[seam-dev] Let me know what you need for a first stab at the PDF/Mail port from Seam 2

[Gavin King]

On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 8:17 PM, Nikolay Elenkov <nick at sarion.co.jp> wrote:

> I don't know how much better JSF2 is at this, but is it really a good idea to
> use JSF for the mail module? Wouldn't it be better to use a real templating
> engine (like Velocity) and not depend on JSF?

Huh?! What on earth does velocity have that makes it a "real"
templating engine that facelets does not have? I have used both, and I
found velocity far, far poorer in both syntax and semantics.

> Plus it would be easier
> to edit templates if they are not xhtml files, but simple text files.

Why? Cos XML files are not text files? Cos #foo #end is easier to edit
than <foo></end>? I don't see how what you just wrote can possibly be
true.

> The usual
> use case for mail templating is to provide files your users can edit if they
> want to customize how email looks like. And you can't really expect them to
> understand xhtml.

They are XML files. I can't imagine a Java developer who doesn't know
XML. I do know several Java developers who find velocity syntax
nausea-inducing. I'm one of them.

The only reason for them to be xhtml files is if you are sending
HTML-format email.

Please try actually reading the Seam mail documentation:

http://docs.jboss.com/seam/1.1.5.GA/reference/en/html/mail.html

I don't see how most of the functionality could be achieved in
velocity, eg. <m:from>, <m:to>, <m:subject>, <m:header>.

-- 
Gavin King
gavin.king at gmail.com
http://in.relation.to/Bloggers/Gavin
http://hibernate.org
http://seamframework.org