JSF 2 - construct a page from two files - main and current content

Question

I'm quite new to using JSF and I'm not sure if that's the right way to go, but in Rails you usually have a main application file into which the current page is loaded. That way I don't have to worry about copy-pasting the menu, etc. every time.

How can I achieve that with JSF 2? Can I navigate to the same main page every time and tell it to load a current content? Or do I tell the current page that I navigate to to load the "main frame around the content"?

Thanks!

http://www.mkyong.com/jsf2/jsf-2-templating-with-facelets-example/ — Daniel, May 02 '12 at 08:23
Related: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4792862/how-to-include-another-xhtml-in-xhtml-using-jsf-2-0-facelets — BalusC, May 02 '12 at 13:07

kapandron · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-02T08:48:44.550

Yes of course, JSF 2.0 has page-templating feature. You define a template that defines a generic layout to all the view pages.

Facelets tags to create basic page:

ui:insert – defines content that is going to replace by the file that load the template;
ui:define – defines content that is inserted into tag ui:insert;
ui:include – includes content from another page;
ui:composition – the specified template is loaded, if used with template attribute, and the children of this tag defines the template layout. In other case, it’s a group of elements, that can be inserted somewhere.

For example:

<ui:composition
     xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
     xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
    template="/templates/myLayout.xhtml">

   <ui:define name="menu">
      <ui:include src="/mypath/menu.xhtml"/>
   </ui:define>

   <ui:define name="content"> 
     <ui:include src="/mypath/content.xhtml"/>           
   </ui:define>

</ui:composition>

or

<ui:insert name="content">
   <ui:include src="/mypath/mycontent.xhtml"/>
</ui:insert>

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 02 '12 at 08:16

JSF doesn't support what you want to archive. Instead, it support the views and basic layout(template). What you need it this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ui:composition xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
template="path/to/template.xhtml>

<your custom content here/>
<ui:composition/>

JSF 2 - construct a page from two files - main and current content

2 Answers2