Open PrimeFaces Dialog located in another .xhtml file

Question

I have a number of questions that are related to each other so the title of question may not be appropriate. Sorry for this.

I want to have a p:inputText and p:commandButton in a p:dialog such that when the user presses that button or presses enter key the value entered in the p:inputText will be saved in the database. To do this I followed this example http://www.primefaces.org/showcase/ui/dialogForm.jsf and it worked fine when I tried it in a seperate .xhtml file in which there were no other dialogs or command buttons.

<h:body>
 <h:form id="form"> 
<p:commandButton id="showDialogButton" type="button" value="Show" onclick="PF('dlg').show()" />  

<p:dialog header="Enter FirstName" widgetVar="dlg" resizable="false">  


        <h:panelGrid columns="2" style="margin-bottom:10px">  
            <h:outputLabel for="firstname" value="Firstname:" />  
            <p:inputText id="firstname" value="#{subjectController.attributeValue}" />  
        </h:panelGrid>  

        <p:commandButton id="submitButton" value="Submit" update=":form:display :form:firstname" action="#{subjectController.saveUpdateSubjectAttributeValue}" oncomplete="PF('dlg').hide();"/>  
             <p:defaultCommand target="submitButton"></p:defaultCommand> 

</p:dialog>  

<p:outputPanel id="display" style="display:block;margin-top:10px;">  
    <h:outputText id="name" value="Hello #{subjectController.attributeValue}" rendered="#{not empty subjectController.attributeValue}"/>  
</p:outputPanel>
 </h:form>
</h:body>

The .xhtml file that I originally have contains a number of other dialogs and command buttons. When i used the same code in that file it does not work properly. By not working properly I mean to say that when enter key or submit button is pressed the value entered by the user is not set in the corresponding setter of the inputText in the managed bean. To call the setter before pressing the enter key or button I need to use p:ajax inside p:inputText tag. I tried to use p:ajax events such as "mouseout", "blur", "change" etc. They work for the submit button but not for the enter key. Then I tried "keypress" and "keyup" etc. They worked for both but the setter for the value in the p:inputText was called on each key press which was not desired.

My first question:

If the sample code is working fine in a separate file why doesn't it work when I have other dialogs or commandbuttons in the same file. In both the cases I am using the same managed bean. What is the difference?

Assuming that the problem may be caused using more than one dialogs in the same file, I thought of declaring these dialogs in separate files such that I have A.xhtml , B.xhtml, C.xhtml pages which contain the actual content and whenever I need to open a dialog the required dialog is located in file such as dialog.xhtml. Being a beginner in JSF, Primefaces and Ajax I was confused about how to do this. Searching on the internet I found this post relevant PrimeFaces dialog lazy loading (dynamic="true") does not work?. But in this case, p:dialog is located on the same page but the content contained in this dialog is located in another file which is included using ui:include. I tried this but it shows the same behavior.

My Second Question: Is there any way to programmatically open a dialog from another file e.g. if I have a p:commandButton in A.xhtml and p:dialog in the same file I can do this using

<p:commandButton id="submitButton" value="Submit" update=":form:display :form:firstname" action="#{subjectController.saveUpdateSubjectAttributeValue}" oncomplete="PF('dlg').hide();"/>  

and in the corresponding subjectController I have

saveUpdateSubjectAttributeValue(){
    RequestContext context = RequestContext.getCurrentInstance(); 
                context.openDialog("openDialog");
                // or 
                context.execute("openDialog");
}

But what if the "openDialog" is located in B.xhtml?

What I understand, I can use enclose p:dialog in a ui:composition (in B.xhtml) and and use ui:include in A.xhtml. But I am confused in how and where to call openDialog.open() or openDialog.hide()?

Answer 1

I've tried to replicate the behavior you posted here and I believe that the cause is probably somewhere else as mentioned by Yipitalp.

Anyway, here are the sample code I used that might do what you expect (Primefaces 4):

The Managed Bean

import java.io.Serializable;
import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
import javax.faces.bean.ViewScoped;
import org.primefaces.context.RequestContext;

@ManagedBean
@ViewScoped
public class DialogBean implements Serializable {

    private String attribute1;

    private String attribute2;

    private String attribute3;

    private String dlg;

    public void openDialog() {
        RequestContext context = RequestContext.getCurrentInstance();
        context.execute("PF('" + dlg + "').show()");
    }

    public String getAttribute1() {
        return attribute1;
    }

    public void setAttribute1(String attribute1) {
        this.attribute1 = attribute1;
    }

    public String getAttribute2() {
        return attribute2;
    }

    public void setAttribute2(String attribute2) {
        this.attribute2 = attribute2;
    }

    public String getAttribute3() {
        return attribute3;
    }

    public void setAttribute3(String attribute3) {
        this.attribute3 = attribute3;
    }

    public String getDlg() {
        return dlg;
    }

    public void setDlg(String dlg) {
        this.dlg = dlg;
    }
}

The view

Note that I use a different form for every dialog in the view.

