# The Java EE 7 Tutorial

# 7.5 Navigation Model

The JavaServer Faces navigation model makes it easy to define page navigation and to handle any additional processing that is needed to choose the sequence in which pages are loaded.

In JavaServer Faces technology, navigation is a set of rules for choosing the next page or view to be displayed after an application action, such as when a button or link is clicked.

Navigation can be implicit or user-defined. Implicit navigation comes into play when user-defined navigation rules are not configured in the application configuration resource files.

When you add a component such as a `commandButton` to a Facelets page, and assign another page as the value for its `action` property, the default navigation handler will try to match a suitable page within the application implicitly. In the following example, the default navigation handler will try to locate a page named `response.xhtml` within the application and navigate to it:

    <h:commandButton value="submit" action="response">

User-defined navigation rules are declared in zero or more application configuration resource files, such as `faces-config.xml`, by using a set of XML elements. The default structure of a navigation rule is as follows:

    <navigation-rule>
        <description></description
        <from-view-id></from-view-id>
        <navigation-case>
            <from-action></from-action>
            <from-outcome></from-outcome>
            <if></if>
            <to-view-id></to-view-id>
        </navigation-case>
    </navigation-rule>

User-defined navigation is handled as follows.

- Define the rules in the application configuration resource file.

- Refer to an outcome `String` from the button or link component's `action` attribute. This outcome `String` is used by the JavaServer Faces implementation to select the navigation rule.

Here is an example navigation rule:

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

This rule states that when a command component (such as an `h:commandButton` or an `h:commandLink`) on `greeting.xhtml` is activated, the application will navigate from the `greeting.xhtml` page to the `response.xhtml` page if the outcome referenced by the button component's tag is `success`. Here is an `h:commandButton` tag from `greeting.xhtml` that would specify a logical outcome of `success`:

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

As the example demonstrates, each `navigation-rule` element defines how to get from one page (specified in the `from-view-id` element) to the other pages of the application. The `navigation-rule` elements can contain any number of `navigation-case` elements, each of which defines the page to open next (defined by `to-view-id`) based on a logical outcome (defined by `from-outcome`).

In more complicated applications, the logical outcome can also come from the return value of an action method in a managed bean. This method performs some processing to determine the outcome. For example, the method can check whether the password the user entered on the page matches the one on file. If it does, the method might return `success`; otherwise, it might return `failure`. An outcome of `failure` might result in the logon page being reloaded. An outcome of `success` might cause the page displaying the user's credit card activity to open. If you want the outcome to be returned by a method on a bean, you must refer to the method using a method expression with the `action` attribute, as shown by this example:

    <h:commandButton id="submit" value="Submit"
                     action="#{cashierBean.submit}" />

When the user clicks the button represented by this tag, the corresponding component generates an action event. This event is handled by the default `javax.faces.event.ActionListener` instance, which calls the action method referenced by the component that triggered the event. The action method returns a logical outcome to the action listener.

The listener passes the logical outcome and a reference to the action method that produced the outcome to the default `javax.faces.application.NavigationHandler`. The `NavigationHandler` selects the page to display next by matching the outcome or the action method reference against the navigation rules in the application configuration resource file by the following process.

1. The `NavigationHandler` selects the navigation rule that matches the page currently displayed.

2. It matches the outcome or the action method reference that it received from the default `javax.faces.event.ActionListener` with those defined by the navigation cases.

3. It tries to match both the method reference and the outcome against the same navigation case.

4. If the previous step fails, the navigation handler attempts to match the outcome.

5. Finally, the navigation handler attempts to match the action method reference if the previous two attempts failed.

6. If no navigation case is matched, it displays the same view again.

When the `NavigationHandler` achieves a match, the Render Response phase begins. During this phase, the page selected by the `NavigationHandler` will be rendered.

The Duke's Tutoring case study example application uses navigation rules in the business methods that handle creating, editing, and deleting the users of the application. For example, the form for creating a student has the following `h:commandButton` tag:

    <h:commandButton id="submit"
            action="#{adminBean.createStudent(studentManager.newStudent)}"
            value="#{bundle['action.submit']}"/>

The action event calls the `dukestutoring.ejb.AdminBean.createStudent` method:

    public String createStudent(Student student) {
        em.persist(student);
        return "createdStudent";
    }

The return value of `createdStudent` has a corresponding navigation case in the `faces-config.xml` configuration file:

    <navigation-rule>
        <from-view-id>/admin/student/createStudent.xhtml</from-view-id>
        <navigation-case>
            <from-outcome>createdStudent</from-outcome>
            <to-view-id>/admin/index.xhtml</to-view-id>
        </navigation-case>
    </navigation-rule>

After the student is created, the user is returned to the Administration index page.

For more information on how to define navigation rules, see Configuring Navigation Rules.

For more information on how to implement action methods to handle navigation, see Writing a Method to Handle an Action Event.

For more information on how to reference outcomes or action methods from component tags, see Referencing a Method That Performs Navigation.