[ER] Introduce af:script component

Question

Hi!
Trinidad includes tr:script component. ADF RC is lacking one (and I don't like mixing tr: and af: as it produces strange issues). Lot of blog posts by Frank and others is still using plain-text snippets like
<f:facet name="metaContainer">    
<af:group>      
<![CDATA[          
<script>
function clientMethodCall(event) {
                 </script>
]]>    
</af:group>   
</f:facet>I would like to suggest introducing advanced af:script component that allows:
1.     declarative .js file inclusion (src="..." attribute) with relative and absolute path referencing (this is very important for cases when the script is used in templates, custom components and other reusable components where it is not predictable in which page/url the script rendering will occur in run-time)
2.     declarative script text inclusion and script source code editing (with code coloring and auto-completion support for easy coding with particular support to ADF RC Client Script API)
3.     script inclusion control logic like:
a.     singularInclusion="true/false" attribute that ensures that script is included in run-time generated JSP only once per page (to prevent cases when I have same script included multiple times on page as it is appearing in several reusable components – custom components, jsffs in multiple regions etc.). This attrib should check if the script with same id (possibly uniquely identified by special scriptId or scripKey attribute) is already included in view/page and prevent multiple inclusions. In some cases the multiple inclusions are desired (like with in-line non-differed scripts).
b.     rendered="true/false"
c.     deffered="true/false"
4.     support for script debugging
Also, I would suggest that ADF RC both client-side and server-side api include enhanced support for registering/including client scripts (with above mentioned support for checking if script with particular scriptId is already registered/included, de-registering particular scriptId etc.).
I remember that .Net have a much better support for client-script handling so I would encourage ADF devs to consider this.
Kind regards,
PaKo

Answer 1

Hello Pavle,
It's true that some of those features are nice. You might want to look at the Scriplet API as it more or less does what you want. It's a quite complex and complicated API, but it support pretty much all the of the features you're asking for.
Also, as a side note, I suggest that you take a look at JSF 2.0 early draft (http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/edr/jsr314/index.html), and more specifically at the resource section to see if it's better suited for your needs. Of course, you won't have those in JDeveloper 11g, but it'll be a head up for what's to come.
Regards,
~ Simon