Presentations

Rapid Fire: The RSF UI Component Framework

Come to this session to learn about Reasonable Java Server Faces (RSF), a unique Java-based UI component framework that emphasies plain old semantic HTML and supports a Web Designer / Developer separation of roles.

RSF (Reasonable Server Faces) is an open source web programming framework that was written from the ground up with Spring in mind. All parts of the application are designed using standard Spring bean definitions, whilst the front end is driven by a completely pure XHTML templating layer that allows full control by designers down to the last tag.

In this session you will learn how to use RSF in conjunction with standard Spring Web technologies such as Spring MVC, Spring Validation and Spring Web Flow (including integration with the latest 2.0 milestones). The session will cover the use of both "semantic" (data-driven) AJAX as well as more markup-driven (AHAH) strategies, in plain RSF as well as in Spring Web Flow 1.x and 2.x.

We will stress the separation of roles that RSF offers between developers and designers, the latter free to customise the application design by editing pure XHTML templates decoupled from developer work cycles. We will also showcase RSF's work with the accessibility community, most particularly the Fluid Project, to build a reliable library of UI components that work in every environment for users with different needs.