Question

I have a JSF application where I need to create almost all of the UIComponents dynamically based on certain parameters to the page. The components are created and added to an HtmlPanelGrid. I’ve been successfully creating HtmlLabel, HtmlInputText, UISelectBoolean, and HtmlCommandButton. Now I need to create an HtmlSelectOneMenu and add it, and I’m having a hard time finding examples that show how to attach the list of items to select.

The selection list is this, where I’ve made cfaItems a property of my backing bean:

SelectItem[] cfaItems = {
    new SelectItem(1, "1"),
    new SelectItem(2, "2"),
    new SelectItem(3, "3"),
    new SelectItem(4, "4"),
    new SelectItem(5, "5")
};

The creation of the HtmlSelectOneMenu:

    HtmlSelectOneMenu cfaMenu = (HtmlSelectOneMenu)
        getApplication().createComponent(HtmlSelectOneMenu.COMPONENT_TYPE);
    cfaMenu.setId("cfaMenu");
    grid.getChildren().add(cfaMenu);

As best as I can figure it out, I need to create a ValueExpression that would bind the cfaItems list to the cfaMenu but not finding any examples is a problem. I think that I need to do something like this

    String menuBinding =
        "#{" + beanName + ".cfaItems}";
    ValueExpression menuVE = getApplication().getExpressionFactory().
        createValueExpression(FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().
        getELContext(), menuBinding, String.class);
    cfaMenu.setValueExpression("value", menuVE);

But I don’t think that’s correct. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

You need to create an UISelectItems instance with the given select item array as value and then add it as child of the menu, exactly as you’d do with <f:selectItems> in the view side.

UISelectItems selectItems = new UISelectItems();
selectItems.setValue(cfaItems);
cfaMenu.getChildren().add(selectItems);