Organization

The book consists of 15 chapters and 6 appendixes.

Chapter 1, Introducing JavaServer Faces

Explains how JSF fits into the big picture of web applications and how it compares to alternative technologies.

Chapter 2, JSF Development Process Overview

Provides an overview of what it means to develop an application with a JSF-based user interface.

Chapter 3, Setting Up the JSF Environment

Describes how to install the Tomcat 5 web container and how to install the book examples, including the JSF reference implementation.

Chapter 4, Servlet and JavaServer Pages Basics

Describes the fundamental HTTP, servlet, and JSP concepts you need to know in order to use JSF to its full potential.

Chapter 5, Developing the Business Logic and Setting Up Authentication

Provides an introduction to the sample application used for most examples in this book and the business logic classes for this application.

Chapter 6, Creating and Rendering Components

Gives a first look under the hood of JSF, focusing on how components are created and rendered at both the API and JSP level.

Chapter 7, Calidating Input

Describes how converters and validators are used to validate user input, and how to develop your own custom validators and customize error messages.

Chapter 8, Handling Events

Explains how to deal with different types of events triggered by clicking on buttons and links or changing input components values, and how these events may affect the user interface or invoke the backend code.

Chapter 9, Controlling Navigation

Takes a look at the JSF page navigation feature and how the outcome of event processing can control which page to display next.

Chapter 10, Working with Tabular Data

Describes alternative ways to display and edit tabular data, including how to best handle large tables.

Chapter 11, Internationalization

Explains internationalization and localization, the Java features available to implement an internationalized application, and describes how JSF takes advantage of these features for development of multilingual web sites.

Chapter 12, Odds and Ends

Covers various areas not discussed in previous chapters, such as composing a page from multiple files, integration with the Struts application framework, debugging tips, and more.

Chapter 13, Developing Custom Renderers and Other Pluggable Classes

Describes how to develop custom JSF renderers for standard components to provide alternative rendering and input capabilities, and discusses how to replace other pluggable classes with custom versions.

Chapter 14, Developing Custom Components

Shows how to develop custom JSF components in different ways, from simple customization of existing components to development of brand new components.

Chapter 15, Developing a Custom Presentation Layer

Describes how JSF supports other presentation layer technologies besides JSP and how to develop a custom layer inspired by the Tapestry open source product.

Appendix A, Standard JSF Tag Libraries

Describes the JSP custom actions included in the two standard JSF tag libraries.

Appendix B, JSF Expression Language Reference

Contains a description of the JSF EL syntax and rules.

Appendix C, Standard JSF Components and Render Kits

Contains descriptions of all standard JSF component classes along with the standard render kit.

Appendix D, Infrastructure API Reference

Contains descriptions of all JSF infrastructure classes, including converters, validators, and error messages.

Appendix E, JSF Configuration File Reference

Contains descriptions of all JSF configuration file elements.

Appendix F, Web Application Structure and Deployment Descriptor Reference

Contains a description of the standard web application structure and all elements in the web application deployment descriptor.

The chapters build on each other, so I recommend that you read them in sequence.