Displaying the Data - Oracle ADF 11gR2 Development Beginner's Guide - page 156

af:outputText
af:outputText is used to display the text in the page. The component supports styles and
the escaped text.
af:message
To display a message inside a popup we use the af:message component. To display global
messages for the page, we use the af:messages component with the globalOnly atribute
set to true . The af:message type can be configured as fatal , info, error, warning ,
and confirmation . The for atribute will idenify the component for which the message has
to be shown. The message atribute will hold the message that is displayed to the user.
Showing the message programmatically
ADF allows you to programmaically show a message. ADF uses the JSF messaging API to
display the messages. FacesMessage is added to the FacesContext object by adding the
message using the addMessage(String clientId,FacesMessage message) method.
Use the following snippet to show the af:message component globally. If we pass a client
of the component, the message will be shown for the component.
String messageString="Info Message";
FacesMessage fm = new FacesMessage(messageString);
fm.setSeverity(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_INFO);
FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
context.addMessage(null, fm);
//to show for the component use this code
context.addMessage(getInputComponent().getClientId(context),
fm); // getInputComponent is the binding for the component
that you would like to show the message.
af:outputFormatted
The af:outputFormatted component is just like the af:outputText component but
supports the HTML mark-ups and formated results.
Layout components
Layout components are mainly used to arrange the content of the page in a standard way
so that the view of the content is presentable and fits perfectly for the user. The layout
components someime act as a container to hold the elements collecively or separately
to uilize the space in the page uniformly.