3. Facelets Concepts

Contents > Facelets Concepts > "JSFC" Attribute Feature

Using the JSFC Attribute Feature with Standard HTML Tags

Like the Apache Tapestry framework, Facelets allows page designers to decorate standard HTML tags with a special attribute to indicate that certain tags should be treated as server-side components by the Web application framework.

This approach has the benefit of allowing Dreamweaver to display standard HTML tags in WYSIWYG mode while allowing page designers to indicate that some tags are actually component tags to be handled by the server in a special way.

JSFC Attribute Feature in FaceletsTools Professional

FaceletsTools Professional includes comprehensive support for the Facelets JSFC attribute feature and ships with an updated version of the standard HTML tag library for Dreamweaver that contains JSFC attributes for specific tags, as well as enumerated values and other enhancements to Dreamweaver's Code Hints feature for Facelets. It also provides JSF data-bound property inspectors and tag chooser dialogs for these tags.

FaceletsTools Professional also includes a powerful Facelets XML formatter and a Dreamweaver menu command with keyboard shortcut to power-clean and beautify whitespace in Facelets XHTML documents.

Since JSFC attributes and values are case-sensitive, this menu command also checks for and corrects any tag and attribute case issues in your documents, saving you much time and frustration by ensuring that your JSF markup is valid.

JSFC Attribute Feature in FaceletsTools Community Edition

FaceletsTools Community Edition includes the same level of support for JSFC attributes on standard HTML tags as FaceletsTools Professional, but does not include the Facelets XHTML formatting command, Facelets UI tag inspectors in Dreamweaver's properties panel, and does not provide JSF data-bound controls for tag chooser dialogs.

When FaceletsTools Community Edition is used in standalone mode (without JSFToolbox for Dreamweaver installed), support for the JSFC attribute feature is available but Dreamweaver will not display visual tags for Facelets UI, JSF Core, and JSF HTML tag libraries in Design View and Live Data View.

When both FaceletsTools Community Edition and JSFToolbox for Dreamweaver are installed, all the standard FaceletsTools and JSFToolbox features are available, and Dreamweaver will display visual tags for JSF and Facelets in Design View and Live Data View.

Ordinary HTML tags can be decorated with special attributes
and Facelets will treat these as JSF component tags.