update component in another xhtml form from Custom layout p:selectOneRadio not working - jsf-2

Question

My xhtml is split in to Menu area (defaultMenu.xhtml) and Content area (defaultContent.xhtml).
The code for defaultMenu.xhtml is:
<h:form id="defaultmenuform">
<p:outputPanel id="menupanel" class="contain auto-fixed-center">
<p:panel id="pmenu" visible="#{phController.user.menuVisible}">
<table id="stutable">
<tr>
<td width="15%">
<p:outputLabel id="stuname" value="#{phController.phBean.studentName}" />
</td>
<td>
<p:tabMenu activeIndex="#{param.selectedtab}">
<p:menuitem value="Home" outcome="phome" icon="ui-icon-star">
<f:param name="selectedtab" value="0" />
</p:menuitem>
<p:menuitem value="Bank" outcome="bhome" icon="ui-icon-person">
<f:param name="selectedtab" value="1" />
</p:menuitem>
</p:tabMenu>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</p:panel>
</p:outputPanel>
</h:form>
The defaultContent.xhtml actually displays the ph.xhtml content (as part of functional navigation) and the code is:
<ui:define name="content">
<f:event listener="#{phController.readPeople}" type="preRenderView">
</f:event>
<h:form id="form">
<p:selectOneRadio id="selstud" value="#{phController.phBean.ssSeq}" layout="custom">
<p:ajax update=":defaultmenuform:parentmenupanel :defaultmenuform:stuname" listener="#{phController.onChangePerson}"/>
<f:selectItems value="#{phController.selectStudents}" />
</p:selectOneRadio>
<div style="width: 300px; float:left;">
<p:dataGrid var="studentlist" value="#{phController.listStudent}" columns="1" rowIndexVar="stuindex">
<p:panel header="" style="text-align:left">
<h:panelGrid columns="1" style="width:100%">
<h:outputText value="#{studentlist.studentName}" />
<p:radioButton for=":form:selstud" itemIndex="#{stuindex}"/> Select
</h:panelGrid>
</p:panel>
</p:dataGrid>
</div>
</h:form>
</ui:define>
The code for backing bean is:
Map<String, Object> studentparam = new HashMap<>();
studentparam.put("studentSeq", phBean.getSsSeq());
lS = getBaseDAOService().readStudent("readStudent", studentparam);
phBean.setStudentName(lS.get(0).getStudentFirstName() + " " + lS.get(0).getStudentLastName());
As you can see, I am calling the onChangeStu method to display the selected Student Name in defaultMenu.xhtml. I am using Custom Layout p:selectOneRadio in ph.xhtml and onClick trying to update a p:outputLabel in defaultMenu.xhtml.
The backing bean method gets invoked successfully and the value is also set in variable phController.phBean.studentName, but the update is not working. I also checked using view source and the id is “:defaultmenuform:stuname”, I also tried updating the menu panel ":defaultmenuform:menupanel”, but none of this works.
Not sure how to resolve this. Please suggest.
Including the structure of all .xhtmls
<h:body id="entirePageBody">
<div id="page">
<ui:insert name="header" >
<ui:include src="/template/defaultHeader.xhtml" />
</ui:insert>
<ui:insert name="menu" >
<ui:include src="/template/defaultMenu.xhtml" />
</ui:insert>
<div id="content_div" class="auto-fixed-center">
<div id="content_div_padding" class="content-block">
<ui:insert name="content" >
<ui:include src="/template/defaultContent.xhtml" />
<ui:debug hotkey="z" />
</ui:insert>
</div>
</div>
<ui:insert name="footer" >
<ui:include src="/template/defaultFooter.xhtml" />
</ui:insert>
</div>
</h:body>
PhController.java:
public class PhController extends BaseController implements Serializable {
private List<Stud> listStudent;
private List selectStudents;
SelectItem option;
private PhBean phBean;
private Boolean menuVisible;
int counter = 0;
public PhController() {
phBean = new PhBean();
}
public void readPeople() {
listStudent = new ArrayList<Stud>();
listStudent.add(new Stud(1, "John Miller"));
listStudent.add(new Stud(2, "Scott Jackson"));
selectStudents = new ArrayList();
option = new SelectItem(listStudent.get(0).getStudentSeq(), "Select");
selectStudents.add(option);
option = new SelectItem(listStudent.get(1).getStudentSeq(), "Select");
selectStudents.add(option);
phBean.setSsSeq(String.valueOf(1));
phBean.setSelectedName(listStudent.get(0).getStudentName());
menuVisible = true;
}
public void onChangePerson() {
phBean.setSelectedName(listStudent.get(1).getStudentName());
}
// Getters and Setters
}
PhBean.java:
public class PhBean implements Serializable {
private String ssSeq;
private String studName; // Used to display the name in the Menu bar.
private String selectedName;
public PhBean() {
}
// Getters and Setters
}

Answer 1

I'd say that in the p:ajax in defaultContent.xhtml the list of components to be updated should be separated with spaces only, no commas - so try changing this:
update=":defaultmenuform:menupanel, :defaultmenuform:stuname"
to this:
update=":defaultmenuform:menupanel :defaultmenuform:stuname"
UPDATE
I played with this a bit more and may have found a clue - please add the following code to defaultmenuform:
<p:messages autoUpdate="true" showDetail="true" />
This should help us tracking the reason for failed validation (in case failing validation is the root cause for you - as I said, I have rather limited possibility to reproduce this issue).
Anyway, when I selected some item in p:selectOneRadio, an error message like this appeared:
Conversion Error setting value 'test001.Student#4110c95c' for 'null Converter'.
And the root cause was on this row:
<p:selectOneRadio id="selstud" value="#{phController.phBean.ssSeq}" layout="custom">
p:selectOneRadio expects only String to be passed as a value - and ssSeq is very likely of a different type. Try to change the way value is populated to ensure it is always String - maybe a different attribute of the phBean or simply a brand new String one.
NOTE: if this doesn't help, maybe you could update your question with very simplified example of how phController and phBean could look like if we are to test it.
UPDATE #2
So you have explained there is a problem that you want to call phController.readPeople every time the page is loaded/refreshed, but instead it gets loaded with each and every Ajax request, thus overwriting the values.
In your PhController (it is a bean, right? session scoped?) you could add something like this (omitted null checks for the sake of readability):
public void readPeopleOnGet() {
FacesContext fc = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
ExternalContext ec = fc.getExternalContext();
HttpServletRequest req = (HttpServletRequest) ec.getRequest();