Reuse facelets xhtml files and taglibs from jar archives

I have asked myself, if it is possible to use facelets xhtml files and taglibs from a jar file instead from the whole web application.

The short anwser: Yes, it is possible

The facelets documentation gives a hint how to use the tag lib from a jar file. But you cannot found in the documentation, if it is possible also to use a xhtml file (referenced from the taglib for example). Of course facelets uses the same approach to load xhtml files from a jar file as for the tag library.

Example:
The follow tag lib definition is placed in my JAR project under /META-INF/myProject.taglib.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE facelet-taglib PUBLIC
  "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Facelet Taglib 1.0//EN"
  "http://java.sun.com/dtd/facelet-taglib_1_0.dtd">

<facelet-taglib>

    <namespace>http://thomaswabner.wordpress.com/waffel</namespace>

    <tag>
        <tag-name>select</tag-name>
        <source>components/select.xhtml</source>
    </tag>

</facelet-taglib>

The select.xhtml file is placed in the same project under /META-INF/components/select.xhml and contains some facelets definitions (ui component with a selectbox fo example). The point is, that facelets searches the jar archive under the /META-INF directory for the xhtml file.

Now you can simple use the tag in you web application. You only need to include the jar file with the tag library and xhtml file in you web application classpath.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<jsp:root xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
          xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
          xmlns:waffel="http://thomaswabner.wordpress.com/waffel"
          version="2.0">
  <ui:component>
     <waffel:select/>
  </ui:component>
</jsp:root>

Update: See comments. I have created a small example.

Disable live site with apache rewrite rules

Any times I have to work on a live site like http://www.capella-fidicinia.de or http://www.cryo-tekk.de. All these sites are Joomla instances and Joomla doe’s not allow to disbale the site complete. You can only put the site „offline“ with a setting in the administration module. After putting such site into the offline mode, nobody can anymore change the content and the user got a inforation bar on the site.

But often I will change complete the layout (testing new skin, working on the existing skin and so on). But the user should not see my changes because it is very ugly if you browse to a side and with every click the layout changes.

My Joomla instances running behind a apache2 webserver as a virtual host. To put the site complete offline and inform the user about maintainance you can put the follow into you virtual host configuration:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^194.136.37.140$
RewriteRule .* /var/www/domains/www.cryo-tekk.de/htdocs/maintainance.html [L]

With such entry only the IP adress 194.136.37.140 can see the site. All other IP adresses, which try to access the site are foreward to the maintainance.html site.

For more information about rewrite rules you can have a look here.

Welcome

Hello anybody!

This is my first Blog on wordpress and I hope that I have enough time to blog anymore than yet.

Today I have recieved bad new from the columba project. Our maintainer leaves the project. You can read his blog here.

- waffel