TeamDev Support : Blog List - OpenFaces

OpenFaces 3.0 Early Access 2 with JSF 2.0 support

forum-admin@teamdev.com — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:16:26 GMT

We're pleased to present the second Early Access release for OpenFaces 3.0 with JSF 2.0 support. This release features tighter integration with the JSF 2.0 infrastructure, which has resolved most of the problems that existed in the previous release. Here are the most notable fixes:

fixed Ajax functionality for DataTable, TreeTable, CompositeFilter and all other components;
fixed compatibility with the standard JSF 2.0 Ajax APIs (the <f:ajax> component, and jsf.ajax.request() JavaScript function);
made possible to attach client behavior tags, such as <f:ajax> to all OpenFaces input and command components

Besides, it is now easier to add OpenFaces to your application -- you just need to add OpenFaces jar with its dependencies to your application. No web.xml modification and resource filter registration is required anymore!

You can download this version and the demo package that runs on Tomcat and GlassFish v3 here (see the OpenFaces 3.0 Early Access 2 section). If you've used the previous release, please also read the migration instructions in the release notes document.

This is the last milestone before the final release of OpenFaces 3.0. We'd like to have your feedback on how it behaves in your JSF 2.0 applications in order to polish the library by the actual release. Please post your feedback and share your experience on the product's forum.

OpenFaces 3.0 EA2 Release Notes

forum-admin@teamdev.com — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:08:01 GMT

Here are the changes that were made since the previous early access milestone.

Improvements

It's now easier to add OpenFaces to your application: you just need to add OpenFaces jar and its dependencies. No web.xml modification and resource filter registration is required anymore. See the "Installation and Configuration" section in developer's guide for details.

Resolved Issues

Fixed Ajax functionality for DataTable, TreeTable, CompositeFilter and all other components.
Fixed compatibility with the standard JSF 2.0 Ajax APIs (the <f:ajax> component, and jsf.ajax.request() JavaScript function).
Made possible to attach client behavior tags, such as <f:ajax> to all OpenFaces input and command components.

Known issues

Session expiration notification for Ajax calls doesn't work currently.

Migration Instructions

OpenFaces requires the latest version of Mojarra, 2.0.3, since it has some fixes critical for proper functionality of OpenFaces components. You can download Mojarra 2.0.3 here. If you're running your application on Glassfish application server, make sure to update Mojarra in Glassfish (see the instructions).
Remove ResourceFilter declaration and mapping from application's web.xml.
Make sure to use <h:head> and <h:body> tags instead of old-style plain <head> and <body> tags.

Note: running OpenFaces demo, which is available for download, on Glassfish application server, requires the latest version of Mojarra (Mojarra 2.0.3) to be installed in the Glassfish server. See the installation instructions.

OpenFaces 3.0 Early Access 1 with JSF 2.0 Support

forum-admin@teamdev.com — Thu, 13 May 2010 11:28:06 GMT

We're glad to announce the first early access milestone of the new OpenFaces 3.0 version featuring JSF 2.0 compatibility. Now developers creating JSF 2.0 based applications have access to rich possibilities provided by all kinds of OpenFaces components, ranging from DataTable and TreeTable for flexible data display, to BorderLayoutPanel and Window for creating various layouts, and Validation framework for client-side validation and additional validators.

OpenFaces 3.0 will be maintained in parallel with OpenFaces 2.0 and both of them will have the same set of features, but they will target different versions of JSF: 2.0 and 1.2 respectively. The final release for the OpenFaces 3.0 version is expected in June.

You can download the new version and the demo package that runs on Tomcat and GlassFish v3 here (see the OpenFaces 3.0 Early Access 1 section).

As JSF 2.0 support is currently on an intermediate stage, some functionality is limited yet and there are the following known issues in OpenFaces 3.0 EA1:

- State saving during OpenFaces Ajax requests has some issues when using the built-in Ajax capabilities in certain OpenFaces components. Most notable consequences are: a) impossibility to use Ajax node folding in TreeTable, so only client-side node folding works fine yet, and b) DataTable paginator's "next" button which can't be used more than once.

