JSF - Change the action for a h:commandButton (2.0)

Question

Hello. Im new into JSF 2.0. On the last version i understand that if i want change rules about "what send to the client" i just need to configure the faces-config.xml.

Now, on version 2.0, how can manage the Action? For example, if i have this on a index.xhtml

<h:commandButton id="submit" value="submit" action="response" />

and i need to call a page called response.html (not xhtml) or that page placed into /folder/response.html, or somethings else? How can do it? I know JSF 2.0 is very flexible about these things (the concept of href links is beaten). So i think i can manage this with other methodologies, right?

Answer 1

The action can point two things:

1. A method expression action="#{bean.methodname}" where the method look like this:

   @ManagedBean
   @RequestScoped
   public class Bean {
       public String methodname() {
           // Do some business task here.
           return "response";
       }
   }
   

   After executing the method the action will effectively end up containing the return value of the method, like so: action="response".

   You can also control the outcome "dynamically" the usual Java way:

   public String methodname() {
       if (someCondition) {
           return "somepage";
       } else {
           return "anotherpage";
       }
   }
   

   Depending on the condition outcome, the action will end up like action="somepage" or action="anotherpage"

2. Another XHTML page in the same folder as the current XHTML page. You just have to specify the filename: action="response".

Either way, it will go to the XHTML page which is composed by outcome + ".xhtml" where outcome is the action value (e.g. response.xhtml, somepage.xhtml or anotherpage.xhtml) which is supposed to be in the same folder as the XHTML file containing the h:commandButton.

You don't need to configure anything in faces-config.xml for this. Previously, during JSF 1.x ages you would need to define <navigation-case> for this.

See also:

• We don't need no stinkin' faces-config.xml! - blog by lead Mojarra developer.