Formally, a managed bean has the following characteristics: * Registered in a faces-config.xml file (not web.xml :-)
* Public class with a public zero-args constructor (i.e. a JavaBean) When a value binding or method binding expression is evaluated, the various scopes (request, session, application) are searched for a bean with the same name (similar in spirit to what the <jsp:useBean> tag does). Otherwise, the facility will: * Instantiate a new instance of the specified bean class * Configure its properties via either literal values or value binding expressions (essentially giving you a very simple Dependency Injection / Inversion of Control container with no extra software) * Store the new instance in the specified scope (unless you set it to "none", which means a new instance will be created for every expression evaluation. Using managed beans in a filter, however, will be problematic -- you need to have a FacesContext instance set up for the current request in order to evaluate the expression, and that doesn't happen until FacesServlet processes the request. But you don't need a filter for the configuration use case. As others have stated, Shale's approach to this is quite elegant (but of course I'm biased :-). Craig
