I'm new to JSF and RichFaces.

I've looked at the demo site here and I'm planning to build a component which looks like a PanelMenu from outside, but inside of that instead of a plain text (or link), I'd like a Rich tree embedded (which ofcourse can be expanded collapsed just like the Rich Tree component).

Before I spend countless hours figuring out how to do this, I'd appreciate any upfront suggestions or help in developing this component. Should I just use the PanelMenu example and play around or should I be investigate further into Component Development Kit?

Thanks