3. Facelets Concepts

Contents > Facelets Concepts > Composite View Design Pattern

Composite View Design Pattern

Facelets is based on the Composite View Design Pattern. This means that sections of a page or even pages themselves can be reused by other pages. The Sun Java Blueprints Catalogue defines a composite view as follows:

"A Composite View is a view built using other reusable sub-views. A single change to a sub-view is automatically reflected in every composite view that uses it. Furthermore, the composite view manages the layout of its sub-views and can provide a template, making consistent look and feel feel easier to achieve and modify across the entire application."
(Sun Java Blueprints Catalogue)

What is a "Facelet"?

A "Facelet" is a reusable section of content or a sub-tree of components on a JSF page that can itself be composed of other Facelets. In this sense, a Facelet is a composite view element that can easily be combined with other Facelets to build a JSF view that will be rendered to the user.