<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<chapter id="ArchitectureOverview" xreflabel="ArchitecturalOverview">
<?dbhtml filename="ArchitectureOverview.html"?>

  <chapterinfo>
    <keywordset>
      <keyword>RichFaces</keyword>

     <keyword>CSS</keyword>

      <keyword>skin</keyword>
    </keywordset>
  </chapterinfo>
<title>Basic concepts of the RichFaces Framework</title>
  <section id="introToBasics">
  <?dbhtml filename="introToBasics.html"?>
    <title>Introduction</title>
    <para>The framework is implemented as a component library which adds Ajax capability into existing 
      pages, so you don&apos;t need to write any JavaScript code or to replace existing 
      components with new Ajax widgets. <property>RichFaces</property> enables page-wide Ajax support instead of the 
      traditional component-wide support. Hence, you can define the event on the page that 
      invokes an Ajax request and the areas of the page that should be synchronized with the JSF 
      Component Tree after the Ajax request changes the data on the server according to the 
      events fired on the client.</para>
    <para>Next Figure shows how it works:</para>
    <figure>
      <title>Request Processing flow</title>
    </figure>
    <mediaobject>
      <imageobject>
        <imagedata fileref="images/newpic1.jpg" scalefit="1"/>
      </imageobject>
    </mediaobject>
    <para><property>RichFaces</property> allows to define (by means of JSF tags) different parts of a JSF page you 
      wish to update with  an Ajax request and provide a few options to send Ajax requests to 
      the server. Also  JSF page doesn&apos;t change from a &quot;regular&quot; JSF 
      page and you don&apos;t need to write  any JavaScript  or XMLHttpRequest objects by hands, everything is done automatically.</para>
  </section>
  <section id="RichFacesArchitectureOverview">
  <?dbhtml filename="RichFacesArchitectureOverview.html"?>
    <title>RichFaces Architecture Overview</title>
    <para>Next figure lists several important elements of the <property>RichFaces</property> framework</para>
    <figure>
      <title>Core Ajax component structure</title>
    </figure>
    <mediaobject>
      <imageobject>
        <imagedata fileref="images/newpic2.jpg"/>
      </imageobject>
    </mediaobject>
    <formalpara>
      <title>Ajax Filter.</title>
      <para>To get all benefits of  <property>RichFaces</property>, you should  register a Filter in web.xml 
      file of your application. The Filter recognizes multiple request types. The sequence diagram on Figure 3 
      shows the difference in processing of a &quot;regular&quot; JSF request and an Ajax request.</para>
    </formalpara>
    <para>In the first case the whole JSF tree will be encoded,
      in the second one option it depends on the &quot;size&quot; of the Ajax region. As you can see, in the second case the filter parses 
      the content of an Ajax response before sending it to the client side.</para>
    <para>Have a look at the next picture to understand these two ways:</para>
    <figure>
      <title>Request Processing sequence diagram</title>
    </figure>
    <mediaobject>
      <imageobject>
        <imagedata fileref="images/newpic3.jpg" scalefit="1"/>
      </imageobject>
    </mediaobject>
    <para>In both cases, the information about required static or dynamic resources that your application 
      requests is registered in the ResourseBuilder class.</para>
    <para>When a request for a resource comes (Figure 4), the RichFaces filter checks the Resource Cache 
      for this resource and if it is there, the resource is sent to the client. Otherwise, 
      the filter searches for the resource among those that are registered by the 
      ResourceBuilder. If the resource is registered, the RichFaces filter will send a request to the 
      ResourceBuilder to create (deliver) the resource.</para>
    <para>Next Figure shows the ways of  resource request processing.</para>
    <figure>
      <title>Resource request sequence diagram</title>
    </figure>
    <mediaobject>
      <imageobject>
        <imagedata fileref="images/newpic4.jpg" scalefit="1"/>
      </imageobject>
    </mediaobject>
    <formalpara>
      <title>AJAX Action Components</title>
      <para>
      There are Ajax Action Components: AjaxCommandButton,  AjaxCommandLink, AjaxPoll and AjaxSupport and etc. 
      You can use them to send Ajax requests from the client side. 
    </para>
    </formalpara>
    <formalpara>
      <title>AJAX Containers</title>
      <para>
      AjaxContainer is an interface that describes an area on your JSF page that should be decoded 
      during an Ajax request. AjaxViewRoot and AjaxRegion are implementations of this interface.      
    </para>
    </formalpara>
    <formalpara>
      <title>JavaScript Engine</title>
      <para><property>RichFaces</property> JavaScript Engine runs on the client-side. It knows how to update different areas 
      on your JSF page based on the information from the Ajax response. Do 
      not use this JavaScript code directly, as it is available automatically.      
    </para>
    </formalpara>
  </section>
  <section id="LimitationsAndRules">
  <?dbhtml filename="LimitationAndRules.html"?>
    <title>Limitations and Rules</title>
    <para>In order to create RichFaces applications properly,  keep the following points in mind:</para>
    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
