What is the best view layer for Spring 3?

Question

I'm investigating presentation layers to be used with spring in our new project. I'm coming from PHP+Prado and want to move to something what is as simple as Prado and more powerfull than PHP.

I like Spring 3 and Spring MVC. It's very simple to learn and start working with. But I'm looking for "view framework" better than simple jsp. I need simple components as Datagrids, Lists, Trees drag-and-drop supported. I've created SpringMVC+Spring Web Flow 2 + Spring Faces + JSF configuration but it's very complicated to create simple things there. I need something simpler.

Do You have any ideas ?

Answer 1

In Java EE there are currently only 2 view technologies: JSP and Facelets. JSP is old and about to retire. Facelets is newer and better and designed with JSF in mind so that they both fits smoothly in each other.

But Spring MVC and JSF are in fact competitors. They both have roughly the same goals and purposes. You should use the one or the other and not mix up them. Mixing two or more MVC frameworks in one page ain't going to work flawlessly. You can however use Spring as DI and/or Security framework in combination with JSF as MVC framework. Spring offers much more than only MVC.

Components like Datagrids, Lists, Trees drag-and-drop supported are not all available in the basic JSF Component implementation. For that you'll need a component library such as PrimeFaces.

See also

• Why Facelets is preferred over JSP as the view definition language from JSF2.0 onwards?
• Using JSF as view technology of Spring MVC
• JSF implementations and component libraries.