actionListener vs action and redirect

[dkane]

Dear colleagues,

I always used actionListener parameter when bind component method to a:commandLink. It was ok until I needed the event that not only trigger action but also redirect to another page.
I added redirect rule to pages.xml and specified action in it. But a:commandLink with actionListener worked only partially : action was performed without redirect. When I change actionListener to action, both method and redirect works well.
Now I want to understand the difference between those to attributes, when to use 1st and when 2nd. I don't understand this difference from standard manuals saying :

actionListener : MethodBinding pointing at method accepting an ActionEvent with return type void

action : MethodBinding pointing at the application action to be invoked, if this UIComponent is activated by the user, during the Apply Request Values or Invoke Application phase of the request processing lifecycle, depending on the value of the immediate property

Could anyone provide more human readable explanation please ?
TIA.

[pmuir]

Post code to show your problem. Both actionListeners should do the same thing, just the RichFaces one suffers from less good english ;) Or ask on the RichFaces forum.

[dkane]

Post code to show your problem.

Actually I have no problem, application is working. Just want my solutions to be knowledge-based rather than experiment-based.

Both actionListeners should do the same thing

What is the reason of supporting two equal attributes with different names ? Well, maybe Richfaces question.. Thanks.

[pmuir]

Oh sorry, I misread your post. Read a JSF textbook to understand the difference between action and actionListener.

I always use action unless I have a specific reason to use actionListener.

[dkane]

Still don't undertsand the following.
Under some curcumstances I am getting "property 'someMethod' not found" when trying to bind action of a:commandButton to method.
Changing action to actionListener with the same method eliminates the error.
How is that possible ?

[nickarls]

You can't have an action and and actionListener point to the same method because the actionListener looks for a method with an ActionEvent parameter. I don't get the "under some circumstances" part, though.