JSF Framework

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JSF Edition

Product Overview

The JSF Edition implements and extends JSF technology, and allows you to create RIAs rapidly on a J2SE platform. The JSF Edition package includes the following:

  • Backbase JSF Server Runtime—manages server-side UI processes. The Backbase JSF Server Runtime is built into each JSF Edition application. For more information, please refer to the JSF Edition Technical Overview.
  • Client Runtime—manages client-side UI processes. The Client Runtime is downloaded to the client. For more information, please refer to the Client Framework Technical Overview.
  • Backbase Eclipse plugin—tooling to assist the development process. The Backbase Eclipse plugin provides wizards for creating components and backing beans, and for creating new JSF Edition JSP or Facelets projects.
  • Starter kits and examples—starter kits are complete JSF Edition applications (WARs) that are intended to demonstrate a range of product features. The example applications (WARs) provide code and documentation about a specific issue, such as implementing a specific component or integrating with another framework.

JSF is a UI framework for Java web applications. It is designed to significantly ease the burden of writing and maintaining applications that run on a Java application server. JSF makes it easy to construct a UI from a set of reusable UI components, simplifies migration of application data to and from the UI, helps manage UI state across HTTP requests, provides a simple model for wiring client-generated events to server-side application code, and allows custom UI components to be easily built and re-used.

As shown in the figure, the JSF Edition allows Backbase UI technologies to be mixed with standard implementations (such as plain JSF and standard XHTML) in a single page:

JSF Edition Page With Mixed Technologies

Backbase combines RIA with AJAX to enable the development of more responsive web applications. The UI technologies that Backbase delivers rely on open standards and specifications, and are richer and more robust due to their extended MVC architecture.

As shown in the figure, client-server delta bi-directional communication, client-side model-tree, and single page interface are all characteristics of the JSF Edition:

Comparison of Backbase JSF Edition RIA and conventional RIA

AJAX is a term describing a web development technique for creating interactive web applications using a combination of technologies. AJAX applications send requests to the web server to retrieve only the data that is needed. In the JSF Edition, the rendering of the data (the presentation) is generated server-side and sent to the client, where the response is rendered by the Client Runtime in the client browser. The data to be rendered results in a partial update of the application, and not a full reload. As shown in the figure, the data-driven request-response model is implemented in a Backbase web application using the SPI model.