        Any Ajax framework should not append or delete, but only replace elements on the page. For successful updates, an element with the same ID as in the response must exist on the page. If you&apos;d like to append any code to a page, put in a placeholder for it (any empty element). For the same reason, it&apos;s recommended to place messages in the<emphasis >
            <property>&quot;AjaxOutput&quot;</property>
          </emphasis> component (as no messages is also a message).
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        Don&apos;t use <emphasis role="bold">
            <property>&lt;f:verbatim&gt;</property>
          </emphasis>  for self-rendered containers, since this component is transient and not saved in the tree.
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        Ajax requests are made by XMLHttpRequest functions in XML format, but this XML bypasses most validations and the corrections that might be made in a browser. Thus, create only a strict standards-compliant code for HTML and XHTML, without skipping any required elements or attributes. Any necessary XML corrections are automatically made by the XML filter on the server, but lot&apos;s of  unexpected effects can be produced by an  incorrect HTML code.
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>
  </section>
  <section id="HowTo...">
  <?dbhtml filename="HowTo.html"?>
    <title>How To...</title>
    <section id="SendAnAJAXRequest">
    <?dbhtml filename="SendAnAJAXRequest.html"?>
      <title>Send an Ajax request</title>
      <para>There are different ways to send Ajax requests from your JSF page. For example you can use 
          <emphasis role="bold"><property>&lt;a4j:commandButton&gt;</property></emphasis>, <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;a4j:commandLink&gt;</property>, <emphasis role="bold"><property>&lt;a4j:poll&gt;</property></emphasis>
        </emphasis> or <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;a4j:support&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> tags or any other.           
        </para>
      <para>All these tags hide the usual JavaScript activities that are required for an XMHttpRequest 
          object building and  an Ajax request sending. Also, they allow you to decide which components of 
          your JSF page are to be re-rendered as a result of the Ajax response (you can list the 
          IDs of these components in the &quot;reRender&quot; attribute).
        </para>
      <para>
          <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;a4j:commandButton&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> and <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;a4j:commandLink&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> tags are used to send an Ajax 
          request on &quot;onclick&quot; JavaScript event. 
        </para>
      <para>
          <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;a4j:poll&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> tag is used to send an Ajax 
          request periodically using a timer. 
        </para>
      <para>The <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;a4j:support&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> tag allows you to add Ajax functionality to standard JSF components 
          and send Ajax request onto a chosen JavaScript event: &quot;onkeyup&quot;, &quot;onmouseover&quot;, 
          etc.
        </para>
      <para>Most important attributes of components that provide Ajax request calling features are:</para>
      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
              <emphasis >
              <property>&quot;reRender&quot;</property>
            </emphasis>attribute as it was mentioned  <link linkend="SendAnAJAXRequest">before</link> specifies components to be reRendered 
              after Ajax response. The attribute can be specified using EL expression and formed dynamicaly on the
              server side (see <ulink url="index.html#FAQ">FAQ chapter</ulink>).
		</listitem>
        <listitem>
             <emphasis >
              <property>&quot;RequestDelay&quot;</property>
            </emphasis> attribute is used for a requests frequency regulation.
		</listitem>
        </itemizedlist>
          <programlisting role="XML"><![CDATA[<h:inputText size="50" value="#{bean.text}">
        <a4j:support event="onkeyup" RequestDelay="3"/>
</h:inputText>]]></programlisting>
          <para>So every next request from the frequent keyboard events will be delayed 
              on 3 ms to reduce the number of requests.
            </para>
        <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
               <emphasis >
              <property>&quot;EventsQueue&quot;</property>
            </emphasis> is a queue that stores the next request. 
		</listitem>
		<listitem>
             <emphasis >
              <property>&quot;LimitToList&quot;</property>
            </emphasis> attribute is used to regulate updatable regions. Setting 
              it to true limits the updatable areas only to ones specified in a
              reRender list, in other case all Output Panels of the region are updated.
   </listitem>
        <listitem> <emphasis >
              <property>&quot;ajaxSingle&quot;</property>
            </emphasis> attributes specify regions to be sent with a request, 
              if &quot;false&quot; it is a full region, in other case it&apos;s is only a control caused 
              event.
        </listitem>
        
