Question

How do I create a simple redirect with jsf?

I tried:

    <h:form>
        <h:commandButton action="www.google.de" value="go to google" />
    </h:form> 

But when I click the button, I just stay on the index page. Nothing happens!
What is wrong here?

Answer 1

Is JSF absolutely necessary here? You don’t seem to need to submit anything to your side at all. Just use plain HTML.

<form action="http://www.google.de">
    <input type="submit" value="Go to Google" />
</form>

Please note that the URL to the external site must include the scheme (the http:// part), otherwise it would just be submitted relative to the current request URI, such as http://example.com/context/www.google.de.

If you really need to submit to your side, e.g. to preprocess and/or log something, then you could use ExternalContext#redirect() in the action method.

<h:form>
    <h:commandButton value="Go to Google" action="#{bean.submit}" />
</h:form>

with

public void submit() throws IOException {
    // ...

    FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().redirect("http://www.google.de");
}