Building the site structure for a dynamic website with JSF

Question

Hi,
I am still a JSF-beginner.
I try to build a fully-functional base-demo-application with a fix and a dynamic part.
Fix part for menu, dynamic part for site-content.
At the moment, the JSF-hyperlinks of the main menu work, but any JSF-parts in the included documents of the dynamic part are not shown. I guess, this is dued to inclusion of subviews, but I cannot find any similar examples in the web to come one step further.
Here my complete demo:
faces-config.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE faces-config PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD JavaServer Faces Config 1.0//EN"
"http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-facesconfig_1_0.dtd">
<faces-config xmlns="http://java.sun.com/JSF/Configuration">
<navigation-rule>
<from-view-id>*</from-view-id>
<navigation-case>
<from-outcome>site1</from-outcome>
<to-view-id>/site1.jsp</to-view-id>
<redirect>
</redirect>
</navigation-case>
</navigation-rule>
<navigation-rule>
<from-view-id>*</from-view-id>
<navigation-case>
<from-outcome>site2</from-outcome>
<to-view-id>/site2.jsp</to-view-id>
<redirect>
</redirect>
</navigation-case>
</navigation-rule>
</faces-config>
web.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="2.4" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">
<context-param>
<param-name>com.sun.faces.verifyObjects</param-name>
<param-value>false</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>com.sun.faces.validateXml</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>javax.faces.STATE_SAVING_METHOD</param-name>
<param-value>client</param-value>
</context-param>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.jsf</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<session-config>
<session-timeout>
30
</session-timeout>
</session-config>
<welcome-file-list>
     <welcome-file>
index.jsp
</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>
</web-app>
index.jsp:
<%@page contentType="text/html"%>
<%@page pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<% response.sendRedirect("/jsfportal/site1.jsf"); %>
site1.jsp:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<%@page contentType="text/html"%>
<%@page pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" prefix="h" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" prefix="f" %>
<% String site = "1"; %>
<%@ include file="base.jsp" %>
dynamic_site1.jsp:
<h1>Welcome to site 1</h1>
Have fun visiting our portal
site2.jsp:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<%@page contentType="text/html"%>
<%@page pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" prefix="h" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" prefix="f" %>
<% String site = "2"; %>
<%@ include file="base.jsp" %>
dynamic_site2.jsp:
<h1>Welcome to site 2</h2>
Go to site 1: *<!-- And this is the JSF-link that is NOT shown: -->*
<f:view>
<h:form>
<h:panelGrid border="0" columns="0">
<h:commandLink id="p1" action="site1" value="Site 1" />
</h:panelGrid>
</h:form>
</f:view>
base.jsp:
<%@ page language="java" %>
<%@ page import = "java.io.*" %>
<%@page contentType="text/html"%>
<%@page pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" prefix="h" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" prefix="f" %>
<%
String title = "";
int siteInteger = 0;
String dynamic_site = "";
if ( site != null )
if (
( site.length ( ) > 0 )
( site.length ( ) <= 30 )
if ( isNumeric ( site ) )
siteInteger = Integer.valueOf ( site ).intValue ( );
switch ( siteInteger )
case 2: title = "Site 2";
dynamic_site = "dynamic_site2.jsp";
break;
default:
title = "Site 1";
dynamic_site = "dynamic_site1.jsp"; // Start page
%>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
lang="de" xml:lang="de">
<head>
<title>
<%= title %>
</title>
<meta name="description" content="test site" />
<meta name="keywords" content="test site" />
</head>
<body>
<div width="100%" style="text-align:left">
<table width="970" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="background-color:#ffffaa;margin-top:25px;">
*<!-- this is not good style putting CSS directly into HTML but it is a demo now ;) -->*
<colgroup>
<col width="970" />
</colgroup>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="left" style="padding:25px;">
+<h1>+
JSF portal
+</h1>+
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<table width="970" border="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="background-color:#f5f5f0">
<colgroup>
<col width="270" />
<col width="700" />
</colgroup>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="left" style="padding:25px; padding-left:40px;padding-bottom:320px;">
<f:view>
<h:form>
<h:panelGrid border="0" columns="0">
<h:commandLink id="p1" action="site1" value="Site 1" />
<h:commandLink id="p2" action="site2" value="Site 2" />
</h:panelGrid>
</h:form>
</f:view>
</td>
<td valign="top" align="justify" class="haupttext" style="padding:24px;">
<p align="justify">
<f:subview id="subview1">
<jsp:include page="<%= dynamic_site %>" flush="true">
<jsp:param name="" value="" />
</jsp:include>
</f:subview>
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>
<%!
public boolean isNumeric ( String myInput )
if (myInput == null || myInput.length() < 1)
return false;
int start = 0;
if (myInput.charAt(0) == '-')
start = 1;
for(int i = start; i < myInput.length(); i++)
if (!Character.isDigit(myInput.charAt(i)))
return false;
return true;
%>
Who can name me that code positions responsible for that the JSF link in the dynamic part is not shown?
It is not that it does not work it is not shown. The JSF tree seems to be cut because of wrong use of view and subview etc.
(To put view tags in site1.jsp and site2.jsp does not help.)
(Once having afforded an example it should go... (*Then* with JSTL, external CSS, etc. ;) )
Dynamical site structure with include files is the big problem at the moment.)
bye, Maik

Answer 1

I found your following suggestions for such cases (seems you are the only profound JSF freak in the world...? :-) )
Switch between subviews in one main page
http://balusc.blogspot.com/2007/01/dynamic-jsf-subviews.html
But the main problem for me is that I never find complete examples, but always fragments and it would be important for a beginner to have at least once a complete JSF example over a few subviews, especially here where it is very easy to corrupt the internal tree.
(Some examples use the subview tags in the calling JSP, some in the called e.g.... Does not matter where to put it? Some use verbatim tags for HTML code outside JSF, some don't... and so on)
Can anyone give me an URL for a complete example of a JSF site (with all files as possible, I am not very patient, too, but in this case it makes sense to have it entire ;-) ) with dynamic switches of subviews as preferentially used for bigger portal sites?