          <listitem> <emphasis >
            <property>&quot;timeout&quot;</property>
          </emphasis>attribute is used for response waiting time on a particular request. If a response is not received during this time, the request is aborted.
          </listitem>
         
          <listitem> <emphasis >
            <property>&quot;ignoreDupResponses&quot;</property>
          </emphasis> is used to abort  unfinished request on new event.
           </listitem>
       </itemizedlist>
    </section>
    <section id="DecideWhatToSend">
    <?dbhtml filename="DecideWhatToSend.html"?>
      <title>Decide What to Send</title>
      <para>You may describe a region on the page you wish to send to the server, in this way you  can 
          control what part of the JSF View is decoded on the server side when you send an 
          Ajax request.  
        </para>
      <para>The easiest way to describe an Ajax region on your JSF page is to do nothing, 
          because the content between the <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;f:view&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> and <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;/f:view&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> tags is considered 
          the default Ajax region.
        </para>
      <para>You may define multiple Ajax regions on the JSF page (they can even be nested) by using 
          the <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;a4j:region&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> tag. 
        </para>
      <para>If you wish to render the content of an Ajax response outside of the active region then 
        the value of the &quot;renderRegionOnly&quot; attribute should be set to &quot;false&quot; (&quot;false&quot; is default value). Otherwise, your 
          Ajax updates are limited to elements of the active region.
        </para>
    </section>
    <section id="DecideWhatToChange">
    <?dbhtml filename="DecideWhatToChange.html"?>
      <title>Decide What to Change</title>
      <para>Using IDs in the &quot;reRender&quot; attribute to define &quot;AJAX zones&quot; for update works fine in 
          many  cases. 
        </para>
      <para>But you can not use this approach if your page contains, e.g. a <emphasis role="bold"><property>&lt;f:verbatim&gt;</property></emphasis>
          tag and you wish to update its content on an Ajax response.
        </para>
      <para>The problem with the <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;f:verbatim/&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> tag as described above is related to the 
          value of the transientFlag of JSF components. If the value of this flag is true, the 
          component must not participate in state saving or restoring of process.
        </para>
      <para>In order to provide a solution to this kind of problems, RichFaces uses the concept of 
          an output panel that is defined by the <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;a4j:outputPanel&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> tag. If you put a <emphasis role="bold"><property>&lt;f:verbatim&gt;</property></emphasis>
          tag inside of the output panel, then the content of the <emphasis role="bold">
          <property>&lt;f:verbatim/&gt;</property>
        </emphasis> tag and content of 
          other panel&apos;s child tags could be updated on Ajax response. There are two ways to 
          control this:
          <itemizedlist>
          <listitem> 
                By setting the &quot;ajaxRendered&quot; attribute value to &quot;true&quot;.
</listitem>
          <listitem>
                By setting the &quot;reRender&quot; attribute value of an Action Component to the output panel ID.
</listitem>
        </itemizedlist>          
        </para>
    </section>
  </section>
  <section id="RequestErrorsAndSessionExpirationHandling">
  <?dbhtml filename="RequestErrorsAndSessionExpirationHandling.html"?>
  <title>Request Errors and Session Expiration Handling</title>
  <para>RichFaces allows to redefine standard handlers responsible for processing of different exceptional situations. It helps to define own JavaScript, which is executed when these situations occur.</para>
  <section id="RequestErrorsHandling">
  <?dbhtml filename="RequestErrorsHandling.html"?>
    <title>Request Errors Handling</title>
    <para>To execute your own code on the client in case of an error during Ajax request, it&apos;s necessary to redefine the standard &quot;A4J.AJAX.onError&quot; method:</para>
	<programlisting role="JAVA"><![CDATA[A4J.AJAX.onError = function(req,status,message) { 
          // Custom Developer Code 
};]]></programlisting>
    <para>The function defined this way accepts as parameters:</para>
	 <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>req - a params string of a request that calls an error</listitem>
      <listitem>status - the number of an error returned by the server</listitem>
      <listitem>message - a default message for the given error</listitem>
	 </itemizedlist>
 <para>Thus, it&apos;s possible to create your own handler that is called on timeouts, inner server errors, and etc.</para>
  </section>
  <section id="SessionExpiredHandling">
  <?dbhtml filename="SessionExpiredHandling.html"?>
    <title>Session Expired Handling</title>
    <para>It&apos;s possible to redefine also the <emphasis >
     <property>&quot;onExpired&quot;</property>
     </emphasis> framework method that is called on the <emphasis >
     <property>&quot;Session Expiration&quot;</property>
     </emphasis> event.</para>

