Mark A. Basler's Weblog

Monday February 06, 2006

AJAX enabled Java Server Faces (JSF) Components now available...

A new version of the early access EE5 Java Blueprints Solutions Catalog that includes numerous AJAX enabled JSF components has just been released . These components can be deployed on Glassfish, Sun's open source application server. The catalog contains some very useful components that can be used right out of the box by just including the jar (ui.jar) in your distribution.

One component that I wish was more widely used is the Popup Balloon. This component can display detailed information about an object if it is trigger from the the mouseover Javascript event. This information is retrieve asynchronously through an AJAX call and shown once retrieval is complete. For Example:



This methodology is used on some sites, but the idiom isn't used nearly as much as I would like. There are many times when I am browsing sites such as TV Guide, that I would like to just mouseover the movie title and get the description of the movie and its actors. Along the same theme, when I am browsing MorningStar, it would be great to mouseover a stock symbol and get more information about the stock, like current price, stock industry and year-to-date performance. The Popup Balloon JSF component facilitates this functionality.

Currently, the AJAX Popup Balloon retrieves information through a developed source like a custom servlet. There is detailed documentation contained in the EE5 Java Blueprints Solutions Catalog on the Popup Balloon's use and implementation as well as the other components the bundle provides. In the future, I envision users would be able to customize the information that the AJAX Popup Balloon will show. Hopefully, you will see a JSF component that enables this functionality very soon.

Hope this helps - Thanks - Mark

Posted by basler Feb 06 2006, 08:37:45 AM PST Permalink