After a while of using Ajax4Jsf, I am really liking how they handle component rendering resources (JavaScript and CSS files mainly). Their method seems to be cleaner and (I think) have better performance than Tomahawk.
The major difference that I see: - Tomahawk uses the extension filter which buffers the entire response and then sticks in the CSS and JS references into the HEAD element - A4J scans the renderers of the components in the component tree and finds out which resources are needed by the component and adds them to the Page Obviously the A4J library is enhanced for Ajax and has functionality to add script tags and CSS files to the page during AJAX requests. I've had issues with the Tomahawk approach with Ajax in the past (not with A4J's help) as components that were rendered on non-initial page renderings were left without their javascript. I am not trying to step on anyone's toes, but wanted to see what others felt about the different approaches and perhaps move the Tomahawk code to using more of an A4J approach. I would love to be able to remove the extensions filter all together (perhaps moving the file upload code out of the extensions filter and putting it into its own filter?). Maybe even having both teams work together to maybe publish the A4J resource handling code into a separate project/jar from the A4J so that other JSF projects can leverage the functionality without having to use A4J? I am not completely versed in the mechanics of both approaches, so please excuse any bad oversights on my part.
