synchronisation of pages in address bar in a web application using jsf2

Question

I'm working in a jsf2 application and I have a problem with the page name displayed in the address bar. When I navigate to an other page I have in address bar the name of the previous page.

Thanks.

Answer 1

That's because you're using POST instead of GET for page-to-page navigation and JSF defaults to submitting to the very same view with you're using <h:form>. Using POST for page-to-page navigation is in any case a very poor approach. It's not only not user friendly (it's not bookmarkable and confusing), but it's also not SEO friendly (searchbots don't follow <form> actions).

To solve this problem, you must stop using <h:commandLink> for page-to-page navigation. Use <h:link> instead.

<h:link value="Go to next page" outcome="nextpage" />

This will just render a

<a href="/contextpath/nextpage.xhtml">Go to next page</a>

Which is perfectly bookmarkable, user friendly and SEO friendly.

When you're navigating to a different page as result of a real POST form submit, I'd also replace that by returning null or void and just render the result/messages conditionally in the very same view. Or if the result is supposed to be bookmarkable (e.g. search results), you should use normal links or plain <form> instead of <h:form> and use <f:viewParam> in target view.

See also:

• When should I use h:outputLink instead of h:commandLink?

Answer 2

This is happerning because, in JSF, when you are navigating to a new page the server is performing a forward to the new page. The browser is unaware of the forwarding and is displaying the old url. To make the server perform a redirect instead of forwarding, you have to either:

If you are using navigation rules, add a <redirect/> to each rule:

<navigation-rule>
   <from-view-id>/pages/from.xhtml</from-view-id>
      <navigation-case>
    <from-outcome>to</from-outcome>
        <to-view-id>/pages/to.xhtml</to-view-id>
        <redirect/>
    </navigation-case>
</navigation-rule>

If you are returning an outcome from a bean method, add a ?faces-redirect=true to the outcome:

public String navigate() {
   return "/pages/to?faces-redirect=true";
}