Over the last five years, a variety of frameworks for building Java-based web applications have been created. More recently, however, JavaServer Faces has become a standard part of the Java EE 5 platform, providing both a user interface component framework and the basis for a web application framework.

It is possible to integrate JavaServer Faces components into many frameworks (including Struts). However, the resulting architecture leaves you with redundant implementations of many features (such as navigation and validation). A framework that uses JavaServer Faces extension points, on the other hand, would provide a leaner and easier-to-use base for building webapps.

Shale is such a framework. It leverages JavaServer Faces extension points to provide additional functionality (application event callbacks, dialogs with conversation-scoped state, annotation-based functionality to reduce configuration requirements, support for remoting), while leveraging the standard application controller facilities of JavaServer Faces. This session will introduce the basic features of Shale, and discuss the roadmap for its future development.