Hi, all.
Of course it is in its early stage but any issues to bugs is because of JSF 1.0. I noticed that
JSP imported from another JSP acted kinda weird. I recommend that you update JSF 1.0 to JSF 1.1. I haven't seen a bug in the mid-size project I have completed.
Actually, you can get data from a GET through JSF:
If you have a link
http://localhost:8080/jsf/main.jsf?userid=joseph&pwd=test, you can access the parameters this way:
FacesContext ctx = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest)ctx.getExternalContext().getRequest();
String userid = request.getParameter("userid");
String pwd = request.getParameter("pwd");
Where you invoke the actionListener or the data binding, the GET values are always available through the FacesContext in JSF.
Actually, I just got finished with moving data from one listbox to another listbox. The functionality occurred where there were able to select multple items from the list and hit the ">>" button to move it to the seletected listbox. The great thing about this is that it did not require one single line of JavaScript. It was all done through JSF.
I think the biggest misunderstanding that I had was comparing Struts to JSF. Or better yet, applying what I know to JSF. While Struts is
servlet concentric based, where action is routed to the ActionServlet and then back to JSP for display. The concept is totally different for JSF, where all action or behavior is component based. If you have 4 buttons, you can literally tie 4 DIFFERENT BEAN to these button. Also, you have to understand the behavior of JSF. If you are using the ACTION event and ACTIONLISTENDER, which does it execute first? If you submit a FORM and ACTION is not specified(in JSF, you do not have to specifies where it goes to next), where does it go? If you submit on a form with no ACTION value, JSF will naturally submit back to the page that submiited it. Point being, there is
alot more learning curve to JSF than what is being assumed. Although, it has similarites as I mentioned before, trying to compare Struts to JSF can lead you down the wrong path or leveraging it improperly.
I think any IDE is appropriate. I cannot give advice on which IDE is better than another. Currently, I am using Eclipse 3.0 and running
Tomcat 5 with a plugin as my app server.
Hope that helps.