j2ee: JavaServer Faces overview [26/27]

JavaServer Faces is a framework for building J2EE UI components. The framework provides a tag library for creating JSF interfaces within a JSP. JSF is a specification released under the Java Community Process (JCP) as Java Specification Request (JSR) 127.

JSF is not an MVC framework, but rather a UI framework. Struts can be configured to work with JSF today, by using JSF instead of Struts view components in the View portion of the application.

JSF provides a set of reusable server side components. These components are richer than the standard HTML forms provided by Struts and HTML. The components work off of an event handling concept, similar to Swing. The components automatically populate themselves with the correct state for the server side instance of the component.

One benefit of JSF is the ability to render different types of markup using the same component. This allows one component to be used for different devices or browsers, which can be a sort of "holy grail" of web application development.

The future success of JSF most likely depends on integration with Struts and the need for increased sophistication in web based applications.