JSF Page Navigation - jsf

I want to enable or disable component based on navigation rule. For example, I want to enable a component when I traverse from a particular page otherwise it should be in disabled state.

Probably the easiest way if you're using JSF 2.0, is to put a parameter in your navigation rule. If you use an f:viewParam on the target page that you bind to some bean, you can just check whether the property to which you bound the view parameter is empty or not.
If your navigation rule does not cause a redirect, you can also put some marker in request scope. The initial rendering of the target page will happen within the same request and easily pick this up. In that case, you do have to store it in some appropriate place (e.g. view scope in JSF 2) to retain the info on postbacks.

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best practice for communicating between two beans that back the same page

We are making the transition to bootstrap pages. As part of this, we are making most of our dialogs into simple include files that get rendered on demand. The include files have their own backing bean to minimize code duplication.
The typical use case is when a user enters a page a datatable shows a list of things. The user selects one or more rows in the table and then clicks a button to perform an action. The page is re-rendered using ajax. The datatable is not displayed but the former dialog is. The user then does whatever bulk operation the former dialog does and clicks execute (or cancel). The page is then re-rendered with the datatable showing and the former dialog box not.
The problem here is simple; how do you set the render flags on the datatable and former dialog box? Each of the beans needs to set the render flag of the other bean. I blithely tried injecting each bean into the other and promptly got a circular injection error at runtime. I've gone to having a callback interface that the datatable beans implement. When the former dialog bean gets injected, the datatable bean sets itself up to be called back. This works but I am not sure it's the best way to do it. Being an old swing programmer, I considered using property change listeners, which are much more robust than the simple interface, but I'm not sure what the implications of using them in a managed bean environment are. I did check out the messaging API but it clearly doesn't apply to this case.
So, what's the best way for two view beans that are backing the same page to talk to each other?

A few questions reagarding UI components state and phases

Having gone through these excellent posts:
Why JSF saves the state of UI components on server?
Why does JSF save component tree state?
and midway the JavaEE6 tutorial I still have the following questions:
When I am developing a custom UI component whose values (styleClass, value, etc) are either defined statically(in the xhtml) or set via a bean, do I need to explicitly save/restore state in the extended component as well?
Is it correct to say that the scope of the UI components is view scoped?
How is the view identified behaviour? (If I navigate away from a view, the view gets rebuild the next time around. But if I open another tab, it is restored - at least the bean!)
When I am executing an Ajax call, I would expect that 'execute' part of the UI component would be restored&processed and the 'rendered' part would be restored&updated. After running into some problems with UI:repeat, it is not clear to which extend the component tree is to be restored and if is possible to partially edit.
As an example (I am not sure that it works like this): I define a UI:repeat that iterates over some values and creates some Ajax commandlinks. Whenever I call the command, it will restore the whole ui:repeat regardless of the Ajax scope (execute/render) that I have defined. So it will re-render the whole ui:repeat. Furthermore, I don't understand how it could ever -not- restore the ui:repeat as due to being a namingcontainer it will edit the id of my newly added component.
How can I define a build-time component (vs render-time) and why would I want to do this? (It seems that build time components are troublesome when mixed with rendertime, so why have both)
Thanks
When I am developing a custom UI component whose values (styleClass, value, etc) are either defined statically(in the xhtml) or set via a bean, do I need to explicitly save/restore state in the extended component as well?
Yes. You normally use StateHelper for this.
See also:
How to save state when extending UIComponentBase
JSF custom component: support for arguments of custom types, the attribute setter is never invoked
Adding Custom Attributes to Primefaces Autocomplete Component in JSF
Is it correct to say that the scope of the UI components is view scoped?
Absolutely not. UI component instances are request scoped. Only anything which is stored via StateHelper is in essence view scoped (and restored into newly created component instances during "restore view" phase).
See also:
JSF composite component - weird behavior when trying to save state
Backing bean in composite component is recreated on every request
How is the view identified behaviour? (If I navigate away from a view, the view gets rebuild the next time around. But if I open another tab, it is restored - at least the bean!)
It's likely requested from browser cache. Try submitting a form therein. The chance is big that you get a ViewExpiredException. You need to tell the browser to not cache dynamic pages. Putting a breakpoint on bean's constructor would also confirm that it's never been invoked.
See also:
Avoid back button on JSF web application
Is JSF 2.0 View Scope back-button safe?
javax.faces.application.ViewExpiredException: View could not be restored
When I am executing an Ajax call, I would expect that 'execute' part of the UI component would be restored&processed and the 'rendered' part would be restored&updated.
This is not true as to restore part. The "whole" view state is restored. Note that the view state does since JSF 2.0 not necessarily represent the entire component tree. You've found the explanation/answer to that already in the two links mentioned in your question.
How can I define a build-time component (vs render-time) and why would I want to do this? (It seems that build time components are troublesome when mixed with rendertime, so why have both)
This is called a "tag handler". I.e. just extend from TagHandler instead of UIComponent and implement according its contract. Tag handlers are useful if the sole goal is to build the view (the JSF component tree). They do not appear in the JSF component tree. As to when to create a custom component or a custom tag handler, check the "components" and "taghandlers" sections of OmniFaces showcase, it may give some new insights as to real world use cases of those things.
See also:
Custom Facelet component in JSF
JSTL in JSF2 Facelets... makes sense?

