<?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. Necessary
        information about Filter configuration can be found in the <link
          linkend="FilterConfiguration">&quot;Filter configuration&quot;</link> section. 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="FilterConfiguration">
    <?dbhtml filename="FilterConfiguration.html"?>
    <title>Filter Configuration</title>
    <para>RichFaces uses a filter for a correction of code received on an Ajax request. In case of a
      &quot;regular&quot; JSF request a browser makes correction independently. In case of
      Ajax request in order to prevent layout destruction it&apos;s needed to use a filter,
      because a received code could differ from a code validated by a browser and a browser doesn't
      make any corrections.</para>

    <para>An example of how to set a Filter in a web.xml file of your application is placed below.</para>

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

    <programlisting role="XML"><![CDATA[...
    <filter>
        <display-name>RichFaces Filter</display-name>
        <filter-name>richfaces</filter-name>
        <filter-class>org.ajax4jsf.Filter</filter-class>
    </filter>
...
]]></programlisting>

    <note>
      <title>Note:</title>Fast Filter is deprecated and available only for backward compatibility
      with previous RichFaces versions. Fast Filter usage isn&apos;t recomended, because there
      is another way to use its functionality by means of <link linkend="Neko">Neko filter type</link>.</note>

    <para>In RichFaces 3.1 filter configuration becomes more flexible. It&apos;s possible to
      configure different filters for different sets of pages for the same application.</para>

    <para>The possible filter types are:</para>

    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
        <para>TIDY</para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>

    <para>&quot;TIDY&quot; filter type based on the Tidy parser. This filter is recommended for applications with
      complicated or non-standard markup when all necessary code corrections are made by the filter
      when a response comes from the server.</para>

    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
        <para id="Neko">NEKO</para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>

    <para>&quot;NEKO&quot; filter type corresponds to the former &quot;Fast Filter&quot; and it&apos;s
      based on the Neko parser. In case of using this filter code isn&apos;t strictly verified.
      Use this one if you are sure that your application markup is really strict for this filter.
      Otherwise it could cause lot&apos;s of errors and corrupt a layout as a result. This
      filter considerably accelerates all Ajax requests processing.</para>

    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
        <para>NONE</para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>

    <para>No correction.</para>

    <para>An example of configuration is placed below.</para>
    <para>
      <emphasis role="bold">Example:</emphasis>
    </para>

    <programlisting role="XML"><![CDATA[...
    <context-param>
        <param-name>org.ajax4jsf.xmlparser.ORDER</param-name>
        <param-value>NONE,NEKO,TIDY</param-value>
    </context-param>
 
    <context-param>
        <param-name>org.ajax4jsf.xmlparser.NONE</param-name>
        <param-value>/pages/performance\.xhtml,/pages/default.*\.xhtml</param-value>
    </context-param>

    <context-param>
        <param-name>org.ajax4jsf.xmlparser.NEKO</param-name>
        <param-value>/pages/repeat\.xhtml</param-value>
    </context-param>
    
    <filter> 
        <display-name>RichFaces Filter</display-name> 
        <filter-name>richfaces</filter-name> 
        <filter-class>org.ajax4jsf.Filter</filter-class> 
    </filter>
    
    <filter-mapping> 
        <filter-name>richfaces</filter-name> 
        <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
        <dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher> 
        <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
        <dispatcher>INCLUDE</dispatcher> 
    </filter-mapping>
...
]]></programlisting>

    <para>The example shows that ORDER parameter defines the order in which particular filter types
      are used for pages code correction. </para>
    <para> First of all &quot;NONE&quot; type is specified for the filter. Then two different
      sets of pages are defined for which two filter types (NONE and NEKO) are used correspondingly.
      If a page relates to the first set that is defined in the following way: </para>

    <programlisting role="XML"><![CDATA[<param-value>/pages/performance\.xhtml,/pages/default.*\.xhtml</param-value>,
]]></programlisting>

    <para> it&apos;s not corrected, because filter type for this page is defined as
      &quot;NONE&quot;. If a page is not from the first set, then &quot;NEKO&quot;
      type is set.</para>
    <para>If a page relates to the second set that is defined in the following way:</para>

    <programlisting role="XML"><![CDATA[<param-value>/pages/repeat\.xhtml</param-value>,
]]></programlisting>

    <para>then &quot;NEKO&quot; filter type is used for correction. If it&apos;s not related to the second set,
      &quot;TIDY&quot; type is set for the filter (&quot;TIDY&quot; filter type is used for code
      correction). </para>

  </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 id="Skinnability">
    <?dbhtml filename="Skinnability.html"?>
    <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>