  <para>
      <emphasis role="bold">Example:</emphasis>
 </para>

 <programlisting role="JAVA"><![CDATA[A4J.AJAX.onExpired = function(loc,expiredMsg){ 
          // Custom Developer Code 
};
]]></programlisting>

<para>Here the function receives in params:</para>
    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>loc - URL of the current page (on demand can be updated) </listitem>
      <listitem>expiredMsg - a default message on <emphasis >
     <property>&quot;Session Expiration&quot;</property>
     </emphasis>event.</listitem>
    </itemizedlist>	 
<!--note>
<title>Note:</title>
Until the version 1.0.5 the method can&apos;t be redefined on <emphasis >
     <property>&quot;Session Expiration&quot;</property>,
     </emphasis> a confirmation dialog with a request for view reloading was always called.
</note-->
  </section>
</section>



 <section>

     <title>Skinnability</title>

    <section id="WhySkinnability">
    <?dbhtml filename="WhySkinnability.html"?>
      <title>Why Skinnability</title>

      <para>If you have a look at a CSS file in an enterprise application, for
      example, the one you&apos;re working on now, you&apos;ll see how often the same
      color is noted in it. Standard CSS has no way to define a particular
      color abstractly for defining as a panel header color, a background
      color of an active pop-up menu item, a separator color, etc. To define
      common interface styles, you have to copy the same values over and over
      again and the more interface elements you have the more copy-and-paste
      activity that needs to be performed.</para>

      <para>Hence, if you want to change the application palette, you have to
      change all interrelating values, otherwise your interface can appear a
      bit clumsy. The chances of such an interface coming about is very high,
      as CSS editing usually becomes the duty of a general developer who
      doesn&apos;t necessarily have much knowledge of user interface design.</para>

      <para>Moreover, if a customer wishes to have an interface look-and-feel
      that can be adjusted on-the-fly by an end user, your work is multiplied,
      as you have to deal with several CSS files variants, each of which
      contains the same values repeated numerous times.</para>

