User guide

Start here

Five lessons that build one application, from an empty project to a tested page with Ajax.

1. Build your first application Generate a project from the quickstart, run it, and build a home page with a label, a click counter and a link to a second page.
2. Give every page the same layout Move the header, navigation and footer of your application into a base page and two panels, so every page shares one layout.
3. Build a form that saves data Add a guestbook page with a form that validates its input, saves entries and lists them, and shows errors and a confirmation.
4. Update a page with Ajax Make the click counter and the guestbook form update only the parts of the page that change, open the form without a reload, and refresh the guestbook every ten seconds.
5. Test a page with WicketTester Write JUnit tests that render your pages, click links, submit the guestbook form and check Ajax updates, without a browser or a server.

Topics

Each topic gathers its lessons, how-to guides, reference and explanation on one page.

• Getting started Create a project, configure the application and learn what Wicket is made of. 5 tutorials2 how-to guides4 reference2 explanation
• Components and markup Pages, panels, borders and fragments, and how Java components meet their HTML. 13 how-to guides1 reference2 explanation
• Models How components get and keep their data. 5 how-to guides1 reference1 explanation
• Forms Input fields, validation, conversion, uploads and submitting. 11 how-to guides2 reference1 explanation
• Lists and tables Repeat markup for each item in a list, page through data. 4 how-to guides1 reference
• Ajax and JavaScript Update parts of a page without reloading it, and work with JavaScript. 9 how-to guides2 reference1 explanation
• WebSockets Push updates from the server to the browser. 2 how-to guides1 reference1 explanation
• Links and URLs Link between pages, pass parameters and shape the URLs. 7 how-to guides1 reference1 explanation
• Resources Serve CSS, JavaScript, images and generated files. 14 how-to guides1 reference1 explanation
• Pages and state Stateful and stateless pages, the page store and the session. 3 how-to guides2 explanation
• Requests and lifecycle How a request is processed and what happens to a component along the way. 4 how-to guides2 reference1 explanation
• Localization Translate texts, formats and choices. 4 how-to guides1 reference1 explanation
• Security Log users in, restrict access and harden the application. 7 how-to guides2 reference1 explanation
• Testing Test pages, forms and markup without a browser. 4 how-to guides1 reference
• Integration Spring, CDI, EJB, OSGi and monitoring. 7 how-to guides1 reference

Look it up

• A–Z indexEvery Wicket class the guide explains, and every page by title.
• Wicket tags and attributesEvery tag and attribute in the wicket namespace, what it does, which attributes it takes, with a minimal example of each.
• Component lifecycleThe stages a component goes through and every hook method Wicket calls on it, in order, with who calls it and when.
• Form componentsEvery form, input, choice, upload and submit component in wicket-core and wicket-extensions, with the markup tag it needs and the type of its model.
• Model classesEvery model class and model interface in wicket-core, the default methods of IModel, the factory methods and the component methods that work with models.
• Header itemsEvery header item type with its factory methods, the tag it renders and where it ends up, the rendering order, Ajax behaviour and the header response decorators.
• GlossaryPlain-English definitions of the Wicket terms used in this guide, each compared with what other web frameworks call it.