Issue with a4j:commandButton - Does not invoke action method or setPropertyActionListener the second time through

[dandausch]

I am using RichFaces 4.3 and JSF 2.1.21 (Mojarra). I have a pretty straightforward requirement: display a list of objects in an extendedDataTable. One of the columns has a a4j:commandButton that will display a rich:popupPanel that will show more details of the object selected. The first time thru i observe that the action method (which returns null) will fire off as well as the target method on the f:setPropertyActionListener (i have System.out calls in each method and I observe they are called in the INVOKE_APPLICATION phase). The popupPanel displays the data of the selected obj correctly. After I close the popupPanel, I then click on the commandButton on a different row. This time the 2 methods are not invoked and the popupPanel shows the value from the first invocation. Any thoughts about what I am doing wrong?( I have another Production app where this same scenario works however I am using RichFaces 3.3.3 and JSF 2.0.) Here is the code for the comand button in this new app:

<rich:extendedDataTable id="myTable2" var="place"

                          value="#{propertyBean.nearbyProps}"

                          style="height:200px; width:450px;">

... other columns

<rich:column width="83px" style="padding:2">

     <f:facet name="header">

                            <f:verbatim>Actions</f:verbatim>

     </f:facet>

     <a4j:commandButton id="moreDetails" ajaxSingle="true"

           image="/images/view.gif"

           styleclass="command-button-icon"

          action="#{propertyBean.viewPropertyDetails}"

          render="propertyDetailsContent" limitRender="true"

          oncomplete="#{rich:component('propertyDetailsPopUpPanel')}.show()" >

          <f:setPropertyActionListener value="#{place.property}"

                target="#{propertyBean.currentSelectedProperty}"/>                                                                                                                                                                           

           <rich:tooltip value="View Property details" direction="topLeft"/>

     </a4j:commandButton>

</rich:column>

</rich:extendedDataTable>

[dandausch]

I was able to figure out the solution. I added execute="@this" attribute to the a4j:commandButton and that did the trick. I am not sure why however. I guess the primary mystery is, prior to adding the execute attribute, why the action and setPropertyActionListener methods were called the first time but not the second time.

[dandausch]

I guess i still don't understand why this fix made a difference - although I am not complaining. I reread the RichFaces documentation. The snippet is at the end of this reply and is from the link:

http://docs.jboss.org/richfaces/latest_4_2_X/Component_Reference/en-US/html/chap-Component_Reference-Common_Ajax_attributes.html#sect-Component_Reference-Data_processing-execute

So, here is my question: If "@this" is the default behavior why could I only get the aj4:commandButton to work properly if I had this attribute explicitly added. Either the documentation is wrong or there is a bug. Thoughts?

2.1.1. execute

The execute attribute allows JSF processing to be limited to defined components. The execute attribute can point to an id identifier of a specific component to process. Components can also be identified through the use of Expression Language (EL).

@this

The requesting component with the execute attribute is processed. This is the default behavior for components.

[lfryc]

Hey Daniel, RichFaces, by default, uses @this as defined in standard, except cases where component is put into region - then @region is used instead.

I would try debugging a JSF code:

1. put a breakpoint to PropertyBean.setCurrentSelectedProperty
2. look into stack who and why invokes it
3. remove execute="@this"
4. inspect a invocation and find out what differs from previous case