Introduction to JavaServer Faces Technology

JavaServer Faces technology consists of the following:

An API for representing components and managing their state; handling events, server-side validation, and data conversion; defining page navigation; supporting internationalization and accessibility; and providing extensibility for all these features
Tag libraries for adding components to web pages and for connecting components to server-side objects

JavaServer Faces technology provides a well-defined programming model and various tag libraries. The tag libraries contain tag handlers that implement the component tags. These features significantly ease the burden of building and maintaining web applications with server-side user interfaces (UIs). With minimal effort, you can complete the following tasks.

Create a web page.
Drop components onto a web page by adding component tags.
Bind components on a page to server-side data.
Wire component-generated events to server-side application code.
Save and restore application state beyond the life of server requests.
Reuse and extend components through customization.

This chapter provides an overview of JavaServer Faces technology. After explaining what a JavaServer Faces application is and reviewing some of the primary benefits of using JavaServer Faces technology, this chapter describes the process of creating a simple JavaServer Faces application. This chapter also introduces the JavaServer Faces lifecycle by describing the example JavaServer Faces application and its progression through the lifecycle stages.