BetterFaces

A better JSF component library than what comes with Mojarra

Why BetterFaces?

Do you use JSF, but want to use a component library that is light weight and makes things better? Me too.

BetterFaces is just that, light weight, and makes things better. Rather than adding new widgets and the like, BetterFaces renders HTML in a better way (i.e. not using tables to organize a radio group) that is in line with HTML standards.

Sounds pretty cool, how do I use it?

Simple! BetterFaces is a Maven project, so all you need to do is include it as a dependency in your JSF web application*:

<dependency>
  <groupId>io.timparsons</groupId>
  <artifactId>betterfaces</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1</version>
</dependency>

*until this project is pushed to http://mvnrepository.com/, you will need to include the jar in your project. You can download the jar and reference to its location in your pom:

<dependency>
  <groupId>io.timparsons</groupId>
  <artifactId>betterfaces</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1</version>
  <scope>system</scope>
  <systemPath>${project.basedir}/src/main/resources/betterfaces-0.0.1.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>

Alright, done. Now what?

Now you can make your JSF better! BetterFaces is written in a way that it will override the default Mojarra implementation of various renderers. This means that you don't have to include another namespace in your JSF pages.

Better Tags Currently Implemented

h:selectOneRadio, h:selectManyCheckbox

No more rendering of radio groups and checkbox groups in a table.

Added attributes:

Attribute	dataType	default	description
wrapLabel	boolean	false	controls whether the input tag should be wrapped in a label tag
labelWrapClass	string	null	If wrapLabel is true, then this class will be put on the span that will wrap the actual label text
wrapHtml	string	null	If wrapLabel is true, then the entire input/label will be wrapped in whatever HTML element is defined
htmlWrapClass	string	null	if wrapHtml is populated, then this class will be added to the HTML element specified in wrapHtml

Default rendering without usage of BetterFaces attributes:

<input type="radio|checkbox" name="inputName" value="inputValue" />
<label for="inputName">Label Value</label>

Setting wrapLabel to "true" and specifying labelWrapClass as "labelClass" results in:

<label for="inputName">
  <input type="radio|checkbox" name="inputName" value="inputValue" />
  <span class="labelClass">Label Value</span>
</label>

With specifying wrapHtml to "div" and specifying htmlWrapClass as "fooBar" results in:

<div class="fooBar">
  <label for="inputName">
    <input type="radio|checkbox" name="inputName" value="inputValue" />
    <span class="labelClass">Label Value</span>
  </label>
</div>

---

h:outputFormat

Adds support for named parameters in your parametarized string. Still supports the numeric specification of parameters as originally implemented.

To use the named parameters, simply specify your parameter name inside the braces, and then for each f:param specify both the value and the name, where the name is a parameter specified in your string. Note: order does not matter for the f:param within the h:outputFormat.

For example:

<h:outputFormat value="Welcome, {one}. You have {two} new messages">
  <f:param name="two" value="3" />
  <f:param name="one" value="John" />
</h:outputFormat>

You can even mix named parameters and numeric parameters. Note: order is important for the numbered parameters

<h:outputFormat value="Welcome, {one}. You have {two} new messages. Your last login was at {0} from {1}">
  <f:param value="11:30pm" />
  <f:param value="New York" />
  <f:param name="two" value="3" />
  <f:param name="one" value="John" />
</h:outputFormat>