You basically want to temporarily activate previous conversation, grab a bean and use it in new conversation instead of new bean instance created there?

Not Exactly, grab old bean properties (basic properties, entities, ...) and pass them to the new bean.

I need to have differents conversations ; each conversation represents a "state" of UI (Query, Edit, Create)

For example :

1. Display Query UI

2. List Entities corresponding to criteria

3. Select Entity to edit and start new conversation (we pass entity to the new conversation)

4. Display Edit UI

5. Change entity properties

6. Save

7. Return to Query and return to previous conversation (we pass entity to the old conversation and merge entity so that the attributes displayed in the query mode reflected those who have changed)

@Flowscoped seems not appropriate because my application is only in one page (All JSF components are dynamics).

Hi,

Sorry for my late answer, i've been a little ill in the meantime.

Here is my little example to deal with conversations :

<h:body>

<h:form>

<h:panelGrid columns="2">

        <h:outputLabel value="Id"/>

        <h:outputLabel value="#{javax.enterprise.context.conversation.id}"/>

        <h:outputLabel value="Transient"/>

        <h:outputLabel value="#{javax.enterprise.context.conversation.transient}"/>

        <h:outputLabel value="timeout (ms)"/>

        <h:outputLabel value="#{javax.enterprise.context.conversation.timeout}"/>

  </h:panelGrid>

  <h:panelGrid columns="1">

    <h:commandButton value="Start No Propagation" action="#{conversation1Controller.startNoPropagation}">

    <f:param name="conversationPropagation" value="none"/>

    </h:commandButton>

        <h:commandButton value="Start With Propagation" action="#{conversation1Controller.startWithPropagation}">

        </h:commandButton>

        <h:commandButton value="Info" action="#{conversation1Controller.info}">

        <f:param name="cid" value="#{javax.enterprise.context.conversation.id}"/>

        </h:commandButton>

        <h:commandButton value="Stop Current" action="#{conversation1Controller.stop}">

        <f:param name="cid" value="#{javax.enterprise.context.conversation.id}"/>

        </h:commandButton>

    </h:panelGrid>  

</h:form>

<a4j:log />

</h:body>

@Named

@ConversationScoped

public class Conversation1Bean implements Serializable {

  private String value;

  public String getValue() {

    if (value == null) {

      generateValue();

    }

    return value;

  }

  public void setValue(String value) {

    this.value = value;

  }

  public void generateValue() {

    setValue(new Timestamp(System.currentTimeMillis()).toString());

  }

}

@Named

@SessionScoped

public class Conversation1Controller implements Serializable {

  @Inject

  Conversation1Bean conversation1Bean;

  @Inject

  Conversation conversation;

  @Inject

  @Http

  ConversationContext conversationContext;

  public String startWithPropagation() {

    conversation.begin();

    conversation1Bean.generateValue();

    return null;

  }

  public String startNoPropagation() {

    conversation.begin();

    conversation1Bean.generateValue();

    info();

    return null;

  }

  public String info() {

    String conversationId = conversation.getId();

    BeanManager bm = CDI.current().getBeanManager();

    Bean bean = bm.getBeans("conversation1Bean").iterator().next();

    List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();

    for (ManagedConversation current : conversationContext.getConversations()) {

      list.add(current.getId());

    }

    for (String current : list) {

      conversationContext.deactivate();

      conversationContext.activate(current);

      System.out.println("Faces cid : " + current + " value " + ((Conversation1Bean) getExpressionValue("conversation1Bean")).getValue());

      System.out.println("BeanManager cid : " + current + " value " + ((Conversation1Bean) conversationContext.get(bean)).getValue());

    }

    conversationContext.deactivate();

    conversationContext.activate(conversationId);

    return null;

  }

  public String stop() {

    conversation.end();

    return null;

  }

  public static Object getExpressionValue(String expression) {

    ValueExpression ve = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getApplication().getExpressionFactory().createValueExpression(FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getELContext(), quoteBinding(expression), Object.class);

    Object value = (Object) ve.getValue(FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getELContext());

    return value;

  }

  public static String quoteBinding(String binding) {

    if (binding != null) {

      if (binding.indexOf("#{") == -1) {

        return "#{" + binding + "}";

      }

    }

    return binding;

  }

}

Two click on Start With Propagation => Attempt to call begin() on a long-running conversation. Normal / Good

10 click on Start No Propagation + Info =>

- Retrieve value via EL => Not Good values

- Retrieve value via conversationContext => OK We see all 10 different values

I will continue to improve my example