Using Single Submit Tutorial

JSF 2 adds the <f:ajax> tag that is very useful for creating the rich, interactive forms that users expect to see in a modern web application. ICEfaces 2 leverages and improves this new functionality with the <icecore:singleSubmit> tag. Single Submit is a replacement for the partialSubmit attribute common in ICEfaces 1.8.x applications. By using Single Submit we can send only some of the fields in a form to the server for processing, which can be handy as we can dynamically modify the form based on what was sent. For example in-line validation can be fired, different fields can be rendered depending on what the user has selected, and so on.

This tutorial assumes the reader has an understanding of JSF and ICEfaces. The goal of this tutorial is to create a basic ICEfaces 2 project and add Single Submit using the <icecore:singleSubmit> tag in a simple form page.

Steps in this tutorial:

Make the singleSubmit Project
Add ICEfaces
Create form.xhtml
Create PersonBean.java
Deploy the Application
Add Single Submit
Re-Deploy the Application

Tutorial Source Code Downloads

Development Tools Used

The following tools were used to create the project.

Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers - Version Helios
Tomcat 7.x Web Server
Java 6.x
ICEfaces 2

1. Make the `singleSubmit` Project

Using Eclipse create a new Dynamic Web Project called singleSubmit.
- Target runtime: Apache Tomcat v7.0
- Dynamic web module version: 3.0
- Configuration: JavaServer Faces v2.0 Project (Mojarra)

2. Add ICEfaces

Add the icefaces.jar to your project from the ICEfaces 2 bundle. This can be added to the project through a custom User Library or by putting it into singleSubmit/WEB-INF/lib/. The approach doesn't matter as long as the jar is included in the deployed war file.

3. Create `form.xhtml`

Create a new page called form.xhtml and paste the code below. Currently no Single Submit is used, but will be added below in Step 6.

form.xhtml

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
      xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core">
<h:head>
	<title>Single Submit - Form</title>
</h:head>
<h:body>
	<h:form>
		<h:panelGrid columns="3">
			<h:outputLabel for="name" value="Name:"/>
			<h:inputText id="name" value="#{personBean.name}" required="true" maxlength="50"/>
			<h:message for="name"/>

			<h:outputLabel for="age" value="Age:"/>
			<h:inputText id="age" value="#{personBean.age}" required="true"
						 size="2" maxlength="2">
				<f:validateLongRange minimum="1" maximum="99"/>
			</h:inputText>
			<h:message for="age"/>

			<h:outputLabel for="gender" value="Gender:"/>
			<h:selectOneMenu id="gender" value="#{personBean.gender}" required="true">
				<f:selectItem noSelectionOption="true" itemValue="" itemLabel="--Select--"/>
				<f:selectItem itemValue="Male"/>
				<f:selectItem itemValue="Female"/>
			</h:selectOneMenu>
			<h:message for="gender"/>

			<h:outputLabel for="favorite" value="Favorite Food:"/>
			<h:inputText id="favorite" value="#{personBean.favorite}" maxlength="225"/>
			<h:message for="favorite"/>
		</h:panelGrid>

		<h:commandButton value="Submit" actionListener="#{personBean.submitButton}"/>
	</h:form>

	<br/>

	<h:panelGrid columns="2" border="1">
		<f:facet name="header">
			Person Information
		</f:facet>

		<h:outputLabel for="nameOut" value="Name:"/>
		<h:outputText id="nameOut" value="#{personBean.name}"/>

		<h:outputLabel for="ageOut" value="Age:"/>
		<h:outputText id="ageOut" value="#{personBean.age}"/>

		<h:outputLabel for="genderOut" value="Gender:"/>
		<h:outputText id="genderOut" value="#{personBean.gender}"/>

		<h:outputLabel for="favoriteOut" value="Favorite:"/>
		<h:outputText id="favoriteOut" value="#{personBean.favorite}"/>
	</h:panelGrid>
</h:body>
</html>

Although slightly verbose, the form.xhtml page is a standard JSF form with a table for displaying what the user entered into each field. A variety of input types and validation are used to help demonstrate Single Submit. The table allows a user to enter Name, Age, Gender, and Favorite Food, and then submit those values to the server.

4. Create `PersonBean.java`

Create a new Java class file called PersonBean in the package org.icefaces.tutorial.singlesubmit.beans and paste the code below:

PersonBean.java

package org.icefaces.tutorial.singlesubmit.beans;

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Date;

import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
import javax.faces.bean.ViewScoped;
import javax.faces.event.ActionEvent;

@ManagedBean(name="personBean")
@ViewScoped
public class PersonBean implements Serializable {
	private String name;
	private int age;
	private String gender;
	private String favorite;

	public PersonBean() {
	}

	public String getName() {
		return name;
	}
	public void setName(String name) {
		this.name = name;
	}
	public int getAge() {
		return age;
	}
	public void setAge(int age) {
		this.age = age;
	}
	public String getGender() {
		return gender;
	}
	public void setGender(String gender) {
		this.gender = gender;
	}
	public String getFavorite() {
		return favorite;
	}
	public void setFavorite(String favorite) {
		this.favorite = favorite;
	}

	public void submitButton(ActionEvent event) {
		System.out.println("Submit Clicked: " + name + ", " + age + ", " + gender + ", " + favorite);
	}
}

This bean model is a collection of variables to back the fields on our page. The submitButton method will output what was submitted, but otherwise the class is simple.

5. Deploy the Application

Once the application is running it will look like this screenshot:

The user experience with this form could be tedious because validation is not performed until they click the "Submit" button. The user will not know what the valid Age range is, if Name is required, and so on, until the entire form is submitted.
Adding Single Submit will enrich the form with immediate feedback as a user visits each field.

6. Add Single Submit

Now that we have seen the traditional approach to form submission, we'll add <icecore:singleSubmit> to our form and test the differences.

First add the icecore namespace to our form.xhtml page (in the <html> tag):

Adding Namespace

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
      xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
      xmlns:icecore="http://www.icefaces.org/icefaces/core">
...

This will grant us the ability to use Single Submit. To use Single Submit in a page we put the <icecore:singleSubmit> tag inside any form that requires rich submissions.

Inside the opening <h:form> tag in form.xhtml, paste the <icecore:singleSubmit/> tag. Ensure the tag is self terminating and not used as a container for the rest of the components in the form:

Adding Tag

...
<h:body>
	<h:form>
        <icecore:singleSubmit/>
        <h:panelGrid columns="3">
        ...

Now all of the fields inside that form (Name, Age, etc.) will be handled with ICEfaces Single Submit. This means when we leave a field (either by clicking out of it or by tabbing through the fields) only that field will be submitted and processed on the server.
If a user leaves the Name field without entering a value, the required="true" validation will display a message immediately, instead of the user needing to click the "Submit" button first.
This is achieved because each form field acts as if it had a nested <f:ajax> tag with the execute="@this" attribute.

7. Re-Deploy the Application

Re-build and re-deploy the application with the new Single Submit functionality. Now when a user interacts with the form the entire experience is smoother because of the instant in-line validation and single field submission.

Tutorial Source Code Downloads

Example	Source	Notes
Single Submit project	singleSubmit source code	Basic example project demonstrating how Single Submit functions and can be integrated on an ICEfaces 2 page.

Using Single Submit