JSF 2.0 pages, navigate between two pages without loosing data - jsf

Question

I have the following issue:
I have a page on which I create a offer (page1).
Now I have a button on page1 to select a customer (page2).
So I press the button and my new page (page2) appears to select a customer.
With another button I select the customer and redirect to my first page (offer page). But now all my entered values are not there anymore.
I tried the following:
import javax.enterprise.context.ConversationScoped;
import javax.enterprise.context.SessionScoped;
import javax.faces.view.ViewScoped;
My button is the following:
<p:commandButton value="Select customer" ajax="true" process="#all"
actionListener="#{offerEditController.doSelectCustomerForDocument}"
update=":addOfferForm, growl" immediate="true">
</p:commandButton>
And here my method for go to the page2:
public void doSelectCustomerForDocument() {
ExternalContext ec = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext();
ec.redirect(ec.getRequestContextPath() + Constants.CUSTOMER_LIST
+ "?create_document=/offerEdit.jsf&document_id=" + offer.getId());
}
#SessionScoped works not for all inputFields, e.g.
For
<p:inputText id="offer_subject"
value="#{offerEditController.offer.title}" >
<p:ajax events="blur" update="offer_subject_panel"
global="false" />
</p:inputText>
Any ideas how can I solve this? I know I could use a p:dialog, but I don´t like this.
Thank you for all help.

Answer 1

The better ideia would use a p:dialog, because it fits perfectly on your case but if you don't like it, you should improve the way you call your pages. In your case, when you do the following:
ExternalContext ec = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext();
ec.redirect(ec.getRequestContextPath() + Constants.CUSTOMER_LIST
+ "?create_document=/offerEdit.jsf&document_id=" + offer.getId())
you force the page to reload and recall the #PostConstruct method, cleaning the whole backing bean (controller). That's why you lose the values entered.
If you want to keep this approach of redirection you have to store the page data somewhere before it get cleaned. I suggest storing at requestContext passing parameters using JSON from page2 to page1 using <p:remoteCommand>, then, when you reload on #PostConstruct method you look for parameters in the requestContext and reset the fields.
Put this on Page2:
<p:commandButton id="buttonOnPage2" onclick = "remoteCommandFunction([{name:'value1',value:'#{bean.value1}'},{name:'value2',value:'#{bean.value2}'}])"/>
<p:remoteCommand name="remoteCommandFunction" actionListener="#{bean.storeData()}"/>
On your bean:
public void storeData(){
Map<String, String> params = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().getRequestParameterMap();
if(params.get("value1") !=null && !params.get("value1").isEmpty())
this.value1= params.get("value1");
if(params.get("value2") !=null && !params.get("value2").isEmpty())
this.value2= params.get("value2");
}
You have to ensure that storeData() method is called after #PostConstruct, if its called after post construct, everything will be null. If this happens you should put the storeData() method in a #SessionScoped bean and retrieve it on your #ViewScoped inside #PostConstruct method like this:
#PostConstruct
public void init(){
...
this.value1 = getSessionScopedBean().getValue1();
this.value2 = getSessionScopedBean().getValue2();
getSessionScopedBean().setValue1(null);
getSessionScopedBean().setValue2(null);
}