- The CompositeFilter component doesn't work in this Early Access version.

Feel free to share your feedback and ask any questions on the product's forum. Stay up to date with the latest OpenFaces news by following us on Twitter.

New LevelIndicator component

forum-admin@teamdev.com — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:27:58 GMT

We're introducing the new OpenFaces LevelIndicator component which is already available in the latest nightly builds.

LevelIndicator - a component that shows a numeric value in graphic style, similar to the LED volume meter and resource meter used in Windows Task Manager.

LevelIndicator component can be defined on the page using <o:levelIndicator> tag. LevelIndicator can be provided with the level value that it will represent. The value should be of typejava.lang.Double and be in [0..1] range.

On the following examples you can see the LevelIndicator component in it's default horizontal and vertical states.

The component has transitionLevels and colors attributes, so using these attributes you can define value ranges and specify appropriate colors for them.

<o:levelIndicator value="0.8" colors="blue,orange,violet" transitionLevels="0.35, 0.6" />

The upper declaration defines that LevelIndicator component has two transition level points at 0.35 and 0.6,

this means that LevelIndicator has three value ranges([0 - 0.35] , [0.35 - 0.6] , [0.6 - 1]).

Each of defined value ranges will use each own color, defined in colors attribute of <o:levelIndicator> tag. The result component's representation can be seen on the example below.

As it can be seen from the example below, the component's styles and sizes can be easily customized to the desired look.

  <o:levelIndicator value="0.8"
                    style="background-color: #e6e6e6; border: 1px solid #333; width: 350px; height: 40px;"
                    segmentSize="5"
                    colors="blue,orange,violet"
                    transitionLevels="0.35, 0.6"/>

OpenFaces 3.0 Preview with JSF 2.0 Support

forum-admin@teamdev.com — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:51:23 GMT

We're glad to announce a preview of the JSF 2.0 compliant version of OpenFaces. This is not yet the 3.0 EAP1 milestone mentioned in our Roadmap, which will be published soon but you can already check out OpenFaces in a JSF 2.0 environment and give us some valuable feedback before the upcoming EAP1 version.

Here are the OpenFaces 3.0 Preview download files:

openfaces-3.0.preview1.zip -- contains the new openfaces.jar file and runtime dependency jar files.

openfaces-3.0.preview1-src.zip -- source code for the new version.

openfaces-3.0.preview1-demo.zip -- contains the demo application war file deployable under GlassFish v3 and Tomcat 6.x.

openfaces-3.0.preview1-demo-src.zip -- demo source code.

The installation instructions are the same as for OpenFaces 2.0 for now, see the documentation. Please note also that OpenFaces versions 2.0 and 3.0 are going to have the same features but run under different versions of JSF -- 1.2 and 2.0 respectively.

The JSF 2.0 compatibility support is on an intermediate stage yet though most of the components are already functional. Here are the known issues in this version:

- State saving during OpenFaces Ajax requests has some problems, which results in some issues with built-in Ajax capabilities in certain OpenFaces components. For example DataTable paginator's "next" button can't be used twice and there are certain problems when using the Ajax node folding in TreeTable (hwever client-side TreeTable node folding with preloadedNodes="all" works fine now).

- The CompositeFilter component doesn't work in this version.

- There are numerous validation messages at the bottom of each demo page, though these messages don't affect the demo application's functionality.

- The documentation is not updated to reflect the JSF 2.0 related specifics yet.

Please share your feedback and any issues that you might have on the forum.

