init process for HtmlSelectOneMenu

[gonorrhea]

I have a requirement to pre-populate HtmlSelectOneMenu component when page first loads.  I tried using @Create on my public void init() method but it was firing too late in the JSF life cycle process to be useful (i.e. the drop-down was not displaying the actual pre-loaded value/description).

So now I'm using the following...

pages.xml:

<page view-id="/ManageEquipment.xhtml">
         <description>Manage Equipment</description>
         <action execute="#{manageEquipment.init}"/>
</page>

The problem with this approach is that the init() method is executed for every postback (there is a form in the xhtml which posts back to same xhtml page on submit).

Everything needs to be CONVERSATION scoped in terms of Seam components.

I'm thinking about using @Startup with @Create in a separate Seam component now.  But it looks like those components are limited to SESSION and APPLICATION scopes, and I need CONVERSATION scope for this context variable.

How can I add a <rule if="#{something interesting!}"> such that the action method will only fire when a LRC does not exist?  Or any other way to make it run only once per LRC?

Now that I think of it, I could set a boolean variable to false after the first pass and use that boolean variable in the rule tag...

Is that a good way to handle this???  thx.

[gonorrhea]

this worked:

<action execute="#{manageEquipment.init}" if="#{not manageEquipment.isInitComplete()}"/>

not sure if this is the best solution, but now the method is only called once (the boolean is set at the end of the init() method).

[kapitanpetko]

You could use the on-postback attribute:

<action execute="#{action.loadStuff}" on-postback="false"/>

Or you could use a factory method to create the list that is backing up your HtmlSelectOneMenu.

HTH

[gonorrhea]

I am using Seam 2.0.2-FP

cvc-complex-type.3.2.2: Attribute 'on-postback' is not allowed to appear in element 'action'.

[kapitanpetko]

For Seam 2.0 you can use this (on-postback is just a more convenient way to write this):

<action execute="#{action.loadStuff}" if="#{empty param['javax.faces.ViewState']}"/>