What does a4j:repeat stateSaved attribute do?

[langer123]

I recently encounted a problem that I managed to solve by applying the stateSaved attribute=true.

It was purely accidental that I stumbled across this attribute and fix for my problem.

My problem and fix:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11655294/jsf2-hdatatable-dynamically-generated-rows-not-binding-to-backing-beans

I cannot find any documentation on what the attribute actually does.

The following API docs contain no info:

http://docs.jboss.org/richfaces/4.1.X/4.1.0.Final/vdldoc/

Could someone please explain what is actually does?

On a side not, for any Richfaces contributors/developers that may be reading this:

I was recently asked by a collegue on my experiences of Richfaces and if I would recomend using it.

I honestly could not recommend it to him.

My main reasons been:

1 - The poor community support (Just a lack of people using it I suppose)

2 - The poor documentaion (My point in this question, a vast amount o the API docs contain no description beside the attributes.)

There is probably not a whole lot you can do to address point 1 apart from trying to entice more people to use it (A strart might be to address point 2).

Surely point 2 could be addressed? Surely it is trivial for the developer to add a quick comment to the attribuite description when creating/editing the component/attribute in question?

Thanks

[langer123]

3 weeks, no reply.

"The poor community support (Just a lack of people using it I suppose)"

My point proven unfortunately.

[healeyb]

Hi Thomas,

>I cannot find any documentation on what the attribute actually does.

This is because it doesn't exist. If on the other hand you mean keepSaved this is what it does:

"Boolean attribute that defines whether this iteration component will reset saved children's state

before rendering. By default state is reset if there are no faces messages with severity error or higher".

Regards,

Brendan.

[fastroller]

Thomas,

Whenever I get the occasion I champion documentation as the key draw card to the success of any project such as Richfaces. I would say that Richfaces is extremely lacking in this regard. The development guide does not explain all attributes and usage of its components. In fact it seems to spend more space on style sheet classes (which I can discover easy enough using Firebug!). Why write a great tool set but not explain how to use it to its  capacity? And by-the-way a java doc is not a good substitution for a  user guide.

Having said that, I still love you Richfaces - just a bit of tough love.

[healeyb]

I could do with a bit of work right now and could do a documentation overhaul & refresh, fill in a few gaps and cover things

like non-trivial datatable usage, resource optimisation with custom skins and a4j:push etc...

It turns out that nobody in the UK seems to use JSF or Richfaces, or if they do they're not hiring. It's all Spring/Hibernate!

Regards,

Brendan.

[langer123]

Thanks Brendan. My bad, I did indeed mean keepSaved!

As for a documentation overall, I've no doubth a lot of newcommers / inexperienced Richfaces users would find it really usefull.

I'd second Andrew's comment that the success of a framework is heavily dependant on it's documentaion.

Thomas

[healeyb]

I have to admit that despite the cut & paste description I don't really know what it does - maybe a bit of experimentation is

required.

On a more serious note are you getting autocomplete information from your IDE for richfaces components? which IDE?

Regards,

Brendan.

[langer123]

I'm using Eclipse 3.7 (Indigo) and don't get any autocomplete info.

Is there a plugin I can get to receive autocomplete info?