New SelectOneMenu component with autocompletion support

forum-admin@teamdev.com — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:36:09 GMT

We're introducing the new OpenFaces SelectOneMenu component which is already available in the latest nightly builds. This component is API-compatible with the standard <h:selectOneMenu> tag, though it provides such additional features as autocompletion support, displaying the drop-down items with JSF compnents and/or HTML markup, multi-column items display, etc. This component is still in development and some features are still going to be added, as well as its API which can still undergo minor changes before the release, though you can already check it out now.

The fact that it's API-compatible with its standard analog means that you can migrate to the OpenFaces version quite easily. Say, you have a standard combo-box, which is declared like this:

<h:selectOneMenu value="#{SelectOneMenuBean.selectedCity}" converter="#{SelectOneMenuBean.cityConverter}">
  <f:selectItems value="#{SelectOneMenuBean.cityItems}"/>
</h:selectOneMenu>

you can just replace the <h:selectOneMenu> tag with <o:selectOneMenu> to switch to the extended OpenFaces version of this component:

<o:selectOneMenu value="#{SelectOneMenuBean.selectedCity}" converter="#{SelectOneMenuBean.cityConverter}">
  <f:selectItems value="#{SelectOneMenuBean.cityItems}"/>
</o:selectOneMenu>

Doing this will turn on the autocompletion or automatic search functionality, where you can type a part of an item, a city in this case, and have the matching item to be highlighted automatically. This feature makes it possible to use combo-boxes even if you need to select from a very large number of items, say several hundred items, where using the standard SelectOneMenu component would be impractical. Here's how the latter declaration looks in the browser when searching for an item:

This component is not in the online demo yet, though you can download the nightly build demo that includes this example (deployable on Tomcat 6), and its source code.

SelectOneMenu vs DropDownField

Although the SelectOneMenu above looks very much like the DropDownField component, they have one key difference besides the API differences.

The DropDownField component (as well as its cousin SuggestionField) is essentially an input component, like other standard input components such as <h:inputText>. In other words, despite it contains the drop-down list to choose items from, the purpose of the DropDownField component is just the entry of text, and the component's drop-down list as well as the autocompletion functionality just assists the text entry. This particularly means that if for example the drop-down list contains two items with the same name (say London, UK and London, OH), it won't be possible to distinguish between them -- the DropDownField will just contain the "London" text when clicking on any of these items and it will be the same as if the user entered this text without even opening the drop-down list.

In contrast, the SelectOneMenu component is a select component, which means that although it allows typing item name in its embedded input field, its purpose is to select from a predefined list of items. So typing "London" (or a partial text) will open a drop-down list for selecting the desired option, and the selected item will be saved in the component and will properly reflect the original item object that corresponds to the selected item.

Nevertheless, the components have much in common, and the SelectOneMenu component has much of the DropDownField's API and possibilities, like customizing the suggestion options, and multi-column drop-down list display. These are briefly shown below.

Additional Customization Options

By default, typing in the SelectOneMenu's field brings the drop-down where all items are displayed and the one matching the typed string being highlighted. It is also possible to make SelectOneMenu filter the suggestion list and display only the matching items using the suggestionMode attribute, which can take the following values:

"stringStart" - Shows suggestions that begin with the entered value.
"substring" - Shows suggestions that contain the entered value.
"stringEnd" - Shows suggestions that end with the entered value.
"all" (the default value) - Shows all items in the list of suggestions.

The SelectOneMenu also has much of the API applicable to DropDownField component, and one of the notable ones is the ability to create multi-column drop-down lists using the embedded <o:column> tags.

So we'll add these two capabilities to our original example:

<o:selectOneMenu value="#{SelectOneMenuBean.selectedCity}"
                 converter="#{SelectOneMenuBean.cityConverter}"
                 var="city"
                 suggestionMode="stringStart">
  <f:selectItems value="#{SelectOneMenuBean.cityItems}"/>
  <o:column style="color: black">#{city.name}</o:column>
  <o:column style="color:gray">#{city.country}</o:column>
</o:selectOneMenu>

and the resulting combo-box will look like this as a result:

You can check out the DropDownField documentation for more customization options until ComboBox documentation receives its own documentation.

