Question

I have this view:

<h:form id="carlin">
    <h:outputText id="carlinInput" value="#{userBean.model.varAjax}"/>
    <a class="btn" data-toggle="modal" href="#myModal" >Launch Modal</a>
</h:form>

And I have a modal dialog that shows another form:

<h:form>
    <h:inputText value="#{userBean.model.varAjax}"/>
    <h:commandLink action="#{userBean.processPage1()}" value="Ok">
        <f:ajax render=":carlin:carlinInput" />
    </h:commandLink>
</h:form>

I need to set the value typed on the <h:inputText> and pass it as a parameter to my <h:commandLink action="#{userBean.processPage1()}" value=”OK”>`

Here is my processPage1() method:

public void processPage1(String zip) {
    this.model.varAjax = zip;
}

I have tried this:

<h:commandLink action="#{userBean.processPage1(userBean.model.varAjax)}" value="OK">

But it doesn’t work. If I pass a hardcoded value, it works:

<h:commandLink action="#{userBean.processPage1('teste')}" value="OK">

But I need to pass what the user typed on that inputText to my action method. How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

This is not the right approach. You need to specify the client IDs of the input components which you need to process/execute by the execute attribute of <f:ajax>.

<h:form>
    <h:inputText id="varAjax" value="#{userBean.model.varAjax}"/>
    <h:commandLink action="#{userBean.processPage1}" value="Ok">
        <f:ajax execute="varAjax" render=":carlin:carlinInput" />
    </h:commandLink>
</h:form>

This way JSF will set the model value with the submitted value.

public void processPage1() {
    System.out.println(model.getVarAjax()); // Look, JSF has already set it.
}

An alternative is to use execute="@form" which will process the entire form and this is what you usually need in standard ajaxified buttons.

        <f:ajax execute="@form" render=":carlin:carlinInput" />

Note that componenent libraries like PrimeFaces and RichFaces have already made the @form the default execute attribute, so you don’t need to explicitly specify it in their command components. In standard <f:ajax> it namely defaults to @this in command components which is indeed unintuitive.