Re: Custom date component attributes

[Simon Kitching]

Aneesha Govil wrote:
Hi,
I am creating a date component with some additional attributes on top of 
t:inputdate. Do I need to add only the new attributes to component tag 
or do I also need to add the attributes already a part of parent 
HtmlInputDate?

You can subclass the original tag class, which means you do not then 
need to write java code to handle the original properties.

However in the .tld file there is no way to say that a <tag> element 
extends another, so in the .tld file entry you do need to copy-and-paste 
all the attribute definitions from the parent tag. Ecch.

Of course if you can use Facelets instead, all this is much nicer; no 
tag class or .tld file is required at all.

Note also that it is possible to add new properties to a tag, and use 
them in a renderer without writing a new component class at all, as 
every component has an attributes map that can store data, effectively 
"tunnelling" properties from the tag to the renderer. Sometimes this is 
useful, and sometimes it is better to create a new component class.

Regards,

Simon