9.1 Introduction to Page Navigation

Navigation through a JSF application is defined by navigation rules. These rules determine, based on outcomes specified by UI components, which page is displayed next when the UI component is clicked.

Defining page navigation for an application is a two-step process:

• First, you create navigation rules for all the pages in your application.

  In most cases, you define one rule for each page in your application. However, you can also define pattern-based rules that affect groups of pages or global rules that affect all pages.

• Next, in each navigation component on the pages, such as a command button or link, you specify either a static or dynamic outcome value in the action attribute.

  Static outcome values are an explicit reference to a specific outcome defined in a navigation rule. Dynamic outcome values are derived from a binding on a backing bean method that returns an outcome value. In either case, the outcome value specified in the action attribute must match an outcome defined in the navigation rules or be handled by a default navigation rule for navigation to occur.

While you can create simple hand-coded navigation links between pages, using outcomes and navigation rules makes defining and changing application navigation much easier.

Read this chapter to understand:

• What navigation rules and cases are and how to create them

• How to create global, pattern-based, and default rules

• How to create UI components that use static outcome values

• How to bind navigation components to backing beans that return dynamic outcomes