Unified EL Design Tasks

Facet Mechanism for Framework Selection

Please see: EL_Versioned_Framework_Selector

A mechanism based on WTP-based facets that:

• allows the end-user to define which version of Unified EL is in use. This is done indirectly by the selection of JSF facet version.

Design-Time EL Context Framework

Please see: EL_Context_Framework_Design

A new extension point-based, extensible framework that:

• parallels the ELContext API provided by Unified EL.
• allows third-party contributors to add design time analogous to runtime ELResolvers, FunctionMapper and Variable Mapper objects.
• provides a context-based mechanism (extending context resolvers) for selecting the correct ELContext to resolve a unified EL expression.
• a simple, comprehensive mechanism through which tool end-users can configure third-party contributions in use.

EL Variable Support

Please see: EL Variable Support

A generic mechanism by which non-JSF sources contribute design time EL symbol information. Emphasis is on supporting JSTL tags like c:forEach.

Java 1.5 Support

Please see: Java_1_5_Support

Type signatures and semantic analysis mechanisms must be updated to support Java enumerations and generics.

Composite Type Descriptor

Please see: Composite_Type_Descriptor

Type descriptors are currently used to describe the type of a variable or property and what child properties they have. Currently a symbol can only be described as being of a single type. A composite type descriptor needs to be added to support the fact that an EL symbol may be of multiple types. For example a managed bean may be considered to be a JavaBean but may also be treated as a List or Map if it implements these interfaces.

EL Validation Rules

Please see: EL_Validation_Rules

The validation rules used for EL expressions both in JSF 1.1 and 1.2 need to be enumerated. This will feed a new piece of configuration UI that allows the tool end-user to modify the enablement and severity of different problems found by the validator in a similar way to that which JDT currently provides with Java problems.

Managed-Bean Data

Please see: Managed-Bean Data

Managed bean data can be embedded with the bean declaration in the faces-config.xml file. This data can be used to improve what the EL framework knows about managed beans and can improve validation and content-assist features.