p：panelGrid到底如何扩展h：panelGrid

Question

I'm using Primefaces and I know that p:panelGrid extends h:panelGrid as it's clearly stated in the documentation .

However I can't see the exact difference between them. What extra functionalities does p:panelGrid provide? In which cases should I prefer using the Primefaces version over the HTML Basic one?

Although p:panelGrid extends h:panelGrid , it actually lacks many of the attributes that h:panelGrid contains. Which ultimately got me confused.

Answer 1

I can't speak for PrimeFaces' actual intention (I'm no PrimeFaces developer), but based on my observations so far, I can only conclude that they omitted attributes which only invite bad practices in HTML perspective (mainly HTML-deprecated attributes — use CSS instead) or makes no sense otherwise (and are better at its place in a parent or child component). I can only say that it's a Good Thing.

Upon further inspection in the source code I can also confirm that it doesn't technically extend from <h:panelGrid> ( HtmlPanelGrid class), but from the UIPanel superclass (which is also used by ao <h:panelGroup> ). This design decision is most likely done to have more flexibility in the rendered output as shown in the showcase .

Generally, you should only prefer an enhanced component whenever you start to actually need the enhanced/new feature. This usually only happens once you figure out you actually need such one feature and discover that it is missing in the standard component. You'd then usually already know the keywords you're looking for and simply start exploring the component libraries using those keywords if they haven't already implemented it.