A Multi-templating System in JSF 2.2 : what does it mean for you?

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Introduction

Ladies and Gentlemen, today, while I'm writing this blog post, I'm one-eyed. Last saturday, I woke up earlier in the morning and I noticed that I couldn't see out with my right eye. I went to see an ophtalmologist to find the cause and the solution and now I'm taking drugs. I'm sharing this crazy experience with you only because it has teached me something. That life is all about having the right vision and you can do that only if you are in the right perspective to see the things right.

Now let's come back to the subject of my blog post, a Multi-templating system in JSF 2.2 : what does it mean for you?  But before answering this question, could I have an insight of your perspective? Who are you in regard to the JSF audience? a Page Author, a Component Writer, an Application Developer, a Tool Provider or a JSF Implementor? If your role belongs to any of these categories, it is fair to call you a "Web Developer". And myself I can fairly say that you are not the primary target of this feature. We have built this Multi-templating system inspired by Joomla's, the most popular CMS in the PHP world, to correct a mistake that Java EE and its web frameworks are doing ever since.

Why did they put the web designers aside? Why Java EE has the ugliest user interfaces I have ever seen ? Why most of the web sites are Php-based ? Truly, in the web and in term of audience, a weak language is kicking the ass of a Platform. Woow! that is really amazing! A real remake of David and Goliath. And as a confirmation, I'm going to share with you a little part of the discussion I had yersterday with Akintayo Abiona Olusegun, a nigerian developer who has converted his PHP application into a JSF one. I asked him why he did that and also if I could have an insight of the state of art in the area of web development in his country. And below are his answers.

"I did decide to use JSF not because I have any particular problems with PHP, No. The website needs a facelift and since I have just studied JSF and all the goodness, I decided to use JSF. Primefaces is also one of the things that help my decision. Most of the things I have to write css and/or javascript (or look for plugins upon plugins for jquery) are made very easy using primefaces. Java EE 6 was the icing on the cake. It is really now very easy to do a Java EE APP compared to say 5 years ago......"

"Here in Nigeria, the predominant web design language is still PHP though. A few people use java for web really, Most people just either use PHP or ASP.NET. The reason is because hosting a Java APP is still very expensive and most of the independent Java developers I know can't afford it. But Java is still the most popular programming language, ALL the companies I know use Java somehow. The biggest companies here (telecoms, oil and gas and banking) are all using Java and Oracle tools, so to get a Job in these companies, Java knowledge is a MUST. But a very high percentage of the freelancers I know use PHP for web..."

But soon such will not be the case because a metamorphosis is happening and we were clever enough to include the web designers in the audience of the upcoming 2.2 version of JSF. And depending on the perspective you are, it means these things for you : Like for Joomla and PHP, JSF and the Java EE world are moving towards a worldwide collaborative development. A JSF developer will no longer create the user interface of his web application, he will just download a template made a template author from all over the world. And you can be sure that it will happen because it is much easier now to design a JSF template than a Joomla template. No knowledge of JSF and Java is required. Only a knowledge of html, css, javascript, photoshop and such. And you can be sure that soon we will have all these templates available to us : Joomla Templates . Very cool, no?

Let's meet in the Cloud

Let's come now to the other part of the problem and here is how I will start. Am I the only one who has the vision that once we have released an implementation of JSF 2.2 and its Multi-Templating system, these two questions will arise :

• From a developer perspective : Where can I find templates?
• From a template author perspective : Where can I publish free and commercial templates to make my own business?

Don't you see that if we do nothing, we will end up by having like for Joomla this awful distributed model : "Do it yourself. Build your own solution and host it on your own infrastructure and don't forget to reference your web site if you want the developers to find your templates through a Google search." So can you understand our desire to make things simple by building a service in the Cloud to connect these two entities into a central place :

• so that a web developer can find templates easily without searching the whole web
• so that a professional web design individual or company will not build and host a solution he cannot afford.

And to have this dream fullfilled, we are planning to collaborate with a Cloud provider so that we can push JSF and Java EE to the next level. So be ready to meet us soon in the Cloud....

JSF 2.2 : The Movie [ Coming Soon ]

Following our desire to innovate, JSF 2.2 will be the first JSR to have a video presentation. It will be made available after the Final Draft but below are some screenshots.I definitely recommend you to do the same for your project. You can use After Effects for that. Professionnal video designers are using this tool for most of the animations and the movies you are watching on TV. If you want to learn more about it and to have an insight of the video design universe, I suggest you to follow the tutorials of Andrew Kramer on his videocopilot.net web site. Definitely worth giving it a look, this guy is truly awesome....

Conclusion

Ladies and Gentlemen, everything has been said and done so I will not waste your time anymore. Let's just meet here next time for another blog post. So until then, I'm going to take my drugs. Hope I will recover soon my whole vision...