Miles to go …

TOTD #93 showed how to get started with Java EE 6 using NetBeans 6.8 M1 and GlassFish v3 by building a simple Servlet 3.0 + JPA 2.0 web application. JPA 2.0 + Eclipselink was used for the database connectivity and Servlet 3.0 was used for displaying the results to the user. The sample demonstrated how the two technologies can be mixed to create a simple web application. But Servlets are meant for server-side processing rather than displaying the results to end user. JavaServer Faces 2 (another new specification in Java EE 6) is designed to fulfill that purpose.

This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) shows how to enhance the application created in TOTD #93 and use JSF 2 for displaying the results.

1. Right-click on the project, select “Properties”, select “Frameworks”, click on “Add …” as shown below:

   

   Select “JavaServer Faces” and click on “OK”. The following configuration screen is shown:

   

   Click on “OK” to complete the dialog. This generates a whole bunch of files (7 to be accurate) in your project. Most of these files are leftover from previous version of NetBeans and will be cleaned up. For example, “faces-config.xml” is now optional and “forwardToJSF.jsp” is redundant.

2. Anyway, lets add a POJO class that will be our managed bean. Right-click on “server” package and select “New”, “Java Class …”, give the name as “StateList”. Change the class such that it looks like:
   

   package server; import java.util.List; import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean; import javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory; import javax.persistence.PersistenceUnit; import states.States; /**  * @author arungupta  */ @ManagedBean public class StateList {     @PersistenceUnit     EntityManagerFactory emf;     public List<States> getStates() {         return emf.createEntityManager().createNamedQuery(“States.findAll”).getResultList();     } }

   Here are the main characterisitcs of this class:

   1. This is a POJO class with @ManagedBean annotation. This annotation makes this class a managed bean that can be used in the JSF pages. As no other annotations or parameters are specified, this is a request-scoped managed bean with the name “stateList” and lazily initialized. More details about this annotation are available in the javadocs.
   2. The persistence unit created in TOTD #93 is injected using @PersistenceUnit annotation.
   3. The POJO has one getter method that queries the database and return the list of all the states.
3. In the generated file “template-client.xhtml”, change the “head” template to:
   

   Show States

   and “body” template to:

   <h:dataTable var=”state” value=”#{stateList.states}” border=”1″>                     <h:column><h:outputText value=”#{state.abbrev}”/></h:column>                     <h:column><h:outputText value=”#{state.name}”/></h:column>                 </h:dataTable>

   This uses the standard JSF “dataTable”, “column”, and “outputText” tags and uses the value expression to fetch the values from the managed bean.

If the application is already running from TOTD #93, then Deploy-on-Save would have automatically deployed the entire application. Otherwise right-click on the project and select Run (default shortcut “F6″). The results can be seen at “http://localhost:8080/HelloEclipseLink/forwardToJSF.jsp” or “http://localhost:8080/HelloEclipseLink/faces/template-client.xhtml” and looks like:

The updated directory structure looks like:

There were multiple files added by the JSF framework support in NetBeans. But as I said earlier, they will be cleaned up before the final release.

Also refer to other Java EE 6 blog entries.

Please leave suggestions on other TOTD that you’d like to see. A complete archive of all the tips is available here.

Technorati: totd glassfish v3 mysql javaee6 javaserverfaces jpa2 netbeans

Related posts:

1. TOTD #95: EJB 3.1 + Java Server Faces 2.0 + JPA 2.0 web application – Getting Started with Java EE 6 using NetBeans 6.8 M1 & GlassFish v3
2. TOTD #108: Java EE 6 web application (JSF 2.0 + JPA 2.0 + EJB 3.1) using Oracle, NetBeans, and GlassFish
3. TOTD #93: Getting Started with Java EE 6 using NetBeans 6.8 M1 & GlassFish v3 – A simple Servlet 3.0 + JPA 2.0 app
4. TOTD #49: Converting a JSF 1.2 application to JSF 2.0 – @ManagedBean
5. TOTD #82: Getting Started with Servlet 3.0 and EJB 3.1 in Java EE 6 using NetBeans 6.7