Question

I have a JSF1.2 selectOneMenu component.
Currently, a user selects an item from the dropdown menu, then clicks an output link to open a url in a new browser window:

<h:selectOneMenu value="#{itemSelected}"  valueChangeListener="#{someclass.generateInfoForURL}" onchange="submit()" >
  <s:selectItems var="_items" value="#{itemsList}" label="#_items.itemName}" /> 
  <s:convertEntity />
</h:selectOneMenu>  

<h:outputLink value="URL&amp;generatedInfo=#{someclass.component.generatedInfo}" target="_blank" > 
    <f:verbatim>View Report</f:verbatim>            
</h:outputLink> 

What I need is; when a user selects one of the dropdown items it should open the URL in a new page without the intermediate step of selecting the link. I can build the URL in the backing bean, but how do I get it to open a new browser window?

Answer 1

Provide the URL as item value and use JavaScript to open it in a new tab/window instead of to submit the form. You only need to ensure that all URLs are already rightly prepared beforehand.

E.g.

<h:selectOneMenu onchange="window.open(value)">
    <f:selectItem itemLabel="Select page.." />
    <f:selectItem itemLabel="page1" itemValue="page1.jsf" />
    <f:selectItem itemLabel="page2" itemValue="page2.jsf" />
    <f:selectItem itemLabel="page3" itemValue="page3.jsf" />
    ...
</h:selectOneMenu>

(you can of course supply it as <f/s:selectItems>, the above is just a basic kickoff example)