JSF - Ajax call - What is it wrong on this code?

Question

I think the best way to resolve this problem is just to paste my code :

Selector bean

@ManagedBean(name="selector")
@RequestScoped
public class Selector {
    @ManagedProperty(value="#{param.page}")
    private String page;
    private String profilePage;

    @PostConstruct
    public void init() {
        if(profilePage==null || profilePage.trim().isEmpty()) {
            this.profilePage="main";
        }

        if(page==null || page.trim().isEmpty()) {
            this.page="homepage";
        }
    }

    public String getProfilePage() { System.out.println("GET ="+profilePage); return profilePage; }
    public void setProfilePage(String profilePage) { this.profilePage=profilePage; }

    public String getPage() { return page; }
    public void setPage(String page) { this.page=page; }
}    

profile.xhtml

<h:panelGroup layout="block" id="profileContent">
    <h:panelGroup rendered="#{selector.profilePage=='main'}">
        <ui:include src="/profile/profile_main.xhtml" />
    </h:panelGroup>

    <h:panelGroup rendered="#{selector.profilePage=='edit'}">
        <ui:include src="/profile/profile_edit.xhtml" />
    </h:panelGroup>
</h:panelGroup>

profile_main.xhtml

<h:form id="formProfileMain" prependId="false">
    <h:panelGroup layout="block">
        <h:outputScript name="jsf.js" library="javax.faces" target="head" />

        <h:outputLabel value="MAIN" />

        <h:panelGroup layout="block" >
            <h:commandButton value="Edit Button">
                <f:setPropertyActionListener target="#{selector.profilePage}" value="edit" />
                <f:ajax event="action" render=":profileContent"/>
            </h:commandButton>
        </h:panelGroup>
    </h:panelGroup>
</h:form>    

profile_edit.xhtml

<h:panelGroup layout="block" id="profileEditContent">
    <h:panelGroup rendered="#{selector.profilePage=='edit'}">
        <h:form id="formProfileEdit" prependId="false">
            <h:panelGroup layout="block">
                <h:outputScript name="jsf.js" library="javax.faces" target="head" />

                <h:outputLabel value="EDIT" />

                <h:panelGroup layout="block">
                    <h:commandButton value="Confirm Edit">
                        <f:setPropertyActionListener target="#{selector.profilePage}" value="editConfirm" />
                        <f:ajax event="action" render=":profileEditContent"/>
                    </h:commandButton>

                    <h:commandButton value="Back">
                        <f:setPropertyActionListener target="#{selector.profilePage}" value="main" />
                        <f:ajax event="action" render=":profileEdit"/>
                    </h:commandButton>
                </h:panelGroup>
            </h:panelGroup>
        </h:form>
    </h:panelGroup>

    <h:panelGroup rendered="#{selector.profilePage=='editConfirm'}">
        <h:outputLabel value="FINALLY IM HERE" />
    </h:panelGroup>
</h:panelGroup>           

If i click first on Edit Button and than on Confirm Edit, i attempt to get (as result) the page with the label FINALLY IM HERE Unfortunatly this doesnt happen. I click on Edit Button and after, if i click on Confirm Edit, nothing happen.

What am I wrong? Cheers

UPDATE WITH NEW VERSION

bean

@ManagedBean
@ViewScoped
public class ProfileSelector {
    private String profilePage;

    @PostConstruct
    public void init() {
        if(profilePage==null || profilePage.trim().isEmpty()) {
            this.profilePage="main";
        }
    }

    public String getProfilePage() { return profilePage; }
    public void setProfilePage(String profilePage) { this.profilePage=profilePage; }
}

profile.xhtml

<h:panelGroup layout="block" id="profileContent">
    <h:form id="formProfile" prependId="false">
        <h:outputScript name="jsf.js" library="javax.faces" target="head" />

        <h:panelGroup rendered="#{profileSelector.profilePage=='main'}">
            <ui:include src="/profile/profile_main.xhtml" />
        </h:panelGroup>

        <h:panelGroup rendered="#{profileSelector.profilePage=='edit'}">
            <ui:include src="/profile/profile_edit.xhtml" />
        </h:panelGroup>
    </h:form>
</h:panelGroup>

profile_main.xhtml

<h:panelGroup layout="block">            
    <h:outputLabel value="MAIN" />

    <h:panelGroup layout="block">
        <h:commandButton value="Edit Button">
            <f:setPropertyActionListener target="#{profileSelector.profilePage}" value="edit" />
            <f:ajax event="action" render=":profileContent"/>
        </h:commandButton>
    </h:panelGroup>
</h:panelGroup>

profile_edit.xhtml

<h:panelGroup layout="block" id="profileContentEdit">
    <h:panelGroup rendered="#{profileSelector.profilePage=='edit'}">
        <h:panelGroup layout="block">                
            <h:outputLabel value="EDIT" />

            <h:panelGroup layout="block" styleClass="profilo_3">
                <h:commandButton value="Confirm Edit">
                    <f:setPropertyActionListener target="#{profileSelector.profilePage}" value="editConfirm" />
                    <f:ajax event="action" render=":profileContentEdit"/>
                </h:commandButton>

                <h:commandButton value="Back">
                    <f:setPropertyActionListener target="#{profileSelector.profilePage}" value="main" />
                    <f:ajax event="action" render=":profileContent"/>
                </h:commandButton>
            </h:panelGroup>
        </h:panelGroup>
    </h:panelGroup>

    <h:panelGroup rendered="#{profileSelector.profilePage=='editConfirm'}">
        <h:outputLabel value="FINALLY Im HERE" />
    </h:panelGroup>
</h:panelGroup>

Answer 1

Well, that gets complicated. Whether the UICommand action will be invoked also depends on the result of the rendered attribute of the component or one of its parents. Because the bean is in the request scope the profilePage defaults back to main in the next request, so the rendered attribute of the edit section evaluates false, so the buttons in the edit section will not invoke any actions. This has been answered in your previous question.

In theory, marking the bean @ViewScoped should fix this because it retains the bean state in subsequent views. However, in your particular case there are two problems which prevents it from working properly.

First, you're using a @ManagedProperty which refers to a value which is in a shorter scope (the #{param} is basically request scoped). You would need to split the profilePage into another bean and mark this @ViewScoped.

Second, due to a currently still open bug in JSF2 (issue 1718), your particular case would still not work because you have multiple <h:form> in a different rendered condition which are all attached to the same bean. This specific situation would lead to javax.faces.ViewState being completely missing in the returned response. This will cause the view scoped bean to be garbaged and recreated (and the profilePage defaults to main again). As a temporary workaround, you need to extract and merge the forms into one form in profile.xhtml, as direct child of the first <h:panelGroup>.

---

Update: If your sole concern is that you want to connect the beans to each other, then you could split the beans as follows:

@ManagedBean
@RequestScoped
public class Selector {
    @ManagedProperty(value="#{param.page}")
    private String page;

    @ManagedProperty(value="#{profileSelector}")
    private ProfileSelector profileSelector;

    // ...
}

---

@ManagedBean
@ViewScoped
public class ProfileSelector {
    private String profilePage;

    // ...
}

The view scoped bean is then accessible in the request scoped bean this way.

Or, if you really want to have a single bean, you can as a workaround also replace @ManagedProperty as follows:

@ManagedBean
@ViewScoped
public class Selector {
    private String page;
    private String profilePage;

    @PostConstruct
    public void init() {
        page = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getRequestParameterMap().get("page");
    }

    // ...
}