Set current displayed tab programmatically in p:wizard

Is it possible to set current displayed tab programmatically in <p:wizard>?
For example, I want that for two different request to the same page which contains a wizard, to have a different tab selected.
What I am currently trying to do, is to have a wizard with many tabs, in the second tab I have a redirection to another page, so when I come back I want to come to the last step which caused the redirection.
Can you please help me ? Thank you a lot !
According to primefaces documentation there's a step attribute for p:wizard tag, which specifies the step of the wizard you're currently in.
attribute: step
default value: 0
type: String
description: Id of the current step in flow
You must bind this attribute to a value of your backing bean and maintain it during redirection and coming back. If your wizard's bean is #ViewScoped you'll loose that info during redirection step, so you have to pass it using a view param or flash scope.
My answer would most probably not meet your complete requirements, but, nonetheless, it may point you towards solution to your problem.
As far as I know, the PrimeFaces Wizard UIComponent is designed for a workflow of one page. That effectively means that inputs will be handled by a backing beans that is in a view scope.
This way, making a redirection on a certain step will clear all data inputs, because your view changes and the old one is destroyed.
Anyway, a means of setting a current tab for display is step attribute of Wizard component. So,
<p:wizard step="#{wizardBean.currentStep}" >...</p:wizard>
will force the wizard to show you step which you specified in your bean. You may be able to get it by using, for example, a view parameter, like in
<f:viewParam name="step" value="#{wizardBean.currentStep}" />
But it will make sense if lifetime of your bean is more that for a view, for example, the bean could be put in session scope.
That said, maybe it is a better idea to do login beforehand. Or, if it is absolutely necessary to do it in step 2 of your wizard, provide for a built-in login functionality in a page itself, or in a popular window?
Also, programmatically the setting you speak of can be achieved via a binding of component to your backing bean and setting the step value in the backing bean, for example, in a preRenderView event.

JSF page navigation failing with NullPointerException

I wrote two pages...one a form where data submitted and second just to confirm the transaction actually carried out some calculation.
I have a managed bean i.e. FormDataBean and a class Reservation.java from which i instantiate for each booking made. Now I have at the end of a form a submit button:
<h:commandButton value="Submit" action="confirmation"/>
in the bean I have setters and getters as usual. in a method i defined I create an instance of Reservation, then set the beans variables to the instance variabels, like
reservation.startDate = startDate;
reservation.endDate = endDate;
reservation.checkRange();
The last method, i.e. checkRange() will use the assigned values to instance variables to carry calculation. it should return a string successful or failure.
Now when I enter data in the form, and press submit, it just refreshes the page but nothing is submitted. because it doesn't go to next page :(
Any idea what is happening? I don't need to define a navigation rule, because in other project, I carry out simple calculation and display result in next page and it worsks! Please advice
Thanks,
Your are missing to tell us some of the more important details so the answer is a kind of guesswork.
As you don't use navigation rules I assume you are using JSF 2, aren't you?
With JSF 2 you can directly set the new navigation target, without navigation rules. A forward to "confirmation" should work if your outcome file is named confirmation.xhtml. Check that. With a navigation rule you could forward it do a different file.
This part should work regardless of the rest.
For the bean not getting any values make sure that you are using the correct scope either through annotation or entry in your faces-config.xml. As you have a quite unusal validation mechanism you probably have to use the session scope.
The correct way would be using an actionlistener that does your checks and then sets the navigation depending on your checks. The bean scope could be more restrictive then.
Did you try action="confirmation?faces-redirect=true"?

Maintaining RichFaces panelMenu state between requests

I'm attempting to use a RichFaces panelMenu as a navigation menu but have yet to figure out a way for it to maintain state between requests. Is there anyway to tell the panelMenu to render itself with certain groups expanded without using ajax?
I've attempted setting the value on the panelMenu and using selectedChild, all to no avail.
The state of the expanded sections is controlled by the rich:panelMenuGroup children, in particular their expanded attributes; these can be bound to server-side objects. You need to ensure their server-side state is updated somehow, though, either through setting the rich:panelMenu with the attribute expandMode="server" (which will cause a server-side submit) or by making it a child of whatever form is being submitted.

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