      <para>These problems can be solved with the
      <property>skinnability</property> system built into theRichFaces project
      and realized fully in RichFaces. Every named skin has some
      skin-parameters for the definition of a palette and the other parameters
      of the user interface. By changing just a few parameters, you can alter
      the appearance of dozens of components in an application in a
      synchronized fashion without messing up user interface
      consistency.</para>

      <para>The <property>skinnability</property> feature can&apos;t completely
      replace standard CSS and certainly doesn&apos;t eliminate its usage.
      <property>Skinnability</property> is a high-level extension of standard
      CSS, which can be used together with regular CSS declarations. You can
      also refer to skin parameters in CSS via JSF Expression Language. You
      have the complete ability to synchronize the appearance of all the
      elements in your pages.</para>
    </section>

    <section id="UsingSkinnability">
    <?dbhtml filename="UsingSkinnability.html"?>
      <title>Using Skinnability</title>

      <para>RichFaces <property>skinnability</property> is designed for mixed
      usage with:</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>Skin parameters defined in the RichFaces framework</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Predefined CSS classes for components</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>User style classes</para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>

      <para>The color scheme of the component can be applied to its elements
      using any of three style classes:</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>A default style class inserted into the framework</para>

          <para>This contains style parameters linked to some constants from a
          skin. It is defined for every component and specifies a default
          representation level. Thus, an application interface could be
          modified by changing the values of skin parameters.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>A style class of skin extension</para>

          <para>This class name is defined for every component element and
          inserted into the framework to allow defining a class with the same
          name into its CSS files. Hence, the appearance of all components
          that use this class is extended.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>User style class</para>

          <para>It&apos;s possible to use one of the styleClass parameters for
          component elements and define your own class in it. As a result, the
          appearance of one particular component is changed according to a CSS
          style parameter specified in the class.</para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>
    </section>

    <section id="Example">
      <title>Example</title>

      <para>Here is a simple panel component:</para>


    <para>
      <emphasis role="bold">Example:</emphasis>
    </para>
      <programlisting role="XML">&lt;rich:panel&gt;
...
&lt;/rich:panel&gt;</programlisting>

      <para>The code generates a panel component on a page, which consists of
      two elements: a wrapper <emphasis
      role="bold"><property>&lt;div&gt;</property></emphasis> element and a
      <emphasis role="bold"><property>&lt;div&gt;</property></emphasis>
      element for the panel body with the particular style properties. The
      wrapper <emphasis
      role="bold"><property>&lt;div&gt;</property></emphasis> element looks
      like:</para>


    <para>
      <emphasis role="bold">Example:</emphasis>
    </para>
      <programlisting role="XML">&lt;div class="dr-pnl rich-panel"&gt;
...
&lt;/div&gt;</programlisting>

      <para>dr-pnl is a CSS class specified in the framework via skin
      parameters:</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para><property>background-color</property> is defined with
          <property>generalBackgroundColor</property></para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><property>border-color</property> is defined with
          <property>panelBorderColor</property></para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>

      <para>It&apos;s possible to change all colors for all panels on all pages by
      changing these skin parameters.</para>

      <para>However, if a <emphasis
      role="bold"><property>&lt;rich-panel&gt;</property></emphasis> class is
      specified somewhere on the page, its parameters are also acquired by all
      panels on this page.</para>

      <para>A developer may also change the style properties for a particular
      panel. The following definition:</para>


    <para>
      <emphasis role="bold">Example:</emphasis>
    </para>
      <programlisting role="XML">&lt;rich:panel styleClass="customClass"&gt;
...
&lt;/rich:panel&gt;</programlisting>

      <para>could add some style properties from customClass to one particular
      panel, as a result we get three styles:</para>


    <para>
      <emphasis role="bold">Example:</emphasis>
    </para>
      <programlisting role="XML">&lt;div class="dr_pnl rich-panel customClass"&gt;
...
&lt;/div&gt;</programlisting>
    </section>

    <section id="SkinParametersTablesInRichFaces">
    <?dbhtml filename="SkinParametersTablesInRichFaces.html"?>
    
