Jayashri

New and improved Java BluePrints AJAX sample components are now available.Get them one of two ways: in the early access version of the Java BluePrints solutions catalog or with the Java Studio Creator visual web development tool. Current users can connect to the update center to automatically download the cool new components built on JavaServer Faces, including Rich Text Area, Rating, and a Buy Now Component which is wrapper around PayPal Buy Now button. Get complete descriptions, how-to articles, and downloads on the Java Studio Creator Sample Components page

In your JSF application built using Creator, you might run into a scenario where you want to execute validators only upon button click and not when form submission happens via JavaScript (for example when turn on autosubmit on change on a drop down list). In this case you won't be able to attach any validators on your input components because once you attach them, they will always get executed during ProcessValidations phase irrespective of whether the postback happened via button click or form submission. So the work around is to do conditional validation upon button click. So in your button's action handler, you validate your input field and if it failed, return "null" as outcome from your action handler to tell the JSF framework to redisplay the same page instead of processing the navigation rules for the current view. Here is the sample code you can add to your action handler to ensure that textfield is not null when the page is submitted via button click.

 if (textField1.getValue() == null) {
 FacesMessage message = new FacesMessage("Textfield1 is required. Enter a value");
 message.setSeverity(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_ERROR);
 getFacesContext().addMessage(textField1.getClientId(getFacesContext()), message);
 return null;
 }
 return "success";

Also, see David Botteril's blog on this topic for more alternatives.

This blog discusses the reason and fix for the IllegalStateException (IAE) that you may run into when you call FacesContext.getExternalContext().redirect() in your JSF application.

During RenderResponse phase, the JSF framework (ViewHandler in particular) does a RequestDispatcher.forward() to the specified view and the response is sent to the client. So if you do a redirect after the response has been committed, (say in the afterRenderResponse() , you will get an IAE. In other words, you can call redirect() instead of rendering the page and not after rendering the page. If you do so, Servlet Container will throw an exception because the call to forward() during RenderResponse phase would have already committed the response. So the right time to do the redirect would be anytime before the RenderResponse phase executes namely preRender(), (if you are in JavaStudio Creator) or beforeRenderResponse(). You also need to call FacesContext.responseComplete() after you call redirect() to indicate to the JSF framework that the response has been committed, so RenderResponse phase can be skipped.

I came across questions regarding the usage the "immediate" in forum postings as well as from a few Creator customers.  I hope this blog addresses some of the questions around the usage of "immediate" as well as its use cases.

Purpose of Immediate

The "immediate" is provided on UICommand components to control page flow through standard navigation rules while bypassing validation and update model values altogether. On UIInput components, "immediate" is provided to process validation earlier than normal namely ProcessValidations Phase.

Usage of Immediate on UICommand Components.

Typically you set "immediate" attribute on UICommand components when you are implementing wizards that have optional steps (such as when the user clicks the "Skip/Cancel" button to advance to the next view) or in cases where the user wants to cancel out the values entered in input fields of a form for some reason. In this scenario, there is no purpose in validating the input fields and update the properties that the input components are bound to. All you want to do is to proceed to the next operation. "immediate" flag on UICommand component makes this possible by forcing action to be invoked during the apply request values phase before the process validations phase (rather than during the invoke application phase, which occurs after the process validations phase). Note that conversion/validation will still be excecuted for input components that have "immediate" set to true because setting "immediate" on UIInput components causes validation to be triggered during apply request values phase. Depending on how you have configured your navigation rules, you will either navigate to the next view in the page or display the same page if its a "Cancel" operation. If the same page re renders you will notice that the values you entered before clicking on the "Cancel/Skip" button are ignored.

Important Note
By default, when you set immediate to true on a command component, when the page gets redisplayed, submitted values of all input components will be retained because as per JSF Spec, only validation/updates will be skipped. If you don't values to be retained, you have to explicitly erase the values. If you are using Creator, you can make use of the erase() method from your immediate button's action handler which will erase the submitted value on all input components in the page. If you are not using Creator, you have set call setSubmittedValue(null)  on all input components in the page.

public String button1_action() {

this.erase();

return null;

}

Technical/Implementation Details

During decode, ActionEvents are queued by the UICommand component that caused the form to be submitted. UICommand.queueEvent() sets the PhaseId on this ActionEvent to Apply Request Values if "immediate" is set. So this forces the ActionEvent? to be handled during ApplyRequestValues which in turn causes the navigation rules to be executed right away instead of during Invoke Applications Phase.

Usage of Immediate on UIInput Components.

When you set "immediate" to true on UIInput components, conversion/validation would occur earlier in the lifecycle once the values have been decoded. (during ApplyRequestValues Phase). Consequently value change events for those components also get queued during ApplyRequest? Values. There is no other change in the lifecycle (unlike setting "immediate" on UICommand component which causes conversion/validation to be skipped). Any converters/validators set on non "immediate" components will still be executed as usual during ProcessValidations phase. If you have two components with dependencies, you may need to set "immediate" on both components depending on the use case. This feature is provided for managing dynamic input fields like lists. Lets consider an example. You have a page with a checkbox, a dropdown and a button. You want to dynamically populate the second dropdown and pre select a value if the checkbox is checked. Assume you also have a validator attached to the dropdown. If so, you need to have the list populated before validators are processed on the dropdown. This is where "immediate" comes in handy. If you have "immediate" set on the checkbox, value change event gets fired during ApplyRequestValues. In the process_ValueChange of the check box, the list can be populated and a value can be pre-selected. During ProcessValidations any validators set on the dropdown can now be executed without any surprises. Lets look another application "immediate". You have page with textfield and a dropdown. You want to populate and validate the text field when the dropdown changes. To acheive this, you have to set "immediate" to true on the dropdown so that you can set the value of the textfield in ValueChangeListener of the dropdown which will get executed before ProcessValidations on the textfield because of "immediate".

Technical/Implementation Details

UIInput.processDecodes() (executed during ApplyRequestValues phase) calls decode on the component. Once the decode exits, this method checks to see if "immediate" is set, if so executes conversion/validation immediately. If conversion/validation failed, then validation/update model values phase will be skipped and the control will jump to Render response phase once all the components in the view have been decoded. If valadation is successful, the "immediate" input component will have its submitted value set as local value at the end of ApplyRequest Values phase. During ProcessValidations phase, only non "immediate" components will be validated.

Special case, dropdown with "auto submit on change"

If you have an application with drop down lists that submits when the make a selection, irrespective whether you have immediate set on the components are not, all the validators will be executed except that the "immediate" components will have their convertors/validators triggered right after decode as explained in the previous section. Setting "immediate" on the input fields in the form will not help you to by pass validation in this case. You alternative is to make your validators execute conditionally when the page is submitted via "Submit" button.

Welcome to my Web log. I am Jayashri Visvanathan and I work on Java Studio Creator. My area of interest/expertise is JSF components. Before I joined Creator team, I used to work on the JSF Reference Implementation (RI). I have been part of JSF team since its inception and have contributed to various releases including the current release JSF 1.2. I was also managing the JSF project on java.net since its launch. Prior to joining the JSF team, I worked on various client and server side web products/technologies within Sun including Mozilla, WebTop Registry Server and HotJava Browser.