First JSF web application on Tomcat 7

Okay as promised, here is the first Netbeans 7.3 + JSF 2.1 + Tomcat 7 web application.

First download Netbeans, if you haven't already.  Go ahead and select the full all out, no hold bars download.  Next install the software and make sure you install the Tomcat that is included with Netbeans installer.

Okay now that you have all of that out of the way, go ahead and start up Netbeans and head over to the services tab and start up the Tomcat Server installed on your system.

Starting up the Tomcat server.  Netbeans 7.3 automatically detects this installed if you did it with the installer from the web.

Now go ahead and start a new project.  Choose Java Web | Web Application.  See the following images for the wizard screenshots.

Step 1 - Title your new web application.

Step 2 - Choose the server to deploy to and the context to use.  MAKE SURE YOU SELECT THE TOMCAT INSTALL!

Step 3 - Include what libraries you might need.  Make sure you click the JavaServer Faces library.  Tomcat doesn't come with JSF built in, you must manually add it!

Okay you should now have a shell project with the default index file.

Behold!  The default index file!

So to ensure that we are running JSF and not that the server is doing some sort of pseudo translation here, let's use an actual JSF tag.

I'll use the tag which does exactly what it says, it outputs text.  Here I'll just use some static value for the value attribute.

Adding in a JSF tag, don't forget the
tag.

Now go ahead and click on the run project icon, it's that giant play button up there.  If your Tomcat server is running (you better go catch it, ha ha) then it will deploy the project to the server and open up your browser to the context that you provided.

Pushing the Play button.

Ta-da!  Our project runs!

 So there you go, your very first JSF 2.1 application on a Tomcat server.

Here's some highlights.  Tomcat 7 does not come with JSF baked in.  It is a simple servlet server.  Ergo, you must include the JSF library with your project.  The nice thing is that Netbeans will go ahead and do that for you, because it knows that Tomcat doesn't have these libraries by default.

Draw your attention to the highlighted area.

Now here's the deal.  If at some point down the road, you add these libraries to the Tomcat server itself, then you need to make sure that Netbeans doesn't try to "help" you out here.  To do that, you need to indicate that the libraries do not need to be pushed to the server with the application.  Right mouse click on the libraries icon and choose properties.

If you do not see Properties, then it's because you aren't right clicking in the correct 16x16 space.

Once you do that this window appears:

Notice the check boxes highlighted.  When they are checked, that means the library will be "packaged" with the application.  If the libraries are already on the server, you don't need to package them.

Disclaimer:
Don't include the JSF libraries inside your server, just package them with the application.  Once you toss the libraries into the server, that pretty much makes that server a JSF Tomcat server.

The downside of this is, this could potentially ruin any old JSP applications that you have on the server.  Now it shouldn't but I would count on something jacked up happening the second you toss JSF libraries on a Tomcat running JSP applications.

I'll start covering some more fun stuff with JSF next post!  Have fun!