Chapter 1. Introduction to PrimeFaces

Java Server Faces (JSF) is a component-oriented framework for building web application using Java. JSF makes it easy to build web application by automating common tasks such as populating input parameter values into Java Beans by parsing input parameters, performing validations, and rendering or updating views. But building web application with rich User Interfaces (UI) still remains a challenge as Java developers may or may not be good at building fancy UI components using HTML, JavaScript directly. As JSF is a component-based framework, it allows building custom UI components with rich look and feel and can be reusable in any project.

The good news is that there are many open source and proprietary frameworks providing readymade reusable UI components, which can be used in any JSF-based applications. Among the several UI component libraries available today, PrimeFaces is an outstanding UI component library in terms of features and ease of use.

In this chapter, we will cover:

• Introducing the features of PrimeFaces

• Installing and configuring PrimeFaces

• Creating a HelloWorld application using PrimeFaces

• Creating simple forms using PrimeFaces

• Performing form validations

• Performing client-side validations

• Understanding partial page rendering (PPR)

• Updating view using AJAX

• Updating view using AJAX listeners

• Performing tasks periodically using the poll component

• Invoking server-side methods from JavaScript using RemoteCommand

In this chapter, we will see what features make PrimeFaces an outstanding library, how to install and configure PrimeFaces and start using some of its basic components.

PrimeFaces is an open source JSF component library with 100+ rich UI components support. It has built-in AJAX support based on standard JSF 2.0 AJAX APIs.