You use property sheets to quickly edit the most common attributes of various tags with assistance of choice dialogs. Property sheets offer collapsible sections and provide buttons that enable choice of values and binding to dynamic values.
The Property sheet (view) displays attributes and their values for a tag selected in the Design or Source page. The Property view consists of two tabs:
All tab shows all attributes of a tag.
General tab shows the most commonly used attributes of a tag, assuming this tag is one of JSF, JSP, JSTL core, JSTL formatting or HTML. For each attribute shown in the General tab, OEPE provides custom dialog editors that guide you in setting the values of the attribute by doing the following:
Choosing binding
Choosing a method
Selecting a navigation case
Selecting a file
Choosing a style class
Defining CSS style
Choosing a resource bundle
Choosing a validator
Choosing a converter
The General tab also provides hyperlink on select attributes that help you navigate to the target resource.
You open a Property sheet (see Figure 1) by selecting Window > Show View > Properties from the top-level menu. By selecting a tag in the Source or Design view and then clicking on buttons located to the right of attribute edit fields on the Property sheet displays editor dialogs.
You use the Choose Binding dialog to create bindings to dynamic values. Figure 2 and Figure 3 show the Variables and Resources tabs of this dialog.
The Resources tab allows you to do the following:
Select the resource bundle, if more than one exists.
Select the resource key.
Select whether the dialog should display the resource key or value. You use the View combo box to make this choice.
Add a resource key by clicking the New Resource Key.
You use the Choose Method dialog that Figure 4 shows to select an existing or create a new method in the selected managed bean.
To create a new method, click New Validator Method, and then complete the New Method dialog.
You use the Select Navigation Case dialog that Figure 6 shows to specify a navigation case outcome. If there are no existing navigation cases listed, you may click New Navigation Case to open a dialog that will let you define a new navigation case (action) and either select an existing JSP page in the project, or create a new destination JSP page for your new navigation case.
You use the File Selection dialog to select the source of a file, such as an image, CSS, or a JSP file. To open the dialog, click Select File.
You use the Choose Style Class dialog to select a style class for the selected tag.
You use the CSS Style Definition dialog to define a CSS to apply to the tag. Using this dialog, you can define all elements of a style sheet.
Note that for the style to be applied, you need to register it with the application.
You use the Resource Bundle Selection dialog to choose a resource bundle for your application (as defined by the basename attribute). The dialog displays a list of available resource bundles including the following:
Resource bundles that reside in your project's src directory.
Resource bundles in JAR files in your project's WEB-INF/lib directory.
Resources bundles in JAR files in Shared Libraries.
Resources bundles in JAR files in User Libraries.
Note that this dialog allows you to set the resource bundle defined by the basename attribute of the JSF Core loadBundle and JSTL Formatting setBundle tags.
Also note that if the basename attribute contains a valid value, it will be selected in the dialog by default.
You use the Validator Id Selection dialog to choose a validator from a list of available validators, which includes the standard JSF validators and any validators that are defined in the faces-config.xml file. Note that through this dialog you set the value of the validatorId attribute of the JSF Core validator tag.
If the validatorId attribute already contains a valid value, this value is displayed separately at the top of the dialog.
You use the Converter Id Selection dialog to choose a converter from a list of available converters, which includes the standard JSF converters and any converters that are defined in the faces-config.xml file. Note that through this dialog you set the value of the following attributes:
converterId attribute of the JSF Core converter tag.
converter attribute of JSF HTML inputText and outputText tags.
If the converterId or converterId attribute already contains a valid value, this value is displayed separately at the top of the dialog.