Is it possible to place the JSF flow folder somewhere else than the root of the application?

Question

Is it possible to place the JSF flow folder somewhere else than the root of the application like... in WEB-INF folder? Or somehow to forbid direct access to the pages in it?

Answer 1

I solved this one myself.

A JSF flow definition can be done in 2 ways:

• with configuration file: flowname-flow.xml
• with configuration class: flowname.java

The first one can only define a flow-name, with the location defaulting to the root folder.

The second can define a location deeper in your folder structure.

Configuration file example: testflow.flow.xml

Only the id="testFlow" can be added to the definition, and not the path. This defaults to testFlow/testFlow.xhtml for the first page.

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<faces-config version="2.2" 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">
    <flow-definition id="testFlow">
        <flow-return id="returnFromTestFlow">
            <from-outcome>#{testFlow.returnValue}</from-outcome>
        </flow-return>
    </flow-definition>
</faces-config>

Configuration class example: TestFlow.java

Add the fully qualified path to the view node within this flow.

public class TestFlow implements Serializable {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    @Produces
    @FlowDefinition
    public Flow defineFlow(@FlowBuilderParameter FlowBuilder flowBuilder) {

        String flowId = "testFlow";
        flowBuilder.id("", flowId);
        flowBuilder.viewNode(flowId, 
                "/other/location/flow/" + flowId + ".xhtml").
                markAsStartNode();
        flowBuilder.viewNode("testFlow2", "/other/location/flow/testFlow2.xhtml");
        flowBuilder.viewNode("testFlow3", "/other/location/flow/testFlow3.xhtml");
        ...

That's all folks!

Answer 2

You can always create folders inside the root folder to store your pages. To restrict client access, for example, you can put all admin-related pages into a folder called admin. Then, you can restrict user access by using the account type after they've logged in. This can be done easily using a Servlet. One thing to note is that you should never put normal pages and template clients inside the WEB-INF folder.

For your information:

• Which XHTML files do I need to put in /WEB-INF and which not?