Configuring Seam in Java EE 5

If you're running in a Java EE 5 environment, this is all the configuration required to start using Seam!

Packaging

Once you've packaged all this stuff together into an EAR, the archive structure will look something like this:

my-application.ear/
    jboss-seam.jar
    el-api.jar
    el-ri.jar
    META-INF/
        MANIFEST.MF
        application.xml
    my-application.war/
        META-INF/
            MANIFEST.MF
        WEB-INF/
            web.xml
            components.xml
            faces-config.xml
            lib/
                jsf-facelets.jar
                jboss-seam-ui.jar
        login.jsp
        register.jsp
        ...
    my-application.jar/
        META-INF/
            MANIFEST.MF
            persistence.xml
        seam.properties
        org/
            jboss/
                myapplication/
                    User.class
                    Login.class
                    LoginBean.class
                    Register.class
                    RegisterBean.class
                    ...

You must include jboss-seam.jar, el-api.jar and el-ri.jar in the EAR classpath. Make sure you reference all of these jars from application.xml.

If you want to use jBPM or Drools, you must include the needed jars in the EAR classpath. Make sure you reference all of the jars from application.xml.

If you want to use facelets (our recommendation), you must include jsf-facelets.jar in the WEB-INF/lib directory of the WAR.

If you want to use the Seam tag library (most Seam applications do), you must include jboss-seam-ui.jar in the WEB-INF/lib directory of the WAR. If you want to use the PDF or email tag libraries, you need to put jboss-seam-pdf.jar or jboss-seam-mail.jar in WEB-INF/lib.

If you want to use the Seam debug page (only works for applications using facelets), you must include jboss-seam-debug.jar in the WEB-INF/lib directory of the WAR.

Seam ships with several example applications that are deployable in any Java EE container that supports EJB 3.0.

I really wish that was all there was to say on the topic of configuration but unfortunately we're only about a third of the way there. If you're too overwhelmed by all this tedious configuration stuff, feel free to skip over the rest of this section and come back to it later.