h:selectOneMenu is not working with jsf2 - jsf

Question

Recently we migrated to jboss-6.0.0.Final wiith richfaces-3.3.3.Final and jsf-2.0. After deployment we found the <h:selectOneMenu/> is not working properly if selectItems has the attribute 'noSelectionLabel' even <s:convertEnum/> is passed to the component. For example
<h:selectOneMenu id="gender" value="#{user.gender}">
<s:selectItems noSelectionLabel="Select Gender"/>
<f:selectItems value="#{user.genderTypes}" />
<s:convertEnum />
</h:selectOneMenu>
public Map<String, Gender> getGenderTypes() {
Gender[] values = Gender.values();
Map<String, Gender> genderTypes = new LinkedHashMap<String, Gender>(values.length);
for (Gender gender : values) {
genderTypes.put(gender.toString(), gender);
}
return genderTypes;
}
If value is not provided to this element, on page submit I am getting an error that
"Constant 'Select Gender' is not found
on enum Gender"
.
Then I analysed JSF 2 is initialized under Mojarra-2.0. I changed this to Mojarra-1.2 in web.xml like this
<context-param>
<param-name>org.jboss.jbossfaces.JSF_CONFIG_NAME</param-name>
<param-value>Mojarra-1.2</param-value> </context-param>
After this I am getting the deployment error
Caused by:
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError:
org/richfaces/context/PartialViewConextImpl
My web.xml
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
version="2.5">
<!-- RichFaces -->
<context-param>
<param-name>org.richfaces.SKIN</param-name>
<param-value>blueSky</param-value>
</context-param>
<!-- Suppress spurious stylesheets -->
<context-param>
<param-name>org.richfaces.CONTROL_SKINNING</param-name>
<param-value>enable</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>org.richfaces.CONTROL_SKINNING_CLASSES</param-name>
<param-value>enable</param-value>
</context-param>
<!-- Added to force facelets to ignore comments -->
<context-param>
<param-name>facelets.SKIP_COMMENTS</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>
<!--
Change load strategy to DEFAULT to disable sending scripts/styles as
packs
-->
<context-param>
<param-name>org.richfaces.LoadStyleStrategy</param-name>
<param-value>ALL</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>org.richfaces.LoadScriptStrategy</param-name>
<param-value>ALL</param-value>
</context-param>
<!-- Seam -->
<listener>
<listener-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamListener</listener-class>
</listener>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Seam Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamResourceServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Seam Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/seam/resource/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<filter>
<filter-name>Seam Filter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>Seam Filter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
<!-- Facelets development mode (disable in production) -->
<context-param>
<param-name>facelets.DEVELOPMENT</param-name>
<param-value>false</param-value>
</context-param>
<!-- JSF -->
<context-param>
<param-name>javax.faces.DEFAULT_SUFFIX</param-name>
<param-value>.xhtml</param-value>
</context-param>
<!-- Session Timeout -->
<context-param>
<param-name>org.ajax4jsf.handleViewExpiredOnClient</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>org.ajax4jsf.DEFAULT_EXPIRE</param-name>
<param-value>86400</param-value>
</context-param>
<!-- This param is needed to change the JSF configuration of our WAR -->
<context-param>
<param-name>org.jboss.jbossfaces.JSF_CONFIG_NAME</param-name>
<param-value>Mojarra-1.2</param-value>
</context-param>
<!-- Faces servlet -->
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.seam</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<security-constraint>
<display-name>Restrict raw XHTML Documents</display-name>
<web-resource-collection>
<web-resource-name>XHTML</web-resource-name>
<url-pattern>*.xhtml</url-pattern>
</web-resource-collection>
<auth-constraint />
</security-constraint>
<session-config>
<session-timeout>20</session-timeout>
</session-config>
</web-app>
How to resolve this?

Answer 1

Since JSF 1.2, there's a builtin enum converter. You do not need a custom converter. To represent a default selection without a value, just use <f:selectItem> without an itemValue. Also, since JSF 2.0 you do not necessarily need a SelectItem[], List<SelectItem> or Map<K, V> for <f:selectItems> anymore. Just an T[] or List<T> is also supported. There's even a var attribute so that the item label and value could be set with the properties of T.
So, this view:
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{bean.gender}" required="true">
<f:selectItem itemLabel="Select gender" />
<f:selectItems value="#{bean.genders}" />
</h:selectOneMenu>
with this model:
private Gender gender; // +getter +setter
public Gender[] getGenders() {
return Gender.values();
}
should work as good without much hassle.

Answer 2

I have noticed this aswell under slightly different circumstances. If you explicitly assign a converter to an inputelement and have null as value (noSelecrtion), it will for some weird reason send the label instead of the value to the converter. I go around the problem by using the forClass attribute of #FacesConverter, or using JSF default converters (the enum one works okay for me).