Creating a JSF/CDI Maven Project on Eclipse

While I was working on a JSF and CDI example, I thought it would be useful to mention the steps required to create JSF and CDI Maven project. You can find the steps to do so below:

Tools

• Eclipse Luna that's shipped with the M2E plugin by default. So no need to install the plugin yourself.
• WildFly 8.x.

1. Select from the main menu File->New->Other. Then select Maven->Maven Project.

2. Click the Next button and then check "Create a simple project (skip archetype selection)".

3. Write the Group Id and the Artifact Id then select Packaging as WAR.

4. Click the Finish button to create the project with the bellow structure displayed in the Navigator view.

5. As you can see there is no deployment descriptor file (web.xml) as there is no WEB-INF folder. Also by checking on the Project Facets (select the project then ALT+ENTER then choose from the left menu Project Facets), we can see that the version of the Dynamic Web Module is 2.5 and the JavaServer Faces is not selected. So it's time to do some configurations to our project.

6. Right click on the project name then Configure->Add JSF Capabilities. This will configure the project as JSF project and adds the WEB-INF with the web.xml and the faces-config.xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
version="2.5">
<display-name>JSFCDIMavenProject</display-name>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/faces/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<faces-config xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_2.xsd"
version="2.2">
</faces-config>

7. Adding the necessary API's as dependencies to the pom.xml. Also, adding the maven-compiler-plugin with version 3.1. I have also pointed maven to use the Java compiler version 1.7. So here is the final pom.xml.

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.ithinkisink</groupId>
<artifactId>JSFCDIMavenProject</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>

<name>JSFCDIMavenProject Maven Webapp</name>

<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.inject</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.inject</artifactId>
<version>1</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.faces</groupId>
<artifactId>jsf-api</artifactId>
<version>2.1</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
<version>3.1.0</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.enterprise</groupId>
<artifactId>cdi-api</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<finalName>JSFCDIMavenProject</finalName>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.1</version>
<configuration>
<source>1.7</source>
<target>1.7</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>

8. Now right click on the project name then choose Maven->Update Project to update the project with the newly added configurations.

9. The deployment descriptor (web,xml) has version 2.5, and we are pointing to the servlet 3.1 in our dependency. So as per Java EE 7XML schema, the namespace is changed to be http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/. This is the final web.xml after applying that change.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd"
version="3.1">
<display-name>JSFCDIMavenProject</display-name>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/faces/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

10. Check again the Project Facets. You can change the Dynamic Web Module for the version 3.1 and the JavaServer Faces is checked with version 2.2 as per the version added in the dependencies.

11. The last configuration that is needed is enabling the CDI context. This could be done by creating an XML file named beans.xml and add it to the WEB-INF folder as the bellow one.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<beans 
    xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee" 
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/beans_1_1.xsd"
bean-discovery-mode="all">
</beans>

12. Finally adding the project to WildFly and then starting the server. You will see in the Console view that WildFly started a service for the CDI deployment to the application.

I have pushed this stub project to my GitHub and you can find it through the below URL.
https://github.com/belalgalal/Blogging/tree/master/JSFCDIMavenProject