<h:form>
    <h:panelGrid columns="2" style="margin-bottom:10px">  
        <h:outputLabel for="dlg" value="Dlg:" />  
        <p:selectOneMenu id="dlg" value="#{dialogBean.dlg}" >
            <f:selectItem itemLabel="dlg1" itemValue="dlg1" />
            <f:selectItem itemLabel="dlg2" itemValue="dlg2" />
            <f:selectItem itemLabel="dlg3" itemValue="dlg3" />
        </p:selectOneMenu>
    </h:panelGrid>  

    <p:commandButton id="submitButton" value="Submit" action="#{dialogBean.openDialog}"/>  
    <p:defaultCommand target="submitButton" />
</h:form>


<p:button id="showDialogButton1" value="Show 1" onclick="PF('dlg1').show();
        return false;" />
<p:button id="showDialogButton2" value="Show 2" onclick="PF('dlg2').show();
        return false;" />
<p:button id="showDialogButton3" value="Show 3" onclick="PF('dlg3').show();
        return false;" />

<br />

<p:dialog header="Enter FirstName" widgetVar="dlg1" resizable="false">  
    <h:form>
        <h:panelGrid columns="2" style="margin-bottom:10px">  
            <h:outputLabel for="firstname" value="Firstname:" />  
            <p:inputText id="firstname" value="#{dialogBean.attribute1}" />  
        </h:panelGrid>  

        <p:commandButton id="submitButton" value="Submit" oncomplete="PF('dlg1').hide();"/>  
        <p:defaultCommand target="submitButton" />
    </h:form>
</p:dialog>

<p:dialog header="Enter FirstName" widgetVar="dlg2" resizable="false">  
    <h:form>
        <h:panelGrid columns="2" style="margin-bottom:10px">  
            <h:outputLabel for="firstname" value="Firstname:" />  
            <p:inputText id="firstname" value="#{dialogBean.attribute2}" />  
        </h:panelGrid>  

        <p:commandButton id="submitButton" value="Submit" oncomplete="PF('dlg2').hide();"/>  
        <p:defaultCommand target="submitButton" />
    </h:form>
</p:dialog>

<p:dialog header="Enter FirstName" widgetVar="dlg3" resizable="false">  
    <h:form>
        <h:panelGrid columns="2" style="margin-bottom:10px">  
            <h:outputLabel for="firstname" value="Firstname:" />  
            <p:inputText id="firstname" value="#{dialogBean.attribute3}" />  
        </h:panelGrid>  

        <p:commandButton id="submitButton" value="Submit" oncomplete="PF('dlg3').hide();"/>  
        <p:defaultCommand target="submitButton" />
    </h:form>
</p:dialog>

<p:outputPanel autoUpdate="true" style="border: 1px solid black; margin-top:10px;">
    Value 1: 
    <h:outputText id="v1" value="#{dialogBean.attribute1}" />
    <br />
    Value 2: 
    <h:outputText id="v2" value="#{dialogBean.attribute2}" />
    <br />
    Value 3: 
    <h:outputText id="v3" value="#{dialogBean.attribute3}" />
</p:outputPanel>

I hope that will give you some clue!

Answer 2

I was able to solve major part of my problems using DialogFramework. I have a Menu.xhtml page, it contains p:tieredMenu in p:layoutUnit with position="north" using which I select which page to open. Depending on the selection, the p:layoutUnit with position="center" includes that page using ui:include. The Menu.xhtml page contains a h:form with id="form" inside h:body and everything else is placed inside this h:form. There are a number of pages that can be included inside the <p:layoutUnit position="center"> depending upon the selection. One of them is Person.xhtml(containing everything enclosed inside a ui:composition ). It contains a p:fieldset. Inside p:fieldset there are 3 p:dataTable. Outside this p:fieldset I have placed 3 p:contextMenu one for each of those datatables. Inside one of those p:contextMenu I have placed

<p:menuitem value="Update" actionListener="#{controller.updateAttributeValue}"  />

and the corresponding function contains

public void updateAttributeValue(){
                System.out.println("update  attribute value");
                RequestContext context = RequestContext.getCurrentInstance();  
                context.openDialog("selectCar2");
                this.attributeValue = null;
            }

selectCar2.xhtml contains the following code

 <h:body>  
        <h:form>
          <h:panelGrid id="updateAttributeValuePanel" columns="2" style="margin-bottom:10px">  
          <h:outputLabel value="Attribute Value " />
           <p:inputText id="attributeValue" value="#{controller.attributeValue}" required="true" />
        </h:panelGrid>  

        <p:commandButton id="saveUpdateAttributeValue" value="Submit" actionListener="#{controller.saveUpdateAttributeValue}" 
                />  
                <p:commandButton id="cancelUpdateAttributeValue" value="Cancel "
                action="#{controller.cancelUpdateAttributeValue}"
                />
        <p:defaultCommand target="saveUpdateAttributeValue" />
              </h:form>
              </h:body> 

The corresponding save function is as follows

public void  saveUpdateAttributeValue(){
                RequestContext context = RequestContext.getCurrentInstance();  

                System.out.println("this.attributevalue = " + this.attributeValue);
                ////save value in database 
                    this.attributeValue = null;
                    context.update(":form:resourceAttributeValueDataTable");
                    //also tried    context.update("resourceAttributeValueDataTable");

                context.closeDialog(this.attributeValue); 

            }
and 


public void  cancelUpdateAttributeValue(){
                RequestContext context = RequestContext.getCurrentInstance();  
                context.closeDialog(this.attributeValue);

                System.out.println("cancel update attribute value");
                this.attributeValue = null;
                System.out.println("this.attributevalue  = " + this.attributeValue);

            }

The dialog opens and the value is successfully saved in the database. The only problem now is that the corresponding datatable is not updated and I need to refresh the page to see the updated value. previously my dialog was also in the same page outside the p:fieldset and I was not using h:form inside dialog so I was updating the datatable as

<p:commandButton id="saveUpdateAttributeValue" value="Submit" actionListener="#{controller.saveUpdateAttributeValue}" 
update = ":form:attributeValueDataTable  "/>

But now they are in two different files and two different forms so I am not sure how to update in this case? I have tried to use

context.update(":form:resourceAttributeValueDataTable");
                    //or    

context.update("resourceAttributeValueDataTable");

but the datatable is not updated. Any help will be highly appreciated.