Question

How can I hide a h:ouputLink based on a boolean in the backing bean?

For disabling I’d to it like this:

<h:commandButton disabled="#{backing.property}" />

But how can I hide completely?

Answer 1

With:

<h:commandButton id="myComponent" rendered="#{backing.property}" />

Sorry, my fault. You were searching for h:outputLink. Because both h:outputLink and h:commandButton derive from UIComponentBase, both derived classes have the method isRendered() and you do not need to wrap the commandLink in some sort of panel.

<h:outputLink rendered="#{backing.property}" />

Update

myComponent will be “hidden” due to because it will not be rendered.
Not to render myComponent means that you need to do an update (e.g. with an ajax request) on an UIComponent surrounding myComponent, like this:

<h:panelGrid id="myPanelGrid">
  ....
  <h:outputLink id="myComponent" rendered="#{backing.property}" />
  ....
<h:panelGrid>

<h:commandButton value="show" action="#{backing.setPropertyToTrueMethod}" update="myPanelGrid" />

see for API Specification: JavaTM Platform, Enterprise Edition 6 API Specification