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> ## Application Configuration

> Previous sections of this chapter have discussed the various resources available to a JavaServer Faces application. These include: converters, validators, components, model objects, actions, navigation handlers, and others. In previous releases, these resources had to be configured programmatically. An `ApplicationHandler` was required to define page navigation, and a `ServletContextListener` was required to register converters, validators, renderers, render kits, and messages.

> This release introduces a portable configuration resource format (as an XML document) for configuring resources required at application startup time. This new feature eliminates the need for an `ApplicatonHandler` and a `ServletContextListener`. This tutorial explains in separate sections how to configure resources in the XML document. See section Setting Up The Application Configuration File for information on requirements for setting up the application configuration file. See section Creating Model Objects for an explanation of how to use the XML file to create model objects. See section Navigating Between Pages for information on how to define page navigation in the XML file. See sections Performing Validation and Performing Data Conversions for how to register custom validators and converters. See sections Register the Component and Register the Renderer with a Render Kit for information on how to register components and renderers to an application.

> In previous releases, once these resources were created, the information for some of them used to be stored in and accessed from the `FacesContext`, which represents contextual information for a given request. These resources are typically available during the life of the application. Therefore, information for these resources is more appropriately retrieved from a single object that is instantiated for each application. This release of JavaServer Faces introduces the `Application` class, which is automatically created for each application.

> The `Application` class acts as a centralized factory for resources such as converters and message resources that are defined in the XML file. When an application needs to access some information about one of the resources defined in the XML file, it first retrieves an `Application` instance from an `ApplicationFactory` and retrieves the resource instance from the `Application`.

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