快速了解Shale：
Shale是一个基于JSF的web开发框架。Shale重用了大量的Struts基础代码，因此可以称Struts为它的"父"框架，但Shale是面向服务架构，它与Struts最大不同之处在于：Struts与JSF集成，而Shale则是建立在JSF之上。 Struts实质上是一个巨大的、复杂的请求处理器；而Shale则是一组可以以任何方式进行组合的服务。此外Shale加入了一些新的特性比如：
1.与Spring框架相集成可以使用Spring的依赖注入机制来创建JSF Managed bean。
2.提供一种可选的类似于Tapestry与Facelets使用纯HTML来定义视图。
3.提供测试框架,一组mock object和JUnit test case基类可以帮助测试自身框架的classe和在构建在该框架之上的应用组件。
4.提供AJAX的服务端支持。
5.Tiger扩展等。
Shale原汁原味：
Shale is a modern web application framework, fundamentally based on JavaServer Faces. Architecturally, Shale is a set of loosely coupled services that can be combined as needed to meet particular application requirements. Shale provides additional functionality such as application event callbacks, dialogs with conversation-scoped state, a view technology called Clay, annotation-based functionality to reduce configuration requirements and support for remoting. Shale also provides integration links for other frameworks, to ease development when combinations of technologies are required.
Feature：
The major features of the Shale Framework are described in the following detail sections:
- View Controller - Convenient mechanism to associate a "backing" Java class with each JavaServer Faces view in an application, with predefined event handers for events significant to an application developer.
- Dialog Manager - Mechanism to define a "conversation" with a user that requires multiple HTTP requests to implement, modeled as a state diagram.
- Application Manager - Traditional application wide front controller features that should be applied to every request.
- Validation - Integration with the Jakarta Commons Validator Framework, supporting both client side and server side validations based on a single set of configured validation rules.
- Remoting - Server side support for applications that employ AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) style interactions.
- Spring Integration - Integration with the Spring Framework, allowing the use of Spring's dependency injection framework to create JavaServer Faces managed beans.
- Clay - An alternative to JSP where you define views in pure HTML, in a fashion similar to Tapestry and Facelets. An innovative sub-framework for supporting the configuration of reusable subtrees of JavaServer Faces components for customizable reuse.
- Test Framework - Set of mock objects and JUnit test case base classes suitable for testing both the framework classes themselves, as well as application components built on top of the framework.
- Tiger Extensions - Optional add-on library that adds additional ease-of-use features for Shale applications that run on Java Standard Edition 5 (popularly known by its code name during development, "tiger").
Dependancy：
Shale is based on (and requires a runtime environment that supports) the following foundation technologies:
- Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.4 or later.
- Servlet API 2.4 or later.
- JavaServer Pages 2.0 or later.
- JavaServer Faces 1.1 or later.
- JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL) 1.1 or later.
- Apache Commons BeanUtils 1.7 or later.
- Apache Commons Chain 1.1 or later.
- Apache Commons Digester 1.8 or later.
- Apache Commons Logging 1.1 or later.
Various optional Shale components have dependencies on the following additional runtime technologies:
- Apache Commons Validator 1.3.1 or later.
- Apache Commons SCXML 0.6 or later.
- Spring Framework 1.2.8 or later.
- Tiles 2 (the stand-alone version of Tiles, currently in the Struts Sandbox).
- Cargo
- jMock
