Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Welcome to Java EE 7
Java EE 7 includes several improvements and additions to the existing version. The new
version is focused on three themes: developer productivity, HTML5, and providing new
features required by enterprise applications. The following sections list the major improve-
ments to the specifications that are of interest to enterprise application developers.
If you are starting your adventure with Java EE, feel free to skip this section. The technolo-
gies described in the following sections will be covered in future chapters in more detail.
JavaServer Faces 2.2 - JSR 344
Java EE 7 includes a new version of the JSF specification, which is not so revolutionary as
2.0, but still provides some appealing additions for developers. The key features delivered
by JSF 2.2 are as follows:
• The HTML5 markup is now supported by the usage of pass-through elements and
attributes. Earlier, custom attributes would have to be supported by an extended
renderer for every component. The new constructs allow the developer to pass ad-
ditional HTML attributes to the markup generated by JSF components.
• The flow scope has been introduced with
@FlowScoped
, which makes the cre-
ation of wizards (dialogs with multiple steps) easier.
• The Ajax-based file upload is now supported out of the box.
• Also, stateless views have been presented as a way to improve performance.
Enterprise JavaBeans 3.2 - JSR 345
Compared to EJB 3.1, the Version 3.2 is a minor update of the existing version. It concen-
trates mainly on marking some older features as obsolete (they are now optional, which
means that not every Java EE 7-compliant application server will support them). The op-
tional features are connected with persistence to web services based on EJB 2.1 and JAX-
RPC. The main enhancements provided by the new specification are as follows:
• Life cycle methods for stateful session beans can now be transactional.
• The Timer Service API, now allows you to access all active timers in the current
EJB module.
• A new container provided role (
**
) has been introduced. It can be used to indicate
any authenticated user (without taking his or her actual roles into account).
• Passivation of stateful session beans can now be disabled.
