ZK Configuration Reference/zk.xml/The listener Element/The org.zkoss.zk.ui.util.Composer interface

Listener:

org.zkoss.zk.ui.util.Composer

[since 5.0.1]

A listener could implement Composer, such that it can process the creation of ZK pages like a composer specified in the apply attribute. It is also known as system-level composers.

Each time a ZK page, including ZK pages and richlets, is created, ZK will instantiate one instance for each registered system-level composer and then invoke Composer.doAfterCompose(Component) with each root component. The system-level composer is usually used to post-process ZK pages, such as adding a trademark. If you want to process only certain pages, you can check the request path by calling Desktop.getRequestPath() (the desktop instance can be found thru the give component).

If the system-level composer also implements ComposerExt, it can be used to handle more situations, such as exceptions, like any other composer can do.

If the system-level composer also implements FullComposer, it will be invoked when each component is created. It provides the finest grain of control but a wrong implementation might degrade the performance.

Notice that since a new instance of the composer is created for each page, there is no threading issues.

Richlet

The system-level composers are applied to richlets too. In additions, a system-level composer can implement ComposerExt to handle exceptions for a richlet, such as doCatch and doFinally. However, doBeforeCompose and doBeforeComposeChildren won't be called.

FullComposer is not applicable to richlets. In other words, system-level composers are called only for the root components.