Oracle Fusion Middleware Tag Reference for Oracle ADF Faces
12c (12.1.2)

E23188-01

<af:button>

af:button button button

UIComponent class: oracle.adf.view.rich.component.rich.nav.RichButton
Component type: oracle.adf.RichButton

Unsupported agents: pda

Buttons behave differently depending if they have either an action or destination defined. A button with an action, when pressed, will generate an action event on the server. A button with a destination navigates directly to another location instead of delivering an action. If PPRNavigation is enabled, destination URLs specified by a hash, '#', will not work. If both action and destination are defined, then the destination will take precedence.

A button can be contained in a toolbar or placed elsewhere on the page. A button on a toolbar is typically skinned differently than a button not on a toolbar.

Button supports changing the visible attribute through active data.

This component will be excluded when the page is being displayed in emailable and printable modes.

Geometry Management

Screen Shot(s)


button screenshot
button component.

Code Example(s)

<af:button text="Search"
           icon="/images/search.gif"
           actionListener="#{some.el.expression}"
           id="b1"/>
<af:button text="Folders"
           icon="/images/folders.gif"
           hoverIcon="/images/folders_h.gif"
           depressedIcon="/images/folders_m.gif" 
           id="b2"/>
<af:button text="With Popup" id="b3">
  <f:facet name="popup">
    <af:outputText value="Hello World!" id="ot1"/>
  </f:facet>
</af:button>
<af:button textAndAccessKey="D&amp;estination Button"
           destination="http://www.oracle.com"
           id="b4"/>
   

Events

Type Phases Description
javax.faces.event.ActionEvent Invoke Application,
Apply Request Values
Event delivered when the "action" of the component has been invoked; for example, by clicking on a button. The action may result in page navigation.
org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.event.ReturnEvent Apply Request Values Event delivered when the dialog has completed successfully.
org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.event.LaunchEvent Invoke Application,
Apply Request Values
Event delivered to prompt the command to launch a dialog.
org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.event.AttributeChangeEvent Invoke Application,
Apply Request Values
Event delivered to describe an attribute change. Attribute change events are not delivered for any programmatic change to a property. They are only delivered when a renderer changes a property without the application's specific request. An example of an attribute change event might include the width of a column that supported client-side resizing.

Supported Facets

Name Description
popup The popup displayed by this button from a drop down selector. Popups supported are inline selectors and menu type popups. To be a menu type popup, the content should be an af:menu containing the desired contents. Otherwise, for an inline selector the content can be of either a single item or a grouping of items in the desired layout container. Note that for compatability with the popup, the popup facet can only contain a single child.

Attributes

Name Type Supports EL? Description
accessKey char Yes a character used to gain quick access to this item.

If the same access key appears in multiple locations in the same page of output, the rendering user agent will cycle among the elements accessed by the similar keys. Note that user agents are inconsistent about dealing with two links having same access key, and so the cycling behavior is dependent on what the user agent provides.

This attribute is sometimes referred to as the "mnemonic".

The character specified by this attribute must exist in the text attribute of this item instance. If it does not, the user will receive no visual indication of the existence of the accessKey. The easiest, and most convenient way to specify both the text and the mnemonic together is to use textAndAccessKey.

Note that the accessKey is triggered by browser-specific and platform-specific modifier keys. It even has browser-specific meaning. For example, Internet Explorer will set focus when you press Alt+<accessKey>. Firefox sets focus on some operating systems when you press Alt+Shift+<accessKey>. Firefox on other operating systems sets focus when you press Control+<accessKey>. Refer to your browser's documentation for how it treats access keys.

actionDelivery String Yes Valid Values: clientServer, none
Default Value: clientServer

how the action events generated by this component should be delivered. If 'none' is used and there is a popup facet, the popup will be shown when the user clicks anywhere on the button, not just on the launch icon.

A value of "clientServer" delivers the event normally

action javax.el.MethodExpression Yes a reference to an action method sent by the command component, or the static outcome of an action. If the action starts with "dialog:", useWindow attribute must be set to true.
actionListener javax.faces.el.MethodBinding Only EL a method reference to an action listener
attributeChangeListener javax.el.MethodExpression Only EL a method reference to an attribute change listener. Attribute change events are not delivered for any programmatic change to a property. They are only delivered when a renderer changes a property without the application's specific request. An example of an attribute change events might include the width of a column that supported client-side resizing.
binding oracle.adf.view.rich.component.rich.nav.RichButton Only EL an EL reference that will store the component instance on a bean. This can be used to give programmatic access to a component from a backing bean, or to move creation of the component to a backing bean.
clientComponent boolean Yes Default Value: false

