ui:insert and setting values

[ericjava]

Simple question: I'm defining a template which I want to display one of the defined items twice. For example, here's what the template looks like:

<ui:composition>
 <h2>Here it is the first time:</h2>
 <ui:insert name="groupA"/>
 <h2>And now we see it again:</h2>
 <ui:insert name="groupA"/>
</ui:composition>

And that works correctly. Next step, I would like to have different settings within the template when I run it the second time. For example:

The file using the template:

(Some stuff)

<ui:decorate template="/my-template.xhtml">

 <ui:define name="groupA">
 This content shows up always!

 <s:div rendered="{showFirstTime}">
 This div will show only when showFirstTime is true
 </s:div>

 <s:div rendered="{showSecondTime}">
 This div will show only when showFirstTime is true
 </s:div>
 </ui:define>
</ui:decorate>

(some more stuff)

Then I would like to make the template look like this:

<ui:composition>
 <h2>Here it is the first time:</h2>

 <ui:insert name="groupA">
 <ui:param name="showFirstTime" value="#{true}"/>
 <ui:param name="showSecondTime" value="#{false}"/>
 </ui:insert>

 <ui:insert name="groupA">
 <ui:param name="showFirstTime" value="#{false}"/>
 <ui:param name="showSecondTime" value="#{true}"/>
 </ui:insert>

 <h2>And now we see it again:</h2>
 <ui:insert name="groupA"/>
</ui:composition>

But that doesn't work. The value set by ui:param doesn't show up.

Any ideas on how to do this? I'm obviously missing something with Facelets here. Is there some tag to set a value in the page context? That seems like what I want to do, but <ui:param> (and f:param) don't do it.

Thanks

[ericjava]

Ok, I figured out a way to do this which works nicely. I simply use:

<c:set var="showFirstThing" value="#{true}"/>

etc.

It works. Is this the right way? I remember seeing somewhere that it's bad to use the http://java.sun.com/jstl/core tags within Facelets, so, for example, I never use <c:if> or those things. Is this good advice? Can anyone elaborate on this?

[pmuir]

This sounds like a bug in facelets to me. I suggest you ask on the facelets mailing list.