How to use DOM insertions instead of updates during ajax requests

[winddniw]

Hi,

I'm creating new JSF components using Ajax4jsf API.

I was fine using the Update mechanism until now. But in order to gain a lot of performance, I'd like to do insertions inside a container instead of just updates of that container in the DOM of the page after an Ajax response. I know that Ajax4jsf is using the Prototype library, which provides all the needed API for this. So it should be something possible.

Is there a way to do this with the actual library (I'm using RichFaces 3.3.3-Final) ?

If not, is there a developer documentation somewhere of the Ajax4jsf javascript engine ? I don't have a clear understanding on how the request to the server is done (URL, JSF state and so on). I'd like to avoid to retro-engineer the javascript code to understand it.

If there is no documentation, where are the sources of the Ajax4jsf javascript engine inside the RichFaces jars ? The javascript code provided to the client is offuscated, compressed and takes 15000 lines. I'd like to avoid the pain of trying to understand it in this state...

Thanks in advance for your response or comments,

fmt

[nbelaevski]

Hi Florian,

First of all, that's not supported out of the box.

You can grab the code here: http://anonsvn.jboss.org/repos/richfaces/branches/community/3.3.X/framework/impl/src/main/javascript/ajaxjsf (there are several script files merged into a single one during project build) or extract uncompressed file from richfaces-impl, it's called AJAX.js.

To start with, take a look at:

- A4J.AJAX.SubmitRequest - function that initiate requests

- A4J.AJAX.processResponse - function that handles the whole rendered response

- A4J.AJAX.processResponseAfterUpdateHeadElements - function that does actual update

Basically, you should extend processResponse(...) function so that it does insert/append either as replace.