An introduction to PrimeFaces Extensions and its features

PrimeFaces Extensions is a lightweight, open source UI component library for applications based on JavaServer Faces 2.x. This project has been built on top of the PrimeFaces core library to allow users to create their own components. PrimeFaces Extensions consists of newly added components that don't exist in other JSF 2 based libraries as well as extended or improved component features missing in other popular JSF 2 libraries. Besides these components, it provides useful client behaviors, converters, validators, and other useful tools, such as a Maven plugin, for web resource optimization. It only uses standards and is highly compatible with existing JSF 2 frameworks.

Even though the earlier versions of component development with PrimeFaces started with the YUI API, in just a few days after getting negative results, the PrimeFaces team opted to go with the popular JavaScript framework jQuery to create their widgets and plugins. Because jQuery creates amazing widgets, custom plugins, themes, and Ajax-interactive features, considering these benefits, the PrimeFaces Extensions team also uses the jQuery framework behind the scenes to create its widgets. Hence, it is used instead of other JavaScript / UI frameworks available on the market.

The PrimeFaces Extensions library is a community-driven, open source project. This project has been licensed under Apache License Version 2 just as with many other open source projects, including the PrimeFaces library. You can use this library completely free for any open source or commercial project by following the terms and conditions of the Apache License Version 2.

PrimeFaces Extensions provides the following set of features as an extension UI component suite to the PrimeFaces core library: