tools involved. You will add functionality to Seam applications after you learn how to use the Seam Generator RAD tools and how to customize and fully test application functionality. Hints and tips are provided along the way of how to use Seam and the JBoss Application Server.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Seam 2.x Web Development
Credits
About the author
About the reviewers
Preface

Object Injection and Outjection


One of the benefits of using Seam is that it acts as the "glue" between the web technology and the server-side technology. By this we mean that the Seam Framework allows us to use enterprise beans (for example, Session Beans) directly within the Web tier without having to use Data Transfer Object (DTO) patterns and without worrying about exposing server-side functionality on the client.

Additionally, if we are using Session Beans for our server-side functionality, we don't really have to develop an additional layer of JSF backing beans, which are essentially acting as another layer between our web page and our application logic.

In order to fully understand the benefits of Seam, we need to first describe what we mean by Injection and Outjection.

Injection is the process of the framework setting component values before an object is created. With injection, the framework is responsible for setting components (or injecting them) within other components. Typically...