Defining Page Navigation

Defining page navigation involves determining which page to go to after the user clicks a button or a hyperlink. Navigation for the application is defined in the application configuration resource file using a powerful rule-based system. Here is one of the navigation rules defined for the guessNumber example:

<navigation-rule>
    <from-view-id>/greeting.jsp</from-view-id>
    <navigation-case>
        <from-outcome>success</from-outcome>
        <to-view-id>/response.jsp</to-view-id>
    </navigation-case>
</navigation-rule>
<navigation-rule>
    <from-view-id>/response.jsp</from-view-id>
    <navigation-case>
        <from-outcome>success</from-outcome>
        <to-view-id>/greeting.jsp</to-view-id>
    </navigation-case>
</navigation-rule>

This navigation rule states that when the button on the greeting page is clicked the application will navigate to response.jsp if the navigation system is given a logical outcome of success.

In the case of the Guess Number example, the logical outcome is defined by the action attribute of the UICommand component that submits the form:

<h:commandButton id="submit" action="success"
     value="Submit" />

To learn more about how navigation works, see Navigation Model.