jsf

ListBox Example with JSF 2.0

Hello Java Developers, today we ‘re gonna talk about listboxes in JSF 2.0. In JSF, we can use the <h:selectOneListbox /> tag, in order to render a single-selection listbox. For example, a simple HTML listbox that includes three options, could be displayed using JSF, like below:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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<h:selectOneListbox value="#{user.favoriteYear}">
    <f:selectItem itemValue="2000" itemLabel="Year : 2000" />
    <f:selectItem itemValue="2010" itemLabel="Year : 2010" />
    <f:selectItem itemValue="2020" itemLabel="Year : 2020" />
</h:selectOneListbox>

Before diving into the full example, I will first explain the three different ways that we can render a single-selection listbox:

  1. Hardcoded value in a f:selectItem tag.
  2. Generated values using a Map and passed into the fore-mentioned tag.
  3. Generate values using an Object Array and passed again into the f:selectItem tag, then represent the value using a var attribute.

1. Backing Bean

Here’s the structure of the Bean that holds the submitted values.

UserBean.java

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package com.javacodegeeks.enterprise.jsf;
 
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.LinkedHashMap;
import java.util.Map;
 
import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
import javax.faces.bean.SessionScoped;
 
@ManagedBean
@SessionScoped
public class UserBean implements Serializable{
 
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 4256272866128337548L;
 
    public String favoriteCar1;
    public String favoriteCar2;
    public String favoriteCar3;
    public String getFavoriteCar1() {
        return favoriteCar1;
    }
    public void setFavoriteCar1(String favoriteCar1) {
        this.favoriteCar1 = favoriteCar1;
    }
    public String getFavoriteCar2() {
        return favoriteCar2;
    }
    public void setFavoriteCar2(String favoriteCar2) {
        this.favoriteCar2 = favoriteCar2;
    }
    public String getFavoriteCar3() {
        return favoriteCar3;
    }
    public void setFavoriteCar3(String favoriteCar3) {
        this.favoriteCar3 = favoriteCar3;
    }
     
    //generated by map
    private static Map<String, Object> favoriteCar2Value;
    static
    {
        favoriteCar2Value = new LinkedHashMap<String, Object>();
         
        favoriteCar2Value.put("BMW Series 1 - 116", "116"); //label, value
        favoriteCar2Value.put("BMW Series 1 - 118", "118");
        favoriteCar2Value.put("BMW Series 1 - 120", "120");
    }
     
    public Map<String, Object> getFavoriteCar2Value()
    {
        return favoriteCar2Value;
    }
     
    //generated by object array
    public static class Car
    {
        public String carLabel;
        public String carValue;
         
        public Car(String carLabel, String carValue)
        {
            this.carLabel = carLabel;
            this.carValue = carValue;
        }
         
        public String getCarLabel()
        {
            return carLabel;
        }
         
        public String getCarValue()
        {
            return carValue;
        }
    }
     
    public Car[] car3List;
     
    public Car[] getFavoriteCar3Value()
    {
        car3List = new Car[3];
         
        car3List[0] = new Car("BMW Series 3 - 316", "316");
        car3List[1] = new Car("BMW Series 3 - 318", "318");
        car3List[2] = new Car("BMW Series 3 - 320", "320");
     
        return car3List;
    }
     
}

2. Our JSF Pages

First, the welcome page:

index.xhtml

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"   
      xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
      xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" >
  
    <h:head>
        <title>JSF ListBox Example</title>
    </h:head>
     
    <h:body>
        <h1>JSF 2.2 ListBox Example</h1>
         
        <h:form>
            1. Hardcoded with "f:selectItem" :
            <br/>
             
            <h:selectOneListbox value="#{user.favoriteCar1}">
                <f:selectItem itemValue="520" itemLabel="BMW Series 5 - 520" />
                <f:selectItem itemValue="525" itemLabel="BMW Series 5 - 525" />
                <f:selectItem itemValue="535" itemLabel="BMW Series 5 - 535" />
            </h:selectOneListbox>
             
            <br/><br/>
             
            2. Generated by Map:
            <br/>
             
            <h:selectOneListbox value="#{user.favoriteCar2}">
                <f:selectItems value="#{user.favoriteCar2Value}" />
            </h:selectOneListbox>
             
            <br/><br/>
             
            3. Generated by Object Array; access with "var"
            <br/>
            <h:selectOneListbox value="#{user.favoriteCar3}">
                <f:selectItems value="#{user.favoriteCar3Value}" var="c"
                    itemLabel="#{c.carLabel}" itemValue="#{c.carValue}" />
            </h:selectOneListbox>
             
            <br/>
             
            <h:commandButton value="Submit" action="response"/>
            <h:commandButton value="Reset" type="reset"/>
        </h:form>
    </h:body>
</html>

Then, just to ensure that every submitted value saved correctly, we ‘ll try to access the related getters through a JSF page:

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response.xhtml

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<h1>JSF 2.2 ListBox Example - Response Page</h1>
 
 
         
 
 
<ol>
 
 
    <li>user.favoriteCar1 : #{user.favoriteCar1}</li>
 
 
 
 
    <li>user.favoriteCar2 : #{user.favoriteCar2}</li>
 
 
 
 
    <li>user.favoriteCar3 : #{user.favoriteCar3}</li>
 
 
</ol>
 
 
     
    

3. Demo

I ‘ll just select my favorites from each group:

img

Let’s see what happened:

img2

This was an example of ListBox in JSF 2.0. You can also download the source code for this example: ListBoxJSF

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Thodoris Bais

Thodoris is an Oracle Certified Associate Java Programmer and currently works as a Junior Software Developer, for Intrasoft International S.A. He holds a diploma at Informatics & Telecommunications Engineering and is interested in continuous development.
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