      <title>Skin Parameters Tables in RichFaces</title>

      <para>RichFaces provides eight predefined skin parameters (skins) at the
      simplest level of common customization:</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          DEFAULT
        </listitem>
		
		<listitem>
          plain
        </listitem>
		
        <listitem>
          emeraldTown
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          blueSky
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          wine
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          japanCherry
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          ruby
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          classic
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          deepMarine
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>

      <para>To plug one in, it&apos;s necessary to specify a skin name in the
      <emphasis ><property>&quot;org.richfaces.SKIN&quot;</property></emphasis> context-param.</para>

      <para>Here is an example of a table with values for one of the main
      skins, <property>&quot;blueSky&quot;</property>.</para>

      <table>
        <title>Colors</title>

        <tgroup cols="2">
          <thead>
            <row>
              <entry>Parameter name</entry>

              <entry>Default value</entry>
            </row>
          </thead>

          <tbody>
            <row>
              <entry>headerBackgroundColor</entry>

              <entry>#BED6F8</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>headerGradientColor</entry>

              <entry>#F2F7FF</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>headTextColor</entry>

              <entry>#000000</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>headerWeightFont</entry>

              <entry>bold</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>generalBackgroundColor</entry>

              <entry>#FFFFFF</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>generalTextColor</entry>

              <entry>#000000</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>generalSizeFont</entry>

              <entry>11px</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>generalFamilyFont</entry>

              <entry>Arial, Verdana, sans-serif</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>controlTextColor</entry>

              <entry>#000000</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>controlBackgroundColor</entry>

              <entry>#ffffff</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>additionalBackgroundColor</entry>

              <entry>#ECF4FE</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>shadowBackgroundColor</entry>

              <entry>#000000</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>shadowOpacity</entry>

              <entry>1</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>panelBorderColor</entry>

              <entry>#BED6F8</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>subBorderColor</entry>

              <entry>#ffffff</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>tabBackgroundColor</entry>

              <entry>#C6DEFF</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>tabDisabledTextColor</entry>

              <entry>#8DB7F3</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>trimColor</entry>

              <entry>#D6E6FB</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>tipBackgroundColor</entry>

              <entry>#FAE6B0</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>tipBorderColor</entry>

              <entry>#E5973E</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>selectControlColor</entry>

              <entry>#E79A00</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>generalLinkColor</entry>

              <entry>#0078D0</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>hoverLinkColor</entry>

              <entry>#0090FF</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>visitedLinkColor</entry>

              <entry>#0090FF</entry>
            </row>
          </tbody>
        </tgroup>
      </table>

      <table>
        <title>Fonts</title>

        <tgroup cols="2">
          <thead>
            <row>
              <entry>Parameter name</entry>

              <entry>Default value</entry>
            </row>
          </thead>

          <tbody>
            <row>
              <entry>headerSizeFont</entry>

              <entry>11px</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>headerFamilyFont</entry>

              <entry>Arial, Verdana, sans-serif</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>tabSizeFont</entry>

              <entry>11px</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>tabFamilyFont</entry>

              <entry>Arial, Verdana, sans-serif</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>buttonSizeFont</entry>

              <entry>11px</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>buttonFamilyFont</entry>

              <entry>Arial, Verdana, sans-serif</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>tableBackgroundColor</entry>

              <entry>#FFFFFF</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>tableFooterBackgroundColor</entry>

              <entry>#cccccc</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>tableSubfooterBackgroundColor</entry>

              <entry>#f1f1f1</entry>
            </row>

            <row>
              <entry>tableBorderColor</entry>

              <entry>#C0C0C0</entry>
            </row>
          </tbody>
        </tgroup>
      </table>
		
		<para>
		Skin "plain" was added from 3.0.2 version.
		It doesn't have any parameters. It's necessary for embedding RichFaces components into existing projecst which have its own styles.
		</para>
	  
      <para>To get detailed information on particular parameter possibilities,
        see the <link linkend="RichFacesComponentsLibrary">chapter</link> where each component has skin parameters described
      corresponding to its elements.</para>
    </section>

