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Problem Description

The Java Enterprise Edition 5 platform includes JavaServer Faces (JSF) technology, which provides a mature and extensible user interface component model. The design of this model makes it easy for application developers to create custom components by extending the standard components included with JSF and to reuse these components across applications. Creating a component shields the page author from the complexities of AJAX by rendering all the HTML and JavaScript code that is required to incorporate AJAX capabilities into an application. There are many ways to wrap AJAX functionality using JSF, and this document will briefly mention several strategies. You can see the detailed write up on each related startegy in the following documents:

• Using the PhaseListener Approach. This is a simple approach that handles many common AJAX enabled JSF component creation cases.
• Accessing Static and Dynamic Resources. This is an evolution of the PhaseListener approach which adresses some of the issues with the simpler PhaseListener approach.
• Using a Servlet Controller with JSF to handle AJAX requests. This approach decouples the AJAX request fulfillment from the JSF life cycle when this functionality is not desired.
  
• Additional strategies will be coming soon also!

Solution

Developers who want to include AJAX support in JSF applications are faced with many design questions. For example, 

• Should AJAX request handling be done in a separate servlet controller or should it be handled by the JSF life cycle?
• How can existing components be AJAX-enabled without rewriting them?
• Should JavaScript code be embedded in Java code or externalized in a separate script file?