Main Tutorials

JSF 2 + Spring 3 integration example

In this tutorial, we will show you how to integrate JSF 2.0 with Spring 3 using :

  1. JSF XML faces-config.xml
  2. Spring annotations
  3. JSR-330 standard injection

Tools and technologies used :

  1. JSF 2.1.13
  2. Spring 3.1.2.RELEASE
  3. Maven 3
  4. Eclipse 4.2
  5. Tomcat 6 or 7

1. Directory Structure

A standard Maven project for demonstration.

jsf2-spring-example-folder

2. Project Dependencies

Declares JSF 2, Spring 3, JSR-330 inject, and Tomcat’s dependencies.

pom.xml

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" 
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 
  	http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">

	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
	<groupId>com.mkyong.common</groupId>
	<artifactId>JavaServerFaces</artifactId>
	<packaging>war</packaging>
	<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
	<name>JavaServerFaces Maven Webapp</name>
	<url>http://maven.apache.org</url>

	<dependencies>

		<!-- Spring framework -->
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
			<version>3.1.2.RELEASE</version>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
			<version>3.1.2.RELEASE</version>
		</dependency>

		<!-- JSR-330 -->
		<dependency>
			<groupId>javax.inject</groupId>
			<artifactId>javax.inject</artifactId>
			<version>1</version>
		</dependency>
		
		<!-- JSF -->
		<dependency>
			<groupId>com.sun.faces</groupId>
			<artifactId>jsf-api</artifactId>
			<version>2.1.13</version>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>com.sun.faces</groupId>
			<artifactId>jsf-impl</artifactId>
			<version>2.1.13</version>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
			<artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
			<version>1.2</version>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
			<artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
			<version>2.5</version>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
			<artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
			<version>2.1</version>
		</dependency>

		<!-- EL -->
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.glassfish.web</groupId>
			<artifactId>el-impl</artifactId>
			<version>2.2</version>
		</dependency>

		<!-- Tomcat 6 need this -->
		<dependency>
			<groupId>com.sun.el</groupId>
			<artifactId>el-ri</artifactId>
			<version>1.0</version>
		</dependency>

	</dependencies>

	<build>
	<finalName>JavaServerFaces</finalName>

	<plugins>
	   <plugin>
		<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
		<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
		<version>2.3.1</version>
		<configuration>
			<source>1.6</source>
			<target>1.6</target>
		</configuration>
	   </plugin>
	</plugins>
	</build>
</project>

3. JSF 2 + Spring Integration

Spring’s bean in Spring Ioc context, and JSF’s managed bean in JSF Ioc context, how to make both working together? The solution is defined Spring’s SpringBeanFacesELResolver in faces-config.xml. Check this official Spring guide.

faces-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<faces-config xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
	http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_1.xsd"
	version="2.1">

	<application>
		<el-resolver>
    		    org.springframework.web.jsf.el.SpringBeanFacesELResolver
		</el-resolver>
  	</application>
 
</faces-config>

See following 3 examples to inject Spring’s bean in JSF managed bean.

3.1. XML Schema Example

Many developers still prefer to use XML to manage beans. With SpringBeanFacesELResolver, just uses EL ${userBo} to inject Spring’s bean into JSF’s managed bean.

UserBo.java

package com.mkyong.user.bo;
 
public interface UserBo{
 
	public String getMessage();
 
}
UserBoImpl.java

package com.mkyong.user.bo.impl;

import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;

public class UserBoImpl implements UserBo{
 
	public String getMessage() {
		
		return "JSF 2 + Spring Integration";
	
	}
 
}
UserBean.java – JSF backing bean

package com.mkyong;

import java.io.Serializable;
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;

public class UserBean{
 
        //later inject in faces-config.xml
	UserBo userBo;

	public void setUserBo(UserBo userBo) {
		this.userBo = userBo;
	}

	public String printMsgFromSpring() {
		
		return userBo.getMessage();
		
	}
	
}
applicationContext.xml – Declares userBo bean

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd">
 
	<bean id="userBo" class="com.mkyong.user.bo.impl.UserBoImpl"></bean>
	
</beans>
faces-config.xml – Declares managed bean and inject userBo

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<faces-config
    xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
    http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_0.xsd"
    version="2.0">
    
	<managed-bean>
		<managed-bean-name>user</managed-bean-name>
		<managed-bean-class>com.mkyong.UserBean</managed-bean-class>
		<managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope>
		<managed-property>
			<property-name>userBo</property-name>
			<value>#{userBo}</value>
		</managed-property>
	</managed-bean>
	
</faces-config>

3.2. Spring Annotations – Auto Scan

This example is using Spring annotations. Injects like a normal bean with @ManagedBean, @Autowired and @Component, it just works as expected.

UserBoImpl.java

package com.mkyong.user.bo.impl;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;

@Service
public class UserBoImpl implements UserBo{
 
	public String getMessage() {
		
		return "JSF 2 + Spring Integration";
	
	}
 
}
UserBean.java

package com.mkyong;

import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
import javax.faces.bean.SessionScoped;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;

@Component
@ManagedBean
@SessionScoped
public class UserBean{
 
	@Autowired
	UserBo userBo;

	public void setUserBo(UserBo userBo) {
		this.userBo = userBo;
	}

	public String printMsgFromSpring() {
		return userBo.getMessage();
	}
	
}
applicationContext.xml – Enable the component auto scan

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
	xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.1.xsd
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.1.xsd">

	<context:component-scan base-package="com.mkyong" />

</beans>

Mixed use of both JSF and Spring annotations are working fine, but it look weird and duplicated – @Component and @ManagedBean together. Actually, you can just uses a single @Component, see following new version, it’s pure Spring, and it works!

UserBean.java

package com.mkyong;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Scope;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;

@Component
@Scope("session")
public class UserBean{
 
	@Autowired
	UserBo userBo;

	public void setUserBo(UserBo userBo) {
		this.userBo = userBo;
	}

	public String printMsgFromSpring() {
		return userBo.getMessage();
	}
	
}

3.3. JSR-330 Annotation

Since Spring 3.0, Spring offer supports for JSR-330 injection standard. Now, you can uses @Inject to replace for @Autowired and @Named for @Component. This is recommended to solution, follow JSR-330 standard make the application more portable to other environments, and it works fine in Spring framework.

UserBoImpl.java

package com.mkyong.user.bo.impl;

import javax.inject.Named;
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;

@Named
public class UserBoImpl implements UserBo{
 
	public String getMessage() {
		
		return "JSF 2 + Spring Integration";
	
	}
 
}
UserBean.java

package com.mkyong;

import javax.inject.Inject;
import javax.inject.Named;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Scope;
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;

@Named
@Scope("session") //need this, JSR-330 in Spring context is singleton by default
public class UserBean {

	@Inject
	UserBo userBo;

	public void setUserBo(UserBo userBo) {
		this.userBo = userBo;
	}

	public String printMsgFromSpring() {
		return userBo.getMessage();
	}

}
applicationContext.xml – Need component auto scan also

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
	xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.1.xsd
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.1.xsd">

	<context:component-scan base-package="com.mkyong" />

</beans>

4. Demo

Example in 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 are doing exactly the thing – Inject userBo into JSF bean, just different implementation. Now, create a simple JSF page to show the the result.

default.xhtml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"   
      xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
      >
 
    <h:body>
 
    	<h1>JSF 2.0 + Spring Example</h1>
 
 	#{userBean.printMsgFromSpring()}
 		
    </h:body>
 
</html>
web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
	xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" 
	xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" 
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
	http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" 
	id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">
 
  <display-name>JavaServerFaces</display-name>
 
  <!-- Add Support for Spring -->
  <listener>
	<listener-class>
		org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
	</listener-class>
  </listener>
  <listener>
	<listener-class>
		org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestContextListener
	</listener-class>
  </listener>

  <!-- Change to "Production" when you are ready to deploy -->
  <context-param>
    <param-name>javax.faces.PROJECT_STAGE</param-name>
    <param-value>Development</param-value>
  </context-param>
 
  <!-- Welcome page -->
  <welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>default.jsf</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>
 
  <!-- JSF Mapping -->
  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>facesServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
  </servlet>
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>facesServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.jsf</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>facesServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.xhtml</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
 
</web-app>

Done, see output : http://localhost:8080/JavaServerFaces/default.jsf

jsf2 and spring integration

Download Source Code

Download It – JSF2-Spring-Example.zip (31KB)

References

  1. Spring reference – SpringBeanFacesELResolver
  2. Spring how to do dependency injection in your session listener
  3. Spring 3 and JSR-330 @Inject and @Named example

About Author

author image
Founder of Mkyong.com, love Java and open source stuff. Follow him on Twitter. If you like my tutorials, consider make a donation to these charities.

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Ade
10 years ago

Hi,excellent work! but i have some problems. JSF2.0’s new scope–ViewScope, how can you define this scope? Because Spring donen’t support this scope, it belongs to JSF2.0 specially.

Prasad
1 year ago

HI, do u having the Spring 6 with jsf 2.0 example?

Cristiane
7 years ago

Hi, Mkyong! Excellent work, but how can I define my applicationContext when my ClienteDao extends Dao class?

Siraj Chaudhary
9 years ago

Hi mkyong,

How will be the flow for JSF and SpringMVC(@RequestMapping) @Controller integration?

.xhtml(primefaces – jsf)->@ManagedBean(jsf)->@Service Bean(jsf)->
->SpringMVC @Controller(@RequestMapping)->Spring @Service->Spring DAO->Spring @Entity->DB

Can i follow above flow to create a EA Application? What are the best
practice, structure, flow to create a EA with JSF and Spring
integration.

or just i need to call SpringController(@RequestMapping) from JSF view(.xhtml), so no need to
create JSF ManagedBean and JSF ServiceBean?

or i need to follow above flow and call SpringController(Which is a RESTful controller) from
JSF Service Bean class by using any RESTful client API?

can i do one thing, can i put this jsf(front end of ea application) in one .war
.xhtml(primefaces – jsf)->@ManagedBean(jsf)->@Service Bean(jsf)->
and this spring(backend of ea application) in another .war
->SpringMVC @Controller(@RequestMapping)->Spring @Service->Spring DAO->Spring @Entity->DB

and call SpringMVC RESTful controller(@RequestMapping) by using any RESTful client API from JSF’s @service bean

what are the best practice???

I want to integrate JSF(as front end)+SpringMVC(as complete backend) for a EA application.

Thanks

lakexy .
9 years ago

Excellent work ! Thanks.

ku bang
9 years ago

Hi,
Can I know what should I use JSF’s bean or Spring’s bean. I wonder why do we have to integrate and what way should we follow to integrate?

Robert
9 years ago

But where is the reference outjected? There is no something like outject in Seam? References to all used classes are in context?

Andree
9 years ago

How do you genrate the stucture of the project ??

steven
9 years ago

Hi,Mkyong,I downloaded this example.
it seems to work well,when UserBean’s scope is Sesson.
but when its scope is request/view/prototype,this annotation do not work,its behavior seems to be application.

so it is not threadsafe.
Remove listener ‘org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestContextListener’ in web.xml,it works well.

Iaroslaw KARDASH
10 years ago

Dear Mkyong,
Could your indicate the maven archetype for creating this kind of jsf+spring maven projects?
Is it maven-archetype-webapp?

Please, provide your tip.

Cray
10 years ago

Hello
please give all jar file for this project

Arunkumar Gopalan
10 years ago

Hi,

Thank you for all your post. I have learned lot of thing from you post.

please could you provide example for spring + jsf and pretty faces with login check filter(custom)

I need urgently….

Thank you.

nitendra
10 years ago

Hi,

i know th spring but what is the advantages of jsf over spring.

Fred
10 years ago

Nice tutorial.

But I wonder how this gets usable when you start to sue JSR 303 for bean validation.

Let’s say you have JSF beans and you implement them as Spring beans as shown in this tutorial, are JSR 303 validation annotations still going to work (e.g. @NotNull from javax.validation.constraints package) ?.

JSF integrates Bean Validation Framework (JSR 303). It is still the case when JSF beans are created within Spring application contexts ?

Elom Atsou Agboka
10 years ago

Can be good if you post a tutorial on spring MVC and Primeface

Ravikiran
10 years ago

While integrating jsf and spring without annotation, make sure that managed bean you are calling from default.xhtml is same as mentioned in the managed bean name of faces-config.

Modified code is:
faces-config.xml:
——————————————————————————————

user
com.mkyong.UserBean
session

userBo
#{userBo}

—————————————————————————————–
default.xhtml:

#{user.printMsgFromSpring()}

Tuukka Ilomäki
10 years ago

The Spring demos of combining JSF with Spring route requests through Spring DispatcherServlet instead of FacesServlet. Here requests are routed through FacesServlet, however. Which one should we use and why? What are the relative merits of these approaches?

Of course, a demo of the DispatcherServlet approach would be highly appreciated 🙂

Ralph
10 years ago

This worked great – thanks for putting this together.

Zaw Min Than
11 years ago

javax.inject.Inject

I can`t call above the package name.

thurman
11 years ago

I’m pretty new to Spring/JSF…I’ve followed all of the instructions except that I’m using Jetty which seems to come up fine…my question is how exactly do I demo this ?

What do I put in to the browser ?

If I type in http://localhost:8080/ I simply get the WEB-INF/ and javax.face directory.

Thanx in advance.
Thurman

monishbhole
11 years ago

i want facebook intigration zip pls will u help me

seitaridis
11 years ago

I got it. You have declared it user inside de faces-config.xml.

seitaridis
11 years ago

In the default.xhtml #{user.printMsgFromSpring()} is used, but the bean is called userBo. If you don’t provide a name to an managed bean, it defaults to userBean. Is it a typo?

Jitesh Jha
11 years ago

Thanks for this post….
really nice post.

karthik
11 years ago
Reply to  Jitesh Jha

thanks mkyong.. good tutorial for learns…

softocean
11 years ago

Hie,

All of your tutorials are very easy to understand. Thanks all of this effort. Kindly can you write a simple integration example with spring webflow 2 and myfaces 2. Spring webflow is also very important topic if you touch this topic it will be very nice.

Che
10 years ago
Reply to  softocean

please add it.

Flik
11 years ago

There is another approach which follows annotation style as an option.
File : faces-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<faces-config
    xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
    http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_0.xsd"
    version="2.0">
 
	<application>
    	        <el-resolver>
    		    org.springframework.web.jsf.el.SpringBeanFacesELResolver
    	        </el-resolver>
  	</application>
</faces-config>

File : UserBean.java

package com.mkyong;
 
import java.io.Serializable;
 
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;
 
//DI via JSF managed bean
@ManagedBean
@SessionScoped
@SuppressWarnings("serial")
public class UserBean implements Serializable{
 
	//DI via Spring
        @ManagedProperty(name="userBo", value="#{userBo}")
        UserBo userBo;
 
	public void setUserBo(UserBo userBo) {
		this.userBo = userBo;
	}
 
	public String printMsgFromSpring() {
 
		return userBo.getMessage();
 
	}
 
}

It gives same result as what we done with faces-config.xml.

mabulgu
11 years ago

Hi,

Thanks for the tutorial. I couldn’t understand why you didn’t add contextConfigLocation context parameter in the web.xml?

contextConfigLocation

classpath:applicationContext.xml

Sam
10 years ago
Reply to  mabulgu

can we create this in dynamic web project also?

Eduardo Yáñez
11 years ago
Reply to  mabulgu

It isn’t needed since applicationContext.xml is placed at WEB-INF directory.

jp nghiem xuan
11 years ago

Very good example, thank you.

By the way if you deploy on weblogic 10.3.x, you will have to include el jars files (el-api-2-x.jar and el-empl-2-*.jar) in your war lib directory and add welogic.xml that looks like the one below (to supersede weblogic el library with the ones you provided) :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>  
<wls:weblogic-web-app xmlns:wls="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app" 
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app/1.3/weblogic-web-app.xsd">
    
    <wls:context-root>YOUR_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_NAME</wls:context-root>
      
    <container-descriptor>
       <prefer-application-packages>
         <package-name>com.sun.el.*</package-name>
         <package-name>javax.el.*</package-name>
       </prefer-application-packages>
    </container-descriptor>
      
    </wls:weblogic-web-app>  

Don’t forget to change web.xml and add:

com.sun.faces.expressionFactory
com.sun.el.ExpressionFactoryImpl

Hope this helps.

Jean Pierre

AndreyBN
11 years ago

I have tryed that. And it did not started (as i hope that wil be very simple)
I use eclipse 3.7.2
JBoss 7.1
and my problem is following :

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
	at com.mkyong.UserBean.printMsgFromSpring(UserBean.java:40) [classes:]
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) [:1.7.0]
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57) [:1.7.0]
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) [:1.7.0]
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:601) [:1.7.0]
	at javax.el.BeanELResolver.invokeMethod(BeanELResolver.java:735) [jboss-el-api_2.2_spec-1.0.0.Final.jar:1.0.0.Final]
	at javax.el.BeanELResolver.invoke(BeanELResolver.java:467) [jboss-el-api_2.2_spec-1.0.0.Final.jar:1.0.0.Final]
	at javax.el.CompositeELResolver.invoke(CompositeELResolver.java:246) [jboss-el-api_2.2_spec-1.0.0.Final.jar:1.0.0.Final]
	at org.apache.el.parser.AstValue.getValue(AstValue.java:159) [jbossweb-7.0.7.Final.jar:]
	at org.apache.el.ValueExpressionImpl.getValue(ValueExpressionImpl.java:189) [jbossweb-7.0.7.Final.jar:]
	at com.sun.faces.facelets.el.ELText$ELTextVariable.writeText(ELText.java:227) [jsf-impl-2.1.5-jbossorg-1.jar:2.1.5-SNAPSHOT]
	at com.sun.faces.facelets.el.ELText$ELTextComposite.writeText(ELText.java:150) [jsf-impl-2.1.5-jbossorg-1.jar:2.1.5-SNAPSHOT]
	at com.sun.faces.facelets.compiler.TextInstruction.write(TextInstruction.java:85) [jsf-impl-2.1.5-jbossorg-1.jar:2.1.5-SNAPSHOT]
	... 23 more
MMoastafa
11 years ago
Reply to  AndreyBN

I tried similar example and got the same error. can you please let me know how did you resolve it?

kannan
11 years ago
Reply to  AndreyBN

Just Change the context param in web.xml like below and it should work.

<context-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
    </context-param>
 
??? ????? ??????
11 years ago
Reply to  AndreyBN

1.Don’t forget to add jstl.jar
=> if pb will persist ,Try to use Tomcat or GlassFish.

Mahmoud Saleh
12 years ago

nice example, but i was wondering what are the advantages/disadvantages of this approach and using the spring webflow with jsf ?