BK

Apache MyFaces Trinidad is a widely used JSF component set. It is featured in the upcoming book on Apache MyFaces, written by me. The benefits of Trinidad include a large choice of components, built-in Ajax and extensive skinning possibilities. Until now, one of the shortcomings of Trinidad has been the lack of a good looking open source skin. The default skin is called ‘minimal’, and that name does reflect the look of that skin very well.

Trinidad’s skinning API is rather powerful and allows you to create beautiful looking skins yourself. However, creating a skin can be an awful lot of work and requires good CSS skills. Especially in smaller projects, there might not be enough budget to create a custom skin.

Here’s the good news: this situation is going to change soon! Matthias Weßendorf recently announced on the MyFaces User mailing list that some guys from Codebeat have donated a completely new skin to the Trinidad project. Based on the preview, hosted by long-time MyFaces supporters Irian, I must say this new skin looks professional and clean. Very promising! At the moment, the new skin is only available in Trinidad’s source code repository and in snapshot builds. The skin will be included in the upcoming 1.2.14 release of Trinidad, which is expected within a few weeks from now. Until then: check out the beautiful demo!