Recent Posts

Including another XHTML in XHTML using JSF 2.0 Facelets

Most basic way is <ui:include>. The included content must be placed inside <ui:composition>.

Kickoff example of the master page /page.xhtml:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en"
    xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets">
    <h:head>
        <title>Include demo</title>
    </h:head>
    <h:body>
        <h1>Master page</h1>
        <p>Master page blah blah lorem ipsum</p>
        <ui:include src="/WEB-INF/include.xhtml" />
    </h:body>
</html>
The include page /WEB-INF/include.xhtml:

<ui:composition 
    xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets">
    <h2>Include page</h2>
    <p>Include page blah blah lorem ipsum</p>
</ui:composition>
This needs to be opened by /page.xhtml.

A more advanced way of including is templating. This includes basically the other way round. The master template page should use <ui:insert> to declare places to insert defined template content. The template client page which is using the master template page should use <ui:define> to define the template content which is to be inserted.

Master template page /WEB-INF/template.xhtml:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en"
    xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets">
    <h:head>
        <title><ui:insert name="title">Default title</ui:insert></title>
    </h:head>
    <h:body>
        <div id="header">Header</div>
        <div id="menu">Menu</div>
        <div id="content"><ui:insert name="content">Default content</ui:insert></div>
        <div id="footer">Footer</div>
    </h:body>
</html>
(the header, menu and footer can in turn even be <ui:include> files)

Template client page /page.xhtml (note the template attribute):

<ui:composition template="/WEB-INF/template.xhtml"
    xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets">

    <ui:define name="title">
        New page title here
    </ui:define>

    <ui:define name="content">
        <h1>New content here</h1>
        <p>Blah blah</p>
    </ui:define>
</ui:composition>
This needs to be opened by /page.xhtml. If there is no <ui:define>, then the default content inside <ui:insert> will be displayed instead, if any.

Note that the files which aren't supposed to be publicly accessible by just entering/guessing its URL are been placed in /WEB-INF folder, like as the include file and the template file. See also Which XHTML files do I need to put in /WEB-INF and which not?

Also note that there isn't any markup outside <ui:composition> nor <ui:define>. You can put any, but they will be ignored by Facelets. Putting markup in there is only useful for web designers. See also Is there a way to run a JSF page without building the whole project?

For a live example of advanced Facelets templating, check the WebContent folder of OmniFaces showcase site source code.



No comments:

Post a Comment