whether a client-side component will be generated. A component may be generated whether or not this flag is set, but if client Javascript requires the component object, this must be set to true to guarantee the component's presence. Client component objects that are generated today by default may not be present in the future; setting this flag is the only way to guarantee a component's presence, and clients cannot rely on implicit behavior. However, there is a performance cost to setting this flag, so clients should avoid turning on client components unless absolutely necessary.
customizationId String Yes This attribute is deprecated. The 'id' attribute should be used when applying persistent customizations. This attribute will be removed in the next release.
depressedIcon String Yes the URI of an image to be displayed on the button when the mouse button is depressed. This attribute supports the same URI types described for the icon attribute.
destination String Yes the URI this component references when activated. This is an alternative to using an action, with the destination taking precedence when both are set.
disabled boolean Yes Default Value: false

whether the button should be disabled. If disabled attribute is secured, it cannot be set on the client. If it is unsecure, see the "unsecure" attribute section about how to set it on the client.
disabledIcon String Yes the URI of an image to be displayed on the button when the button is disabled. This attribute supports the same URI types described for the icon attribute.
hoverIcon String Yes the URI of an image to be displayed on the button when the mouse is hovering over the button. This attribute supports the same URI types described for the icon attribute. This image is not rendered in touch screen devices.
icon String Yes the URI of an image to be displayed on the button. This attribute supports these various types of URIs:
  • absolute - an absolute path to the image, like "http://oracleimg.com/admin/images/ocom/hp/oralogo_small.gif"
  • relative - a path located relatively to the source page, like "bullet.jpg"
  • context relative - a path relatively based on the web application's context root, like "/images/error.png"
  • server relative - a path relatively based on the web server by application name, like "//adf-richclient-demo-context-root/images/error.png"
iconPosition String Yes Valid Values: leading, trailing, top, bottom
Default Value: leading

an attribute specifying the position of the icon.
id String No the identifier for the component. Every component may be named by a component identifier that must conform to the following rules:
  • They must start with a letter (as defined by the Character.isLetter() method) or underscore ( _ ).
  • Subsequent characters must be letters (as defined by the Character.isLetter() method), digits as defined by the Character.isDigit() method, dashes ( - ), or underscores ( _ ). To minimize the size of responses generated by JavaServer Faces, it is recommended that component identifiers be as short as possible. If a component has been given an identifier, it must be unique in the namespace of the closest ancestor to that component that is a NamingContainer (if any).
immediate boolean Yes Default Value: false

whether data validation - client-side or server-side - will be skipped when events are generated by this component. When immediate is true, the command's action and ActionListeners, including the default ActionListener provided by the JavaServer Faces implementation, will be executed during Apply Request Values phase of the request processing lifecycle, rather than waiting until the Invoke Application phase. Because validation runs during Process Validators (after Apply Request Values, but before Invoke Application), setting immediate to true will skip validation.
inlineStyle String Yes the CSS styles to use for this component. This is intended for basic style changes. The inlineStyle is a set of CSS styles that are applied to the root DOM element of the component. Be aware that because of browser CSS precedence rules, CSS rendered on a DOM element takes precedence over external stylesheets like the skin file. Therefore skins will not be able to override what you set on this attribute. If the inlineStyle's CSS properties do not affect the DOM element you want affected, then you will have to create a skin and use the skinning keys which are meant to target particular DOM elements, like ::label or ::icon-style.
launchListener javax.el.MethodExpression Only EL a method reference to a launch listener
partialSubmit boolean Yes Default Value: true

whether the action should be done through a partial page submit or not. The default is true. When set to false, there is no partial page submit - the full page will be refreshed. When set to true, the full page will not be refreshed. You can use the partialTriggers property to re-render specific components on your page in response to the partial page submit.
partialTriggers String[] Yes the IDs of the components that should trigger a partial update. This component will listen on the trigger components. If one of the trigger components receives an event that will cause it to update in some way, this component will request to be updated too. Identifiers are relative to the source component (this component), and must account for NamingContainers. If your component is already inside of a naming container, you can use a single colon to start the search from the root of the page, or multiple colons to move up through the NamingContainers - "::" will pop out of the component's naming container (or itself if the component is a naming container) and begin the search from there, ":::" will pop out of two naming containers (including itself if the component is a naming container) and begin the search from there, etc.
rendered boolean Yes Default Value: true

