JViews JSF Web applications at a glance

Programmer's documentation > Building Web Applications > Introduction to JViews Web applications > JViews JSF Web applications at a glance

JavaServer™ Faces technology is provided by the Java Community Process(JCP) under JSR-314. It defines a standard MVC framework based on component-driven user interface (UI) model for Web development. JSF helps to separate the different roles involved in the development of a Web application, namely the application developer, who focuses on the business logic, the component developer, responsible for connecting the back-end logic with the user interface, and the page author, responsible for the application’s UI.

With JSF, developing JViews Gantt Web applications is easier as the client-side UI is created by connecting well-defined components together while the system handles the required client-- and server-- side hurdles automatically.

The JViews Gantt JSF Web technology consists of:

The tag libraries (a set of JavaServer™ Pages - JSP™ tags)

A server-side Java API

The JavaScript library

The tag libraries

The tag libraries are used to build JSP pages; each tag represents a component with a set of configurable attributes. These components are compiled into Java code that is executed on the server-side to produce or manipulate content for the page; each component is also represented by a set of dynamically generated JavaScript objects on the client-side, to handle display and client-server communication. Not all components have a visual representation; interactors, for example, are associated with graphic views and are responsible for data manipulation rather than displaying content.

The basic infrastructure of the JViews Web technology has the following libraries:

JViews Core, which has the following tag identifier http://www.ilog.com/jviews/tlds/jviews-faces.tld

The JViews Gantt features provide two additional tag libraries, one based on raster image generation by the servlet, and another based on SVG technology, which provides lower client-server traffic and a richer display due to the 2D graphic capabilities of SVG. SVG, however, is not currently supported by all Web browsers.

JViews Charts, which has the following tag identifier http://www.ilog.com/jviews/tlds/jviews-charts-faces.tld

In addition, JViews Gantt features the tag library:

JViews Gantt, which has the following tag identifier http://www.ilog.com/jviews/tlds/jviews-gantt-faces.tld

The URIs uniquely identifying the JViews Web technology tag libraries are for identification purposes only, these are not live URIs.

These libraries describe the following components:

debugDependencies: an auxiliary component to help identify unresolved JSP dependencies

imageButton: an interactive component that can be associated with a customized action

menu: an auxiliary component that defines a menu model to create pop-up menus

chartContextualMenu: a component that creates pop-up menus on a chart view

menuItem: the auxiliary component that represents a menu item in a pop-up menu

menuSeparator: the auxiliary component that represents a simple separator in a pop-up menu

messageBox: a visual component that allows the display of text messages to the user

chartView: the chart view, displays an IlvChart component in the Web browser

ganttView: the Gantt chart view, displays an IlvGanttChart component in the Web browser

scheduleView: the Schedule chart view, displays an IlvScheduleChart component in the Web browser

chartLegend: the auxiliary component used in conjunction with a chart view

chartOverview: an auxiliary display component, used in conjunction with the chart view

chartPanInteractor: an interactor for panning the chart view

chartZoomInteractor: an interactor for zooming in and out on the chart view

sheetScrollInteractor: an interactor for scrolling the sheet on a Gantt chart view or Schedule chart view

tableScrollInteractor: an interactor for scrolling the table on a Gantt chart view or Schedule chart view

chartSelectInteractor: an interactor for selecting a point on a chart view, it also triggers a server-side action

selectInteractor: an interactor for selecting and moving objects on a Gantt chart view or Schedule chart view

selectionManager: an auxiliary component for the selectInterator selecting and moving objects on a Gantt chart view or Schedule chart view

nodeSelectInteractor:an interactor for selecting a Gantt hierarchy node, it also triggers a server-side action

rowSelectInteractor: an interactor for selecting a row on a Gantt or Schedule chart view, it also triggers a server-side action

rowExpandCollapseInteractor: an interactor for expanding and collapsing rows on a Gantt or Schedule chart view

The server-side Java API

The JSF components in the JViews Gantt Web technology rely on Java servlets to handle the client requests and produce the appropriate response. A client request is triggered by the Web page, when manipulating the Gantt or Schedule chart view; it can be the result of a direct user input requesting a view update, or an asynchronous request, indirectly sent as part of an interaction.

The servlets are responsible for decoding the client request and processing the appropriate response, which may be a new image update representing the current state of the IlvGanttChart or IlvScheduleChart.

For more information about the different servlets available and how to extend and/or customize them, see JViews servlet implementation.

The JavaScript library

For more information about the different JavaScript objects and their API, see JViews JSF applications versus JViews JavaScript applications and the JavaScript API reference documentation reference documentation.