Sun Microsystems' Project Woodstock is being end-of-lifed, and
ICEfaces is the technology of choice for the Woodstock community to
migrate toward for a number of reasons.
ICEfaces is the market-leading solution for building Rich
Internet Applications in Java and JSF.
ICEfaces offers the strongest existing integration with
relevant Sun technologies including Glassfish and NetBeans.
ICEfaces offers specific migration support for Woodstock
developers today.
ICEsoft is committed to improving migration support, and
tighten the integration between ICEfaces, Glassfish, and NetBeans.
Migration Strategy
The philosophy behind the Woodstock to ICEfaces migration
strategy is simple - allow Woodstock developers to maintain their
existing Woodstock applications, and provide a path of least resistance
to migrate ongoing development efforts to ICEfaces. There is no
intention to support the entire Woodstock feature-set in ICEfaces,
although some of the most widely used features will find their way into
ICEfaces. The key requirements that the migration strategy satisfies
include:
Provides a consistent development environment within NetBeans
where Woodstock and ICEfaces development are supported in the same JSF
project.
Provides run-time framework integration where Woodstock and
ICEfaces pages can co-exist within the same web application.
Provides consistent styling between Woodstock and ICEfaces
pages.
Provides support for migrating Woodstock pages to ICEfaces,
including:
Component Migration Matrix
that describes how to
migrate from Woodstock components to ICEfaces counterparts.
Port specific high-value, high-use Woodstock components to
ICEfaces.
Provide page conversion utilities in NetBeans that will aid
developers in migrating Woodstock pages to ICEfaces pages.
What Can You Do Today?
As of the NetBeans 6.5 and ICEfaces 1.7.2SP1 releases, key
elements of the migration strategy have already been satisfied.
Specifically, you can take an existing Woodstock application, add the
ICEfaces framework, and begin developing ICEfaces pages along side your
existing Woodstock pages. Have a look at theonline
tutorials
to see how easy it is to get started. ICEfaces has always
provided strong integration with NetBeans, so you can continue to use
the visual design, or facelet editor depending on your preference.
ICEfaces is also tightly integrated with Glassfish and other application
servers so your deployment environment remains unchanged.
Once you understand the basic approach to porting from Woodstock
to ICEfaces you can begin to look into the specific
component-by-component details required to port your application pages.
TheComponent Migration Matrix
provides a mapping of
Woodstock components to ICEfaces components, with a detailed attribute
comparison and additional porting guidance.
What Is Coming Soon?
The efforts to provide complete migration support from Woodstock
to ICEfaces are ongoing, so you can expect additional capabilities with
subsequent ICEfaces releases. To aid in your migration planning a
high-level roadmap for planned migration features is provided here.
ICEfaces 1.7.2SP1 - Available Now
NetBeans 6.5 project-level coexistence of Woodstock and
ICEfaces. Download the latest NetBeans 6.5 pluginhere
.
Automated addition of ICEfaces framework into existing
Woodstock projects.
Run-time framework integration supporting coexistence of
Woodstock and ICEfaces pages in a single web application.
Completed porting of priority Woodstock components.
Completed migration documentation.
Completed automated page porting utilities.
Need More Help?
The ICEfaces team is committed to helping members of the
Woodstock community migrate to ICEfaces. A wealth of online resources
for ICEfaces are available to registered community members, including:
