JBoss SEAM

Sewing together JSF and EJB3

Andy Bosch
Independent consultant
2060

AGENDA
> Basic technologies
– What is JavaServer Faces?
– What is EJB3?
– What else? Ajax? PPR? Remoting? ...
> JBoss SEAM
– Introduction
– Features
> Case study
– Using Seam generator
– Entity Beans and Session Beans
– Injection, outjection, bijection
– Other cool features

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AGENDA
> Basic technologies
– What is JavaServer Faces?
– What is EJB3?
– What else? Ajax? PPR? Remoting? ...
> JBoss SEAM
– Introduction
– Features
> Case study
– Using Seam generator
– Entity Beans and Session Beans
– Injection, outjection, bijection
– Other cool features

JavaServer Faces

> JavaServer Faces is a user interface framework to generate user

interfaces for web applications

> JavaServer Faces is a standard. The first version was released as

JSR 128 in March 2004.

> Together with Java EE 5, JSF is now part of the EE range.

> From my (subjective) point of view, JSF these days has established itself
as standard UI framework, many companies and projects are based on
it.

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EJB3

> Central element within the Java Enterprise Edition

> Basis for business-critical software components, like the access to

aspects of transaction, persistence, and safety of a Java EE container is
possible.

> EJB3 offers a considerable simplification concerning the applicability

and pace of development compared to EJB2.x

> Marginal “detail”: annotations instead of configuration files

Ajax, PPR, remoting, ...

> Ajax is one (if not the most important) pillar of Web 2.0

> With Ajax, server functions can be called from the browser in an
asynchronous manner.

> Ajax enables to change only parts of a webpage (Partial Page

Rendering) instead of re-loading the entire page (Full Page Reload)

> Cool, modern, and extremely user-friendly user interfaces (even for the
browser) can be written with Ajax.

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The result of all the ingredients put together...

> Each of the mentioned technologies alone works very well.

> It becomes difficult, when the technologies are to be combined with each
other.

Sometimes it requires a lot of glue code.

> Another possibility to get and to use all the technologies mentioned
“from one source” : SEAM

AGENDA
> Basic technologies
– What is JavaServer Faces?
– What is EJB3?
– What else? Ajax? PPR? Remoting? ...
> JBoss SEAM
– Introduction
– Features
> Case study
– Using Seam generator
– Entity Beans and Session Beans
– Injection, outjection, bijection
– Other cool features

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What is SEAM?

• Seam is an application framework, which specially puts EJB3 and JSF

closer together.

• But not only JSF and EJB3 are combined, other technologies as Ajax,
pdf generation, BPM and many more are integrated too.

• Seam has many features / concepts, which considerably simplify a

development of applications based on JSF (pre-actions, button-back
treatment, …)

• Seam provides additional components.

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SEAM and JBoss

• SEAM was developed under the direction of JBoss (Gavin King).

• SEAM can be of course ideally connected with other products of the

JBoss range.

• SEAM does also work in other application servers though. It is even

possible to run SEAM in a web container by means of the micro-container.

• JBoss has submitted SEAM for standardization. The JSR 299 (WebBeans)
is currently being dealt with.

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Essential properties
• SEAM is based on POJOs (with annotations).

• There are no separate managed beans (for JSF) and separate

persistence beans, but only components of Seam.

• So there is no division into layers anymore (at least not too distinct).

• SEAM provides a remoting function, which can be used to call up EJB

methods via Ajax.

• SEAM has an own Business Process Management Engine (jBPM) to map

workflows.

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Cool stuff

• SEAM introduces Bijection (combination of injection and outjection)

• SEAM introduces new contexts: Conversation Scope and Business

Process Scope.

• SEAM solves the “Open-in-new-window” problem.

• SEAM is by default based on Facelets.

• SEAM offers a generator to set up new projects and artifacts very

quickly.

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AGENDA
> Basic technologies
– What is JavaServer Faces?
– What is EJB3?
– What else? Ajax? PPR? Remoting? ...
> JBoss SEAM
– Introduction
– Features
> Case study
– Using Seam generator
– Entity Beans and Session Beans
– Injection, outjection, bijection
– Other cool features

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Hands-on example

• Set-up of a shop application. The user is to select one

product from a list and start the ordering process.

