Another one of Seam's compelling features is its ability to manage "conversations". A Seam conversation provides fine grain control over the traditional HTTP session scope so that "concurrent conversations" can occur in HTTP session, which usually occur when users open another browser window or tab. The problem is best described with an example. I've added a confirmation page to the registration application used in my previous blog entries. So consider this application use case:

I launch the application and enter my registration information:

And the Registration page takes me to a confirmation page:

However, rather than completing the transaction (or conversation), I open a new browser tab and decide to register my brother as well:

And click Register to load his confirmation page:

But before completing this 2nd transaction (conversation), I return back to the registration tab with my registration details and now decide to complete the original transaction (conversation):

Hmmm, not was I was expecting (actually, it was - but you know what I mean). Now for anyone who's done web application development, managing the HTTP Session for these scenarios can be a nightmare. Let's see how easily the Seam framework addresses this all too common problem. If you'd like to produce and fix this problem yourself, continue with the following Steps. If you just want to see the solution, jump to Step 3: Solving the Conversation Problem.

Step 1: Getting the Goods

• Download NetBeans 5.5
• Download and extract JBoss Seam 1.0.1 GA
• Download and install JEMS 1.2.0. BETA1. The JEMS installer includes JBoss AS 4.0.4GA and EJB3 CR8, both of which are needed to work with Seam 1.0.1 GA. Be sure to select the ejb3 profile during installation. Note, if you use the JEMS 1.2.0 BETA2 or 3, you may run into this issue.
• Download and extract the Registration application.

Step 2: Setting Up Your Environment

In this first step, we'll set up the environment to run our Registration application.

1. Switch to the Runtime tab and right-click the Servers node to add a server.
   
   
   
   
2. Select JBoss Application Server 4 from the Server drop down list. Change the name to JBoss Application Server 4.0.4.
   
   
   
   
3. Complete the Add Server wizard.
4. Right-click the new JBoss server node and choose Start:
   
   

The Registration Project that we'll open in the next step references a class library called JBossSeam, which we'll now create using the 1.0.1 GA of Seam:

1. Open the Library Manager (Tools menu) and create a new class library called JBossSeam.
2. Set the Classpath to jboss-seam.jar.
3. Set the Sources to the JBoss Seam src\main directory.
4. Set the Javadoc to the JBoss Seam doc directory.

These libraries are now available for use by any project.

The Registration application is a NetBeans Enterprise Application Project, which is actually comprised of 3 projects: Registration, Registration-EJBModule and Registration-WebModule. Registraiton-EJBModule and Registration-WebModule are Java EE Modules of the Registration project. Registration-EJBModule generates the EJB jar file. Registration-WebModule generates the war file and Registration generates the ear file which contains the jar and war.

1. Open the Registration project. The Enterprise Application Project stores the absolute location to its Java EE Modules. So, unless you extracted your project to the exact same location as me, you will see this dialog when you open the project.
   
   
   
   
2. Click Close. The Registration project will be in bold red.
3. Right click the project and select Resolve Reference Problems from the context menu.
   
   
   
   
4. Use the Resolve Reference Problems dialog to map each module to its project, which you'll find are subdirectories beneath the Registration directory.
   
   
5. After the references are resolved, right-click the Registration project and select Open Required Projects (now that the dependencies are correct, these dependent projects will always open for you).
   
   
   
   
6. You'll notice the Registration-WebModule also has a reference problem, as it references the Registration-EJBModule. Use the same steps to correct the reference.

1. Press F6 to run the project. This will build, package, deploy, start JBoss and launch the application in a browser for you.
   
   
   
   You can now walk through to steps outlined in the introduction to create the "conversation problem".

Step 3: Solving the Conversation Problem

The Registration application in the example is already using Seam, it's just not using the conversation feature. In this step, we'll make a few simple changes to our application which will solve the conversation problem outlined in the introduction.

1. User is a named seam component that's currently set to session scope, which matches the standard JSF session scope. Open User.java and change the ScopeType from SESSION to CONVERSATION. This will cause Seam to look for @Begin and @End tags to manage the conversation.

   @Scope(ScopeType.CONVERSATION)

2. Open RegisterActonBean.java and add the @Begin annotation to the confirm method and the @End annotation to the register method. It's as simple as that. The Seam framework will now create and manage a new instance of our User component for each conversation.

       @Begin
       public String confirm() {
           return "success";
       }
       
       @End
       public String register() {
   

3. Walk through the scenario presented in the introduction above and notice how session data no longer crosses tab (or browser instance) boundaries.