Creating the layout

Any web site has a layout. Layouts can be created with HTML tables, divs and with CSS with Javascript tricks. Prime Faces provides out of the box support for border layout. A border layout typically has 5 parts as shown below

TOP / HEADER
LEFT	CENTER	RIGHT
BOTTOM / FOOTER

This border layout works well for most websites. Prime faces border layout can be either applied to a full page or a specific element. It can respond to expand, collapse, close and resize events of each layout unit with ajax listeners. Let us create a full page layout for a simple shopping cart application similar to OSCOMMERCE - http://demo.oscommerce.com/

The listing below shows the modified home.xhtml code.

Listing 1 – home.xhtml

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
xmlns:p="http://primefaces.prime.com.tr/ui">

<f:view contentType="text/html">

<h:head>
<title>Simple Store - Home</title>

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"
href="#{request.contextPath}/themes/cupertino/skin.css" />




</h:head>

<h:body>


<p:layout fullPage="true">
<p:layoutUnit position="top" header="TOP" height="80">
<h:outputText value="Top content." />
</p:layoutUnit>
<p:layoutUnit position="bottom" header="BOTTOM" height="100">
<h:outputText value="Bottom content." />
</p:layoutUnit>
<p:layoutUnit position="left" header="LEFT" width="300">
<h:outputText value="Left content" />
</p:layoutUnit>
<p:layoutUnit position="right" header="RIGHT" width="200">
<h:outputText value="Right Content" />
</p:layoutUnit>
<p:layoutUnit position="center" header="CENTER">
<h:outputText value="Center Content" />
</p:layoutUnit>
</p:layout>



</h:body>



</f:view>
</html>

You can now see the home page layout as shown in figure below: