Hi there,

I updated my Seam application to Seam 2.2.0.GA and stumbled into an interesting effect. On a page to edit an entity there is a h:selectOneMenu to represent an entity property. This property is bound to a Seam component via binding. This component is a backing bean for an AJAX/ICEfaces tag (selectInputText) which is intended to simplify entering this entity's property.

The page is part of a long-running conversation which begins by displaying all the entities one can edit and ending as soon as the user navigates to another part of the application. This long-running conversation is started using @Create(flushMode=FlushModeTyp.MANUAL).

The AJAX/ICEfaces components uses its binding to set the binding's value to the first entry matching the user's input (((ValueHolder) binding).setValue(matchingEntry);). I. e. the user enters b, an AJAX request is started, the backing bean calculates matches for b and sets the first one (say banana) as the new value of the bound tag. So the bound property has a new value.

The problem now is, that Seam 2.2.0.GA seems to ignore the manual flush mode. Everytime the user enters a letter, the corresponding value in the database is set to the new value. This didn't happen with Seam 2.1.1.GA.

Perhaps I should illustrate this by posting some code.

Here is a part of the page:

<h:panelGroup>
  <ice:setEventPhase events="ValueChangeEvent" phase="INVOKE_APPLICATION">
    <ice:selectInputText id="devUsrID_AC"
      rows="#{userAutoComplete.listLength}"
      value="#{userAutoComplete.enteredUser}"
      valueChangeListener="#{userAutoComplete.selectInputValueChanged}"
      listVar="user"
      listValue="#{userAutoComplete.matches}">

      <f:facet name="selectInputText">
        <ice:outputText value="#{user.ID} - #{user.name}"/>
      </f:facet>
    </ice:selectInputText>
  </ice:setEventPhase>

  <s:decorate id="decorate_devUsrID" template="inc/decorateField.xhtml">
    <ice:setEventPhase events="ValueChangeEvent" phase="INVOKE_APPLICATION">
      <ice:selectOneMenu value="#{testaction.devUsrID}" binding="#{userAutoComplete.binding}" id="devUsrID" converter="com.idsscheer.ytrack.view.converter.UserConverter" valueChangeListener="#{userAutoComplete.selectInputValueChanged}" partialSubmit="true">
        <s:selectItems value="#{mainSupplier.developers}" var="developer" label="#{developer.ID} - #{developer.name}" id="devUsrIDs" />
      </ice:selectOneMenu>
    </ice:setEventPhase>
  </s:decorate>
</h:panelGroup>

And here is the UserAutoComplete class:

@AutoCreate
@Stateful
@Scope(ScopeType.SESSION)
@Name("userAutoComplete")
@Role(name = "userAutoComplete2", scope = ScopeType.SESSION)
public class UserAutoComplete implements IUserAutoComplete, Serializable {
  private static final long serialVersionUID = 5406906545256206754L;

  private static int listLength = 20;


  @In
  private transient IUserSelector userSelector;


  private transient UIComponent binding;

  private String enteredUser;
  private List<SelectItem> matches;


  public void selectInputValueChanged(ValueChangeEvent event) {
    if (event.getComponent() instanceof SelectInputText) {
      SelectInputText autoComplete = (SelectInputText) event.getComponent();

      String newWord = (String) event.getNewValue();

      matches = generateMatches(newWord);

      User selectedUser = null;
      if (autoComplete.getSelectedItem() != null) {
        selectedUser = findUserMatch(autoComplete.getSelectedItem().getLabel());
      } else {
        selectedUser = findUserMatch(autoComplete.getValue().toString());
      }

      if (selectedUser != null && binding instanceof ValueHolder) {
        ((ValueHolder) binding).setValue(selectedUser);
      }
    } else {
      if (!(event.getNewValue() instanceof User)) {
        return;
      }

      User newUser = (User) event.getNewValue();
      enteredUser = newUser.getID();
    }
  }
  
  //some setters/getters and private methods
}

I also tried to switch the scope of userAutoComplete to CONVERSATION and to remove the @AutoCreate annotation. But if I do this, Seam tells me that userAutoComplete resolves to null as soon as the user enters a letter in the selectInputText tag. I don't know why this happens. This is surprising since the Seam debug page shows me that there is a long-running conversation which comprises a userAutoComplete component.

I worked half a day on this issue and don't get a clue. Would save my day, if someone has an idea on this.

Thanks in advance
Jens