9 Replies Latest reply on May 11, 2012 2:37 PM by jadtn

    Life of Richfaces 3.3.3 ?

    jadtn

      Hi,

       

      I just wanted to comment about the life of RF3.3 vs RF 4.x.

      In first what I thing about richfaces

      a)First for the compliments:
      - awesome
      -easily-testable

      -Excellent forum with answers

      -performant (for our site)

      -very good documentation

      -good tracking bugs and changes with jira

      b)Second for what I believe are the gaps:
      -I think the fundamental flaw that is lacking it is the "skins" which by default are (I am only quoting the feedback from users of our site): 'austere'. I think a nice update to the web2.0 bring more users to richfaces. Especially since the skins can overcome a difficult task of design :-)

      -The perimeters of bug fixes or changes in jira change enough (I think particularly to two points which I held to my heart: migration 3.3-> 4.x rich: pages (RF-8751) that have moved from 4.0 to 4.1 and now in future and a 'skin' to show trends that can be done in web2.0 that followed also in future 4.0,4.1 and now Futur(?).

       

      Now the subject of my post:


      New versions of browsers (firefox 11, etc. Some months about ie8 ..) mean that applications must accumulate RF3.3 workarounds. It is difficult to follow all forum posts in search of a loss of compatibility due to updating of browsers.
      Currently we see no more corrections officials for RF3.3.3  , so I think that a version of RF should at minimum some time to ensure compatibility with the new
      browsers (Firefox, ie, chromium), especially when the jump to version as JSF1.2 JSF2.0 is 'long'. I think the versions LTS (Long Term Support) of ubuntu for example.

       

      Of course, we are now migrating in RF4, but it's a pretty heavy task, especially since:
        we are waiting for migration of certain components of richfaces 3.3.3 not yet ported (rich: page etc. ..), some bug fixes 4.xx RF , and we move along in AS7. x. although close to a final version that we hope to put into production by the end of the year but we are worried by whether one is really ready RF4.x in our application no longer runs under RF 3.3. 3 in some browsers.

       

      So, we would like to know what was the vision of the team richfaces respect to the life of RF3.3.3, and generally when RF5 begin what will be the life of RF4?

       

      Best regards

      Adrien

      (sorry for my english and thank you to google translation:-))

        • 1. Re: Life of Richfaces 3.3.3 ?
          bleathem

          Adrien - tahnks for the compliments and the feedback.  Agreed, the themes need to be updated.  We are exploring some initiatives to better enable this.

           

          The re-write required to port the comopnents to JSF 2 was significant, and the RichFaces 4 codebase has diverged significantly from the RichFaces 3 codebase - the effort to maintain both in parallel would be a signficant one.  As such we're focused on moving RichFaces 4 forward and are encouraging our users to migrate.

           

          The hard-break between RichFaces 3 and RichFaces 4 was required because of the significant change introduced with standardized ajax suport in JSF 2, and some other significant APi changes which strongly affected how compnents are put together.  Such a breaking change isn't forseen in the near future of JSF, so I don't expect we'll have to introduce such a breaking change in RichFaces.  Rather, I see the RichFaces framework and components following a more evolutionary style, allowing applications to eveolve, rather than migrate.

          • 2. Re: Life of Richfaces 3.3.3 ?
            healeyb

            > we are waiting for migration of certain components of richfaces 3.3.3 not yet ported (rich: page etc. ..),

             

            It's probably a good idea to check that there actually are plans in place for further porting, and if there are

            not, having a strategy for how to do what you need to do. You don't want to be waiting for the bus that never

            arrives.

             

            Is the above reference to a4j:page?

            • 3. Re: Life of Richfaces 3.3.3 ?
              jadtn

              yes, a4j:page

              • 4. Re: Life of Richfaces 3.3.3 ?
                paul.dijou

                Hi Adrien,

                 

                From RichFaces 3.3 showcase :

                 

                • <a4j:page> is a deprecated component used for solving of incompatibility problems in early Ajax4jsf and MyFaces versions.

                 

                So I guess this component will never be in RichFaces 4.x since it's deprecated. Can't you use <h:head> and <h:body> instead ?

                 

                Regards,

                • 5. Re: Life of Richfaces 3.3.3 ?
                  jadtn

                  I've checked in RF3.3 this is rich:page not a4j:page

                  <rich:page     contentType="text/html" theme="#{prefs.layout.theme}"    width="#{prefs.layout.width}" sidebarWidth="#{prefs.layout.sidebarWidth}"    sidebarPosition="#{prefs.layout.position}" oncontextmenu="return false;"   pageTitle="#{mngrpage.title}" >

                   

                  So , yes i write <html>/body i personal layout, but it is not according to skins theme like in RF3.3

                  Regards,

                  • 6. Re: Life of Richfaces 3.3.3 ?
                    bleathem

                    You're talking about the RF 3 layout components:

                    http://docs.jboss.org/richfaces/latest_3_3_X/en/devguide/html/richSemanticLayouts.html

                     

                    I still see these as being obviated by facelet templating standardized in JSF 2. We discussed this quite a bit in the thread: https://community.jboss.org/message/721231

                     

                    And Bernard has provided a Sandbox layout component:

                    https://github.com/richfaces/sandbox/tree/develop/layout

                    https://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/repositories/snapshots/org/richfaces/sandbox/ui/layout/layout-ui/

                     

                    I would still like to see a justification of why we need this in RF 4.  Is it just to ease migration? Or are there use cases that are not met by the standard facelet templating technology?

                     

                    Is it perhaps just a matter of providing documentation on how to map your RF 3 rich:page/layout templates to a Facelet template?

                    • 7. Re: Life of Richfaces 3.3.3 ?
                      jadtn

                      It is rather to have consistent theme in the page like in RF3 rather than simply an easy migration

                      I have the layout of the sandbox, but as they are not in RF4, they will not be tested and guaranteed supported different browsers (or I'm not wrong?)

                      • 8. Re: Life of Richfaces 3.3.3 ?
                        bleathem

                        That's correct, SandBox components do not undergo the same QA process as the "official" RichFaces components.

                         

                        For those following along, the RF 3 page/layout comopnents are demoed here:

                        http://livedemo.exadel.com/richfaces-demo/richfaces/layouts.jsf?c=layouts&tab=usage

                         

                        If the concern is moreso to have a consistent theme from RF 3 to RF 4, then I'd like to take a stab at creating a facelet template and css file that one could use to replace the use of the layout component.

                         

                        In parallel to this, we can look at promoting the layout component from the sandbox to RF 4, in one of the 4.3 milestones.

                         

                        Would you mind filing a jira to track this request?

                        • 9. Re: Life of Richfaces 3.3.3 ?
                          jadtn