    <section id="CreatingAndUsingYourOwnSkinFile">
    <?dbhtml filename="CreatingAndUsingYourOwnSkinFile.html"?>
      <title>Creating and Using Your Own Skin File</title>

      <para>In order to create your own skin whose constants are used by style
      classes at the first level, do the following:</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>Create a file whose name follows the format of a skin file and
          place it into the ClassPath for the application. (Any skin file
          follows the naming format, <emphasis
          ><property>&lt;name.skin.properties&gt;</property></emphasis>.)</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Add a skin definition context-param element to the
          application&apos;s web.xml file:</para>


    <para>
      <emphasis role="bold">Example:</emphasis>
    </para>
          <programlisting role="XML">&lt;context-param&gt;
        &lt;param-name&gt;org.richfaces.SKIN&lt;/param-name&gt;
        &lt;param-value&gt;name&lt;/param-value&gt;
&lt;/context-param&gt;</programlisting>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>In the skins file, specify your own values for skin constants
          as described in the table.</para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>
    </section>
<section>
<title>Built-in skinnability in RichFaces</title>
  <para>RichFaces gives an opportunity to incorporate <property>skinnability</property> into UI
  design. With this framework you can easily use named skin parameters in
  properties files to control the appearance of the skins that are applied
  consistently to a whole set of components. You can look at examples of
  predefined skins at:</para>
  <simplelist>
    <member>
      <ulink url="http://livedemo.exadel.com/richfaces-demo/">http://livedemo.exadel.com/richfaces-demo/</ulink>
    </member>
  </simplelist>
  <para>
    You may simply control the look-and-feel of your application by using the <property>skinnability</property> service 
    of the RichFaces framework. With the means of this service you can define the same style for rendering 
    standard JSF components and custom JSF components built with the help of RichFaces.
  </para>
  <para>To find out more on  <property>skinnability</property> possibilities, follow these
  steps:</para>
   <itemizedlist>
    <listitem>
      Create a custom render kit and register it in the faces-config.xml
      like this:
      <programlisting role="XML"><![CDATA[<render-kit>
        <render-kit-id>NEW_SKIN</render-kit-id>
        <render-kit-class> 
            org.ajax4jsf.framework.renderer.ChameleonRenderKitImpl
        </render-kit-class>
</render-kit>]]></programlisting>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      Then you need to create and register custom renderers for the
      component based on the look-and-feel predefined variables:
      <programlisting role="XML"><![CDATA[<renderer>
        <component-family>javax.faces.Command</component-family> 
        <renderer-type>javax.faces.Link</renderer-type> 
        <renderer-class>
           newskin.HtmlCommandLinkRenderer
        </renderer-class> 
</renderer>]]></programlisting>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      Finally, you need to place a properties file with skin parameters
      into the class path root. There are two requirements for the properties
      file:
      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          The file must be named <emphasis role="bold"><property>&lt;skinName&gt;</property></emphasis>.skin.properties, in this case, it would be called
          <filename>newskin.skin.properties</filename>.
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
          The first line in this file should be render.kit=
          <emphasis role="bold"><property>&lt;render-kit-id&gt;</property>,</emphasis> in this case, it would be called
          render.kit=NEW_SKIN.
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>
    </listitem>
   </itemizedlist>
  <para>Extra information on custom renderers creation can be found
  at:</para>
  <simplelist>
    <member>
      <ulink url="http://java.sun.com/javaee/javaserverfaces/reference/docs/index.html">http://java.sun.com/javaee/javaserverfaces/reference/docs/index.html</ulink>
    </member>
  </simplelist>
  </section>

  </section>

<!--section id="OtherRelevantResources">
  <title>Other Relevant Resources</title>
  <para><ulink url="http://jsf.javabeat.net/articles/2007/06/introduction-to-ajax4jsf/">Introduction to Ajax4Jsf</ulink> by Shunmuga Raja</para>
   
</section-->

</chapter>