OpenFaces 2.0 Released

forum-admin@teamdev.com — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:26:07 GMT

We are glad to announce that OpenFaces 2.0 has "graduated" from the Early Access Program and the final version is released!

OpenFaces is an open source JSF library consisting of a set of advanced components, the Ajax framework and the client-side validation framework.

6 new components are introduced since the EAP 2 was published:

CompositeFilter – allows the user to build complex filter crieteria with multiple filter conditions;
LayeredPane – a container that allows switching between different sets of displayed components;
SelectOneRadio – an extended version of the standard <h:selectOneRadio> component;
SelectManyCheckbox – an extended version of the standard <h:selectManyCheckbox> component;
CommandButton – an extended version of the standard <h:commandButton> component;
CommandLink – an extended version of the standard <h:commandLink> component.

DataTable and TreeTable components have been significantly extended with the following functionality:

Content scrolling with frozen header/footer rows. Both vertical and horizontal scrolling with frozen columns is supported;
Interactive drag&drop column reordering;
Interactive column visibility customization;
Numerous filtering extensions -- customizing search condition, case sensitivity, placing filters inside or outside the table;
Tighter integration with the Hibernate library;
And more...

Certainly, there are many more extensions and fixes in other OpenFaces components and you can see the full list in the release notes.

Use your chance to see the components in action in the Live Demo!

We welcome everyone to contribute and participate in OpenFaces development. Please don't hesitate to post your feedback at the product forum or email us and follow OpenFaces on Twitter.

OpenFaces 2.0 Release Notes

forum-admin@teamdev.com — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:19:05 GMT

Below are the changes that were made since the last early access release, OpenFaces 2.0 EAP2. Please take a look at the What's New in OpenFaces 2.0 document if you'd like to see all changes since the last 1.x release.

New Components

CompositeFilter – allows the user to build complex filter crieteria with multiple filter conditions. Works as a standalone component or can be bound to DataTable/TreeTable components to filter their data.
LayeredPane – a container that allows switching between different sets of displayed components.
SelectOneRadio – an extended version of the standard <h:selectOneRadio> component, which provides additional styling options and makes it possible to customize radio buttons with images.
SelectManyCheckbox – an extended version of the standard <h:selectManyCheckbox> component, which provides additional styling options and makes it possible to customize radio buttons with images.
CommandButton – an extended version of the standard <h:commandButton> which includes the Ajax features and an ability to customize button's content with sub-components or HTML.
CommandLink – an extended version of the standard <h:commandLink> which includes the Ajax features.

