Intention of JSF (web applications or web sites?)

Question

Hi,
I want to write a web application that has a similar look and feel to todays desktop applications. Thus I don't need a typical web site look (title on the top, navigation bar etc.) but a more desktop look (a menu bar on the top, a status bar on the bottom etc.)
Although I like JSF I am not sure, if this framework is the best for this job. Thus I wanted to ask, if you can tell me the intention of JSF:
Is it to build web sites or is it also to build web applications without the typical web site look and feel? With JSF both is possible of course. And with the adequat JavaScript library on the client side it looks very nice (e.g. ExtJS).
But was this one of the intentions of JSF? Or was it primarily to build usual web sites with a page flow etc.? And maybe another framework is better for what I am going to do?
I only don't want to use a JSF for something it has not been made for.
Greetings
Mike

Answer 1

wpafbuser1 wrote:
I don't see what the point is in making a distinction between web sites and web apps. Are you trying highlight the difference between say Apache vs. JBoss?I'm not sure what you mean by "the difference between say Apache vs. JBoss" but here's what I meant. When I think a web site, I think of a site where the interaction tends to be more reading, clicking from page to the next, etc., like, for example a news site. With a web app, I tend to think of statefulness, business processes, etc, like an online accounting system, content management system, etc. The distinction is probably pretty academic, though...
Well you need to decide if you're making a simple web site that serves static content or i fyou're making an application with a GUI. There's a big difference.Exactly.
For a desktop-like application, I say web browsers in general are a bad choice. I'd use Web Start if possible and write a GUI. In any case, Hehe. That's a completely different (though very valid argument(
AJAX is the last thing I'd use (now you're writing HTML, XML, AJAX, Java, etc..). Echo2 provides 1 single API rather than hacking several. Flex, while I haven't used much, seems to also provide a much cleaner solution. Fair enough, and that's not an uncommon opinion. I'm probably somewhere in the middle, but, for what I've been asked to do since the web 2.0 hype started, Ajax has been sufficient. I'm not Echo2 expert, but isn't that just an HTML/JS interface with a Java backend with Ajaxy operations? For really, really complex and dynamic UIs Flex (or JavaFX :) might be more appropriate.
Again, I haven't used JSF so I can't say much about it. But I see lots of projects all the time and JSF seems to be slow for adoption so far. Just my personal experience.Hmm. I've used it for about three years now, fwiw, and really, really like it. Which probably isn't worth much. I will admit, though, that JSF isn't always the right tool (thus the discussion here). As far as adoption goes, it seems to be growing much faster than the other frameworks out there, but I may have tinted glasses... ;)