I could be wrong, but I think it’s safe to say that most people don’t know about JSFTemplating, which is a pity, as it’s a pretty nice alternate ViewHandler implementation from Ken Paulsen, GlassFish admin console architect. One of the coolest features, I think, is its introduction of templating events (e.g., one can attach a beforeEncode event to a component on a page and have a handler method fire before that component is encoded). The first comment I hear, though, is usually something about template syntax, and it does seem a bit foreign with things like and #include /header.inc. That’s where I come in.

Ken and I got to talking about the project, and, given my experience with Facelets and my involvement with the JSF RI (not to mention my apparent inability to say no :), he asked me if I would be interested in writing a Facelets-compatible format for JSFTemplating, which is another really cool feature of the library: the “formats” are pluggable. That is to say, when you write a web page in a given format, the format handler (technically, a LayoutDefinitionManager) translates the page into a LayoutElement tree, which the core of JSFTemplating then processes to create the UIComponent tree that JSF needs to see. The technical challenge intrigued me, so I agreed to take it on, giving me another lunch time project.

The short-term goals of the effort are to create a format that is functionally equivalent to the templating in Facelets. That is to say, we intend to duplicate the functionality of the ui:* “components” in Facelets, while adding support for the event model that JSFTemplating provides. Once that’s done, I’d like to take a look at some of the more advanced features exposed via the taglib.xml, but we’re taking Dr. Leo Marvin’s advice and taking baby steps.

For those interested in tracking the progress, the source code is available in the JSFTemplating CVS tree, which you’ll be able to see once java.net finishes its massive upgrades.

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