Enhancements

Ajax settings:
- It's now possible to customize Ajax progress message position with new horizontalAlignment/verticalAlignment attributes of <o:defaultProgressMessage> tag.
- Ajax progress message can now be made semitransparent and shown with a smooth transparency transition (see <o:defaultProgressMessage> tag documentation).
- Added an option to disable mouse interoperation by shading window contents while Ajax request is in progress (see <o:defaultProgressMessage> tag documentation).
- It's now possible to customize the appearance of session expiration confirmation (see the <o:defaultSessionExpiration> tag documentation).
DayTable:
- Added <o:daySwitcher> subsidiary component for <o:dayTable> that simplifies navigation between days and provides multiple customization options for representation of selected date.
DataTable/TreeTable:
- Added support for content scrolling with header/footer row(s) freezing for DataTable and TreeTable components. Both vertical and horizontal scrolling with fixed columns is supported. See the Content Scrolling section in DataTable and TreeTable documentation for details.
- Added support for interactive drag & drop column reordering. See the Drag & Drop Column Reordering section in DataTable and TreeTable documentation for details.
- Added support for interactive column visibility customization. See the Displaying Column Menus section in DataTable and TreeTable documentation for details.
- Numerous filtering enhancements, see the "DataTable/TreeTable Filtering Enhancements" section below.
- Added support for specifying a popup menu for table columns, containing either the standard or customized set of actions. See the Displaying Column Menus section in DataTable and TreeTable documentation for details.
- Added header and footer attributes to all column tags to serve as a convenient replacement for specifying the text in the "header" and "footer" facets.
- Significantly simplified handling large data sets using Hibernate library. See the Using DataTable with the Hibernate Library section in DataTable documentation for details.
- There's a new "subHeader" facet in the column tags for DataTable and TreeTable components that allows customizing the contents that appear in the table's header section under the column headers.
- Added a new DataTable.getPageIndexForRowKey method for scenarios like detecting the page(s) for selected item(s).
- Improved TreeTable configuration checking and error reporting.
- DataTable is now automatically focused when the pagination buttons are used.
- Resolved the known issue where editable and command components couldn't be used in the Ajax-enabled TreeTable.
Input components:
- Added support for floating point numbers in <o:spinner> component along with customizing number format with <f:convertNumber> tag, which allows to set locale and number pattern using syntax rules defined by java.text.DecimalFormat class.
- Added "auto-growing" feature to the <o:inputTextarea> component, which allows a TextArea to automatically adjust its height based on the amount of typed text. Assign true to theautoGrowing attribute to turn this functionality on.
- Added autocomplete attribute to <o:inputText> component to match API of the standard <h:inputText> tag.
- Added stateList attribute to <o:selectBooleanCheckbox> component, which allows to configure set and order of states of SelectBooleanCheckbox in tri-state mode.
FoldingPanel:
- Added a new loading mode "ajaxAlways", which allows loading a fresh content on each expansion of FoldingPanel. Also note the API change: the "ajax" mode has been renamed to"ajaxLazy".
- FoldingPanel's expansion state is now properly saved when placed inside of iteration components such as <o:dataTable> and <o:forEach>.
TabbedPane:
- Added a new loading mode "ajaxAlways", which allows loading a fresh tab content on each tab switch. Also note the API change: the "ajax" mode has been renamed to "ajaxLazy".
PopupMenu:
- Added built-in Ajax support to PopupMenu items with render and execute attributes.
- Improved JavaScript performance for PopupMenu components.
- PopupMenu is now automatically repositioned if necessary to fit visible window's area.
Other:
- Added the caption attribute for <o:foldingPanel>, <o:window>, <o:sidePanel> and <o:subPanel> (former <o:tabbedPaneItem>) tags, which is a short replacement for the"caption" facet if you need to specify the caption as text.
- Added built-in Ajax support to the <o:captionButton> tag with render and execute attributes.
- Added built-in Ajax support to <o:singleRowSelection>, <o:multipleRowSelection>, <o:singleNodeSelection>, and <o:multipleNodeSelection> tags with render and execute attributes.
- Improved JavaScript performance for DataTable/TreeTable components.
- Added oncontextmenu event for all components.
- All popups in components like DropDownField, SuggestionField, Calendar, DateChooser, PopupMenu can now be closed by pressing Esc key.
- Added support for handling mouse events in <o:floatingIconMessage> tag.
- Extended client-side API for PopupMenu, Window and PopupLayer components with methods isVisible(), getLeft(), and getTop().
- Improved error checking when processing default validation message presentation parameters in web.xml.

Ajax Framework Changes

The Ajax Framework API has been significantly modified and extended to make it consistent with the JSF 2.0 API. Tags and attributes have been renamed in accordance with the new specification. Please refer to the "Migrating to the New Ajax API" sub-section in the Migrating from OpenFaces EAP2 document.

New features have been added to the Ajax (former ReloadComponents) component:

It's possible to specify JavaScript code that should be executed on the client when an event defined by event attribute occurred (onevent attribute);
New attribute disabled now indicates whether or not the component should render client script on referred component.
Ajax component now automatically decides when to disable the default action of the attached component to avoid the conflict between Ajax action and the default action of the attached component (disableDefault attribute removed).