whether the component is rendered. When set to false, no output will be delivered for this component (the component will not in any way be rendered, and cannot be made visible on the client). If you want to change a component's rendered attribute from false to true using PPR, set the partialTrigger attribute of its parent component so the parent refreshes and in turn will render this component.
returnListener javax.el.MethodExpression Only EL a method reference to a return listener.This method is used to process dialog returnEvents which are generated as a result of either calling org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.context.RequestContext.returnFromDialog directly or declaratively through the use of a returnActionListener tag.
selected boolean Yes Default Value: false

whether the item is selected, for buttons of type radio or check. For radio buttons, there is no server model implemented for handling mutual exclusivity. If a user clicks a new button, the old selection will be unselected. If you programmatically call setSelected(true) from code, you must call setSelected(false) on the prior selection as well.
shortDesc String Yes the short description of the component. The shortDesc text may be used in two different ways, depending on the component.

For components with images, the shortDesc is often used to render an HTML alt attribute for the image. Please see the accessibility guidelines section for correct alt text usage of the shortDesc attribute.

shortDesc is also commonly used to render an HTML title attribute, which is used by user agents to display tooltip help text. In this case the behavior for the tooltip is controlled by the user agent, e.g. Firefox 2 truncates long tooltips. For form components, the shortDesc is displayed in a note window. For components that support the helpTopicId attribute and are not using the shortDesc as image alt text, it is recommended that helpTopicId is used instead of shortDesc as it is more flexible and provides more accessible descriptive text than the use of the title attribute.

styleClass String Yes a CSS style class to use for this component. The style class can be defined in your jspx page or in a skinning CSS file, for example, or you can use one of our public style classes, like 'AFInstructionText'.
targetFrame String Yes the target frame for the navigation. This attribute is used in conjunction with the destination attribute. You can either specify a user-defined frame name, or use one of the following values:
  • _blank: The link opens the document in a new window.
  • _parent: The link opens the document in the window of the parent. For example, if the link appeared in a dialog window, the resulting page would render in the parent window.
  • _self: The link opens the document in the same page or region.
  • _top: The link opens the document in a full window, replacing the entire page.
text String Yes the text displayed in the button.
textAndAccessKey String Yes an attribute that will simultaneously set both the "text" and "accessKey" attributes from a single value, using conventional ampersand ('&') notation.

For example, setting this attribute to "T&amp;ext" will set the text to "Text" and the access key to 'e'.

type String Yes Valid Values: default, check, radio
Default Value: default

the type of button. The default type is a normal button, while the other types provide special behavior.

A check type button appears in a selected (depressed) state when it is selected. This type is useful to represent a boolean toggle.

A radio type button also appears in a selected (depressed) state when it is selected. Radio type buttons are considered part of the same group by their container, either toolbar or group. When a radio type button is selected, other radio type buttons in the same group are unselected. This type is useful to represent a multiple choice toggle.

unsecure java.util.Set Yes A whitespace separated list of attributes whose values ordinarily can be set only on the server, but need to be settable on the client. Currently, this is supported only for the "disabled" attribute. Note that when you are able to set a property on the client, you will be allowed to by using the the .setProperty('attribute', newValue) method, but not the .setXXXAttribute(newValue) method. For example, if you have unsecure="disabled", then on the client you can use the method .setProperty('disabled', false), while the method .setDisabled(false) will not work and will provide a javascript error that setDisabled is not a function.
useWindow boolean Yes Default Value: false

whether processes launched by this command should be launched in a secondary browser dialog window. 'useWindow' requires that the "action" attribute start with "dialog:". Set useWindow to 'false' for the outcome of the action to be targeted to the existing window.
visible boolean Yes Default Value: true

the visibility of the component. If it is "false", the component will be hidden on the client. Unlike "rendered", this does not affect the lifecycle on the server - the component may have its bindings executed, etc. - and the visibility of the component can be toggled on and off on the client, or toggled with PPR. When "rendered" is false, the component will not in any way be rendered, and cannot be made visible on the client. In most cases, use the "rendered" property instead of the "visible" property.
Not supported on the following renderkits: org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.core
windowEmbedStyle String Yes Valid Values: window, inlineDocument
Default Value: window

Controls the embedded style of launched window. The "window" option will indicate a new browser window. The "inlineDocument" option will indicate an inline popup window. The default value is "window".
windowHeight int Yes the height of the window, if this command is used to launch a window.
windowModalityType String Yes Valid Values: applicationModal, modeless
Default Value: modeless

Controls the modality of the launched Dialog. The default is modeless.
windowWidth int Yes the width of the window, if this command is used to launch a window.