Here especially:
• use of the Seam generator
• injection
• data list and open-in-new-window
• conversation scope

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Use of Seam-Gen

By means of the Seam generator, complete Seam projects and

Seam artifacts can be generated very quickly.

Use:

seam setup
seam new-project
seam new-form
...

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Generation of an Entity Bean

@Name("ProductCatalog") @Name
@Scope(ScopeType.SESSION)
SEAM component
@Entity
@Table(name="catalog") @Entity
public class ProductCatalogBean {
EJB Entity Bean

@Id @NotNull
private long id;

private String name;

@DataModel(value="choiceProducts") @DataModel
private List<ProductBean> products;
see next page
...

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Binding to the surface

@DataModel from
Managed Bean
...
Pricelist #{ProductCatalog.name}

<h:dataTable var="current" value="#{choiceProducts}">

<h:column>
<s:link action="#{ShopController.selectProduct(current)}"
value="#{current.name}" />
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
...

Action method with parameter

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Controller logic: Session Beans

@Name("ShopController") @Name
@Scope(ScopeType.SESSION)
SEAM component
public class ShopController {

@In(create=true) @In
private ShoppingCart shoppingCart;
Injection

public String selectProduct(

ProductBean prod ) {

shoppingCart.setProduct(prod);
return „success“;
}
...

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Navigation rules (1)

Seam offers an extended syntax for navigation rules, defined in the

pages.xml.
<page view-id="/startPage.xhtml">
<navigation from-action="#{controller.update}">
<rule if-outcome="success">
<redirect view-id="/resultPage.xhtml"/>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>

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Navigation rules (2)

In addition, expressions can be used in the rules:

<page ...>
<navigation from-action="#{startPage.update}"
evaluate="#{controller.errors.size}">
<rule if-outcome="0">
<redirect view-id="/resultPage.xhtml"/>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>

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Pre-actions und request parameters

In the use of the pages.xml, it is possible to define pre-actions or read

in request parameters.

<page view-id="/hello.jsp"
action="#{helloWorld.preparePage}"> ...

<page view-id="/hello.jsp">
<param name="vorname" value="#{person.firstName}"/>
..

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What about “faces-config.xml”?

• A faces-config.xml continues to exist.

• A “Managed Bean” section is not required anymore.

• Managed Beans are declared exclusively via annotations in the Java

classes.

• Navigation rules can be given according to the “JSF style“, or a

changeover to the pages.xml is possible.

• Additional configurations (render kits, custom components, message

bundles etc.) are still carried out in the faces-config.

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Open-in-new-window

Initial position: A user can keep open several windows with of different
program states at the same time.

Here, SEAM defines so-called conversations.

All beans with scope Conversation can thus be stored several times
within one session (per conversation).

To be able to execute an action method in a new window, there is the

s:link- (or s:button) component / tag.

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Build, deploy and start

• If projects are set up via the SEAM generator, an Ant-script is
automatically generated.

• Restart of the context is not required for Xhtml pages. A restart is required
for changes in Java classes and configuration files.

• If a packaging / deployment is to be set up manually (e.g. for a Maven

integration), you will need patience and some time. ☺

• The above statements are exclusively applicable for an implementation in

JBoss, it will require a bit more patience and a bit more time for other
application servers. ☺

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After all, do I like it?

- Well, it’s quite cool.

- Only who has already done projects with standard JSF and Hibernate
is able to really appreciate the advantages of SEAM.

- Direct entry into SEAM without any knowledge of JSF and EJB3 is on
the one hand quite simple, but on the other hand also risky (mixture of
technologies).

- There is light and shadow.

Pros and cons?

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Pros and cons

• Starting with the pros:

• Fully integrated Java EE 5 based web application framework

• By means of Seam-Gen, very quick generation of applications

• Simplification of an EJB3 and JSF development to the effect that no more

glue code is required

• Many cool features, which considerably simplify the development of

applications (pre-actions, request parameters, conversation scope, ...)

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Pros and cons

Now the cons:

• No layers any more, but I like layers!!!

• Mixture of GUI and persistence layer

• Not yet standardized

• Application developers learn only “Seam” and do not know the basic
technologies.

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Conclusion

• Seam certainly provides some useful and valuable extensions for a

web application development.

• Seam works. ☺

• The abolition of the strict division into layers is a matter of opinion.

• You either love it or you hate it.

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Questions? Comments?

Andy Bosch www.jsf-forum.de

Independent Consultant [email protected]

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