Mind over Matters: Rumbles of my mind.. Echo in this blog..

Seam is an application framework developed by JBOSS for developing next gen enterprise level applications using technologies like EJB3, JSF, portlets and Ajax. This blog entry explains how to get started with building a basic seam application with woodstock and deploy it on glassfish.Here is the source of the project i used as the reference for writing this blog entry. Remember that you would need to create the libraries i specified and resolve the project dependencies.

The first step is to create libraries for dependent jars that we will be using in our application. You would need to download seam from JBOSS website. You can download the latest version 2.0.0 GA here from JBOSS site.

• hibernate-all.jar

• jboss-seam.jar

• jboss-el.jar


• jboss-seam-debug.jar


• jboss-seam-ui.jar

• thirdparty-all.jar


• dom4j.jar


• persistence-api.jar


• jboss-common-core.jar


• jboss-archive-browsing.jar

• jsf-facelets.jar


• el-api.jar


• el-ri.jar

• commons-beanutils.jar


• commons-collections.jar


• commons-logging.jar


• commons-digester.jar


• dataprovider.jar


• dojo-1.0.0.jar


• jhall.jar


• jsf-extensions-common-0.1.jar


• jsf-extensions-dynamic-faces-0.1.jar


• json-2.jar


• jsr311-api.jar


• prototype-1.5.0.jar


• webui-jsf.jar


• webui-jsf-suntheme.jar

The next step is configuring your project with the appropriate resource files.



WoodstockExample/src/conf/application.xml



First, in your WoodstockExample project, create an application.xml. This looks like this. It specifies my context root and the ejb jars used.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><br/> <application version="5" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"<br/> xmlns<img src="http://blogs.sun.com/images/smileys/love.gif" class="smiley" alt=":x" title=":x" />si="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"<br/> xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee<br/> http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/application_5.xsd"><br/> <display-name>WoodstockExample</display-name><br/> <module> <web><br/> <web-uri>WoodstockExample-war.war</web-uri><br/> <context-root>/WoodstockExample</context-root> </web><br/> </module> <module><br/> <ejb>WoodstockExample-ejb.jar</ejb> </module><br/> <module> <ejb>jboss-seam.jar</ejb> </module><br/> </application><br/>





WoodstockExample-ejb/src/conf/ejb-jar.xml



Specify the following in your ejb-jar.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><br/> <ejb-jar xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"<br/> xmlns<img src="http://blogs.sun.com/images/smileys/love.gif" class="smiley" alt=":x" title=":x" />si="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"<br/> xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee<br/> http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/ejb-jar_3_0.xsd" version="3.0"><br/> <interceptors> <interceptor><br/> <interceptor-class>org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class><br/> </interceptor> </interceptors> <assembly-descriptor><br/> <interceptor-binding> <ejb-name>*</ejb-name><br/> <interceptor-class>org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class><br/> </interceptor-binding> </assembly-descriptor><br/> </ejb-jar><br/>



WoodstockExample-ejb/src/conf/persistence.xml



This defines the database properties that you will be using for this application.
Give the persistence unit a name,  select the persistence provider as hibernate and the table generate strategy as "drop and create"

Here is how my xml looks like.


<?xml version="1.0"<br/> encoding="UTF-8"?><br/> <persistence version="1.0"<br/> xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"<br/> xmlns<img src="http://blogs.sun.com/images/smileys/love.gif" class="smiley" alt=":x" title=":x" />si="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"<br/> xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence<br/> http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_1_0.xsd"><br/> <persistence-unit name="WoodstockExample-ejbPU"<br/> transaction-type="JTA"><br/> <provider>org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence</provider><br/> <jta-data-source>jdbc/__default</jta-data-source><br/> <properties> <property name="hibernate.dialect"<br/> value="org.hibernate.dialect.DerbyDialect"/> <property<br/> name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="create-drop"/> <property<br/> name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true"/> <property<br/> name="hibernate.cache.provider_class"<br/> value="org.hibernate.cache.HashtableCacheProvider"/> <property<br/> name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="create-drop"/><br/> </properties> </persistence-unit><br/> </persistence><br/>



WoodstockExample-ejb/src/conf/seam.properties



This is a blank file needed for seam. Nothing is required  here.
Leave this blank.



WoodstockExample-war/src/conf/faces-config.xml



Your standard managed bean mappings go here. But since, in seam, you use annotations, you probably wont be specifying any managed beans over here.

If you use facelets (which i did in my application) you would need to specify the following in your faces-config.xml





<!-- Facelets support<br/> --> <application><br/> <view-handler>com.sun.facelets.FaceletViewHandler</view-handler><br/> </application><br/>



WoodstockExample-war/src/conf/web.xml



And finally we need our standard web.xml where we need to specify a number of things.

The ejb jndi pattern, JSF and theme servlet mapping and the seam listener mappings are done here.
Here is how my web.xml looks like.






<?xml version="1.0"<br/> encoding="UTF-8"?><br/> <web-app version="2.5" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"<br/> xmlns<img src="http://blogs.sun.com/images/smileys/love.gif" class="smiley" alt=":x" title=":x" />si="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"<br/> xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee<br/> http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"> <!-- Seam<br/> --> <listener><br/> <listener-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamListener</listener-class><br/> </listener> <context-param><br/> <param-name>javax.faces.STATE_SAVING_METHOD</param-name><br/> <param-value>client</param-value> </context-param><br/> <context-param><br/> <param-name>javax.faces.DEFAULT_SUFFIX</param-name><br/> <param-value>.xhtml</param-value> </context-param><br/> <context-param><br/> <param-name>facelets.DEVELOPMENT</param-name><br/> <param-value>true</param-value> </context-param><br/> <context-param> <description> </description><br/> <param-name>org.jboss.seam.core.init.jndiPattern</param-name><br/> <param-value>java:comp/env/EnterpriseApplication2/#{ejbName}/local</param-value><br/> </context-param> <!-- Faces servlet mapping --><br/> <servlet> <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name><br/> <servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class><br/> <init-param><br/> <param-name>javax.faces.LIFECYCLE_ID</param-name><br/> <param-value>com.sun.faces.lifecycle.PARTIAL</param-value><br/> </init-param> <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup><br/> </servlet> <servlet-mapping> <servlet-name>Faces<br/> Servlet</servlet-name><br/> <url-pattern>/faces/*</url-pattern><br/> </servlet-mapping> <!-- Theme Servlet --> <servlet><br/> <servlet-name>ThemeServlet</servlet-name><br/> <servlet-class>com.sun.webui.theme.ThemeServlet</servlet-class><br/> <load-on-startup>2</load-on-startup> </servlet><br/> <!-- Theme Servlet Mapping --> <servlet-mapping><br/> <servlet-name>ThemeServlet</servlet-name><br/> <url-pattern>/theme/*</url-pattern><br/> </servlet-mapping> <ejb-local-ref><br/> <ejb-ref-name>EnterpriseApplication2/RegisterActionBean/local</ejb-ref-name><br/> <ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type><br/> <local>com.web.register.RegisterActionLocal</local><br/> <ejb-link>RegisterActionBean</ejb-link><br/> </ejb-local-ref> </web-app><br/>

Great. Now that we have everything set, all we have left is to create the actual application. The sample application that i have is a simple registration application where you enter your user name and password and the next page shows a list box containing a list of user names and passwords. Pretty novice.


Here is what my final deployed app looked like:




You can get the source of the project here.

Note that it is a netbeans 6 project and requires glassfish.

• Brian Leonard's blog  - Running JBoss's seam on glassfish (a bit outdated but very helpful)
• CoffeeCrew site - Facelets, seam,, netbeans and glassfish.
• Michael Yuan's blog - Seam demo app for glassfish.
• JBoss Seam forum - A lot of great people who help out beginners like me.