Design Question and Seam/JSF question

[jkrupka]

I'm still working on my extension of the Seam CRUD app. I've been able to do everything I needed to so far, but have ran into a snag. My immediate question is how can you see the JSF outcome after hitting a button on a page? I think I know what it is, because of where the page flow goes, but it's not what I expected. I have it in debug, and the first time i hit that button it stops at my breakpoint, I can see what happens, and it proceeds normally. When i navigate back to this page by way of a button on the new page, then hit that same button, it skips my breakpoint that is in that action method for that button and goes to an unexpected page - I can't find what it's doing!

The design question I have is this - my CRUD app is for 3 tables, table A is the parent, B is the child of A, and C is the child of B. I was playing with this to see how I could pass the key fields from A to B, and from B to C, so the user doesn't have to remember them. Right now when the user is on an A record, and clicks to create a B, i put an the instance of A as a conversation context variable. It does work, but I have a feeling this isn't the best way of doing things..? Maybe abusing biijection is causing some weird behavior?

Thanks a bunch...

[jkrupka]

Something else I just noticed, on the request that seems to go to the wrong page, the following line gets printed to the console:

"[HtmlRendererUtils] There should always be a submitted value for an input if it is rendered, its form is submitted, and it is not disabled or read-only."

Not sure if this has anything to do with it or not..

Here's part of the code for the seam component, the Editor for what would be table B in the hierarchy:

@Name("eTStatusEditor")
@Stateful
@Interceptors(SeamInterceptor.class)
public class ETStatusEditorBean implements ETStatusEditor {

 @In(create = true)
 private EntityManager entityManager;

 @Valid
 private ETStatus instance = new ETStatus();

 @TransactionAttribute(NOT_SUPPORTED)
 @Out(scope=ScopeType.CONVERSATION, required = false, value="parentEtStatus")
 public ETStatus getInstance() {

 initStatus();
 return instance;
 }

 @TransactionAttribute(NOT_SUPPORTED)
 @Begin(join=true)
 private void initStatus() {
 if (parentEtMaster != null) {
 instance.getId().setPartkey(parentEtMaster.getPartkey());
 isChild = true;
 }
 else {
 isChild = false;
 }
 }

 public void setInstance(ETStatus instance) {
 this.instance = instance;

 }

 @Out(required = false, scope=ScopeType.CONVERSATION)
 @In(required = false, value="parentEtMaster", scope=ScopeType.CONVERSATION)
 private ETMaster parentEtMaster;

 @TransactionAttribute(NOT_SUPPORTED)
 public ETMaster getParentEtMaster() {
 return parentEtMaster;
 }

 public void setParentEtMaster(ETMaster eTMaster) {
 this.parentEtMaster = eTMaster;
 }

 private boolean isNew = true;

 @TransactionAttribute(NOT_SUPPORTED)
 public boolean isNew() {
 return isNew;
 }

 public void setNew(boolean isNew) {
 this.isNew = isNew;
 }

 private boolean isChild = true;

 @TransactionAttribute(NOT_SUPPORTED)
 public boolean isChild() {
 return isChild;
 }

 public void setChild(boolean isChild) {
 this.isChild = isChild;
 }

 private String doneOutcome = "find";

 public void setDoneOutcome(String outcome) {
 doneOutcome = outcome;
 }

 private String doneChildOutcome = "doneChild";

 public void setDoneChildOutcome(String outcome) {
 doneChildOutcome = outcome;
 }
...
/*this is the action method that gets called the first time the button is hit, but seems to get skipped the second time it's hit...*/
 public String updateAndCreateChild() {
 refreshFinder();
 return "child";
 }
....

Thanks again, I'm running out of ideas on this one...

[jkrupka]

I'm really stuck on this. I keep coming back to the fact that the only reason I know its not working is that my action function is not being called when I hit the button that calls it.. I know it works the first time I hit it, but not the second time.

Is there any other debugging I can do? Can I get the seam-debug page working that is in the booking example? Or should I try going through the Seam src code?

Please help....

[jkrupka]

Ah ha! I figured out the problem. When I finished doing whatever with Table C, I was ending the conversation. So I think I misunderstood how conversations work. I thought that when I was going back and forth from forms I was switching conversations, that it switched when I want to the new page/Seam component. But i guess what actually was happening was I was in a conversation from A to B to C, and that if I actually wanted to switch I would have had to use the switcher object...

Am I correct here?

So what would be the better approach here, to have one conversation from A to B to C, or seperate conversations for each and use switcher to jump btwn then?

Thanks from a newbie..

[bfo81]

If I understood correctly that A, B and C are nested, then the comversations should be nested, too.

As an example (I'm not sure if this is what you have), let's look at a quiz (who wants to be a millonaire *g*).

I have an Entity class Question and an Entity class Answer.

Question 1:n Answer

So every question has multiple answers, and every answer belong to exactly one question.

Now if I edit a question I begin a new conversation. That means I can edit multiple questions in multiple windows, and every edit process runs in its own conversation.

And during editing a question, I can edit its answers (or add some), each in a new window, with its own NESTED "sub-"conversation.

To begin a nested conversation just use @Begin(nested=true).

If I misunderstood your scenario... sorry ;).

[jkrupka]

Ah ok I hadn't thought of using nested conversations. Could I still jump in and edit say table B or C without going through A?

Thanks.

[bfo81]

You can start nested conversations even without having a parent conversation. It's just like a normal top-level conversation then.