DataTable/TreeTable Filtering Enhancements

The filtering API for DataTable and TreeTable components has been significantly reviewed and enhanced. The previous filtering API consisted of filtering-related attributes in <o:column> tag. Although this was enough for a simple API, different kinds of filters require different sets of attributes and additional features require much more attributes, so filters are now organized as separate tags – one tag per one type of filter: <o:inputTextFilter>, <o:dropDownFieldFilter>, and <o:comboBoxFilter>. Each tag has a set of attributes applicable for that particular type of filter. It's quite easy to migrate to the new API though, see the "Migrating to the New Filtering API" sub-section in the Migrating from OpenFaces EAP2 document.

Here are the new features that were implemented as part of the new API:

It's possible to customize whether search should be case sensitive or not.
It's now possible to customize the condition by which search has to be performed (contains, equals, less, greater, etc.).
It's now possible to specify style and all other component-specific attributes of filtering components.
There's now an option (turned on by default) that makes filtering to be performed on the fly as the user types in the filter field.
DropDownFieldFilter now suggests filter text as the user types it.
Filters can now be placed outside of their DataTable/TreeTable components.
The filtering expression can now be detected automatically when a filter resides in a table column.

Please see the Filtering section in the DataTable and TreeTable documentation for the comprehensive details on featurs and usage of the filtering functionality.

Resolved Issues

Ajax component (former ReloadComponents component):
- Fixed the issue where <o:reloadComponents> (now <o:ajax>) inside <h:commandLink> might cause "...no message was rendered" js error.
- Fixed input focus loss after Ajax requests.
- Fixed some cases when <o:reloadComponents> (now <o:ajax>) couldn't find components by id.
- Fixed <o:reloadComponents> inside <o:dataTable> and <o:forEach>
DataTable/TreeTable:
- Fixed DataTable/TreeTable column resizing issues in IE strict mode and Opera.
- Fixed improper table column resizing behavior under Chrome and Safari in some configurations.
- Fixed a known issue of non-working column resizing on tables with common header under Safari.
- Fixed drop-down table filter size under Chrome and Safari.
- Fixed filter fields width issue in IE strict mode.
- Fixed contracting tree indents when resizing columns in TreeTable.
- Supported rgb-syntax when specifying table gridline styles, e.g. "1px solid rgb(192, 217, 239)" instead of "1px solid #C0D9EF".
PopupMenu:
- Fixed minor sub-menus misalignment in PopupMenu component.
- Fixed excesssive PopupMenu's focus reacquiring after it is hidden.
- Fixed unwanted page scrolling when the mouse enters a PopupMenu.
- Fixed an issue of input fields protruding over PopupMenu in IE6.
- Fixed an issue where PopupMenu was too wide under IE quirks mode.
- Fixed unwanted sub-menu blinking when clicking an item while the sub-menu showing delay is in progress.
- Fixed automatic attaching PopupMenu to TabbedPane and FoldingPanel.
Other components:
- Fixed typing "&" and "(" symbols in DropDownField and SuggestionField components.
- Fixed clipping popups of drop-down components (DropDownField/SuggestionField/DateChooser) with parent elements having a hidden overflow in IE+quirks.
- Fixed misplaced Calendar days near DST transition in Southern American time zones.
- Fixed NPE when changing the rendered attribute of a TabbedPane in an action.
- Fixed showing/hiding of <o:window> and <o:popupLayer> using binding to visibility attribute.
- DropDownField and DateChooser components now ensure that the drop-down will be opened in the visible window's area.
- Fixed using <o:ajax> (former <o:reloadComponents>) inside of <o:menuItem> tags.
- Fixed "cursor transparency" over DropDownField/DateChooser components placed into an absolutely positioned container in IE8.
- Fixed non-working size attribute for <o:twoListSelection> tag.
- Fixed TabbedPane stealing focus from some of the embedded focusable components (such as DataTable, Calendar, etc).
- Fixed Spinner buttons appearance in IE.
- Fixed rollover styles for the Spinner component.
Miscellaneous:
- Fixed not applying styles for some components in IE with "Invalid Argument" JavaScript error on pages with lots of OpenFaces components.
- Fixed duplicating server-generated content of <h:messages> when opening DateChooser.
- Fixed compatibility with RichFaces in Facelets environment
- Fixed security issue where reading files from server's current directory was possible.
- Fixed JavaScript error when changing the set of validated components with Ajax.
- Fixed misplaced/disappearing <o:floatingIconMessage> images when Ajax-reloading validated fields in a multi-form page.
- Fixed compatibility issues between OpenFaces and RichFaces session expiration handling functionality during ajax requests.
- Fixed excessive "enclosing form cannot be found" log messages when using <rich:modalPanel> component.
- Fixed issues with state saving during ajax requests under MyFaces 1.2.
- Fixed getCount() function in iteration status of ForEach component to return a 1-based value instead of 0-based one.
- Fixed isLast() function in iteration status of ForEach component.

Other

DataTable/TreeTable filter fields' text is now not marked with selection for convenient typing after filtering.
The default values for the Spinner's minValue and maxValue attributes are now unspecified by default making it possible to enter a number without range restrictions by default.
Rollover button style for DateChooser and DropDownField is now applied when mouse is over the button itself rather than over the field.
Improved the default look for the PopupMenu component.
Completed documentation for all components.

Migration Instructions

Please see the Migrating from OpenFaces EAP2 document for the migration instructions. If you're migrating from version 1.x of the QuipuKit library, see the Migrating from QuipuKit 1.6.2 document.

OpenFaces Twitter Channel, The Upcoming Release

forum-admin@teamdev.com — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:54:32 GMT

First, we would like to announce the new OpenFaces_JSF Twitter channel where you can track the development of OpenFaces, receive news, tips, and other notable information about OpenFaces. You're welcome to follow OpenFaces on Twitter!

Also, a couple of words on the upcoming final version of OpenFaces 2.0. The pre-release period of OpenFaces development comes to an end and the date for the final release is now set to Mar, 4, next week. The upcoming version contains 6 new components, significant DataTable and TreeTable improvements, a lot of extensions for other components, the revised and polished API, comprehensive documentation and of course a lot of fixes.

OpenFaces AJAX-powered JSF components EAP2 Released

forum-admin@teamdev.com — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:34:24 GMT

We are happy to announce the second early access (EAP2) release of the OpenFaces AJAX-powered JSF components. The EAP2 release is the last milestone before the version 2.0 release expected in late September. The EAP2 release adds a new Select Boolean Checkbox component, a number of enhancements, several API changes, and resolves issues reported by the developers during the initial evaluation of EAP1 release.

The Select Boolean Checkbox component introduced in this release is an extended version of the standard <h:selectBooleanCheckbox> component which adds tri-state support (two typical states and the third “undefined” one), allows for customizing checkbox images and state-dependent styles.

Following numerous requests from our users we’ve also added a new demo application, which shows how OpenFaces components can work together with RichFaces in one application. You can see this demo online, or download the demo and its source code.

Please see the release notes for the full list of enhancements.

Before the OpenFaces 2.0 is released, we also decided to extract a code of the testing system we use for automated tests of OpenFaces components and web applications we build into a separate project called Selenium Inspector. This testing framework, built on top of Selenium, allows testing not only JSF-based applications, but any HTML-based applications. So we felt this code may be useful for wider web development community as a separate project.

The module for testing OpenFaces is already included into the standard Selenium Inspector distribution, and can be downloaded here. The support of RichFaces and other popular JSF frameworks is going to be added after we release OpenFaces 2.0, and hopefully with your contribution.

Give OpenFaces EAP2 and Selenium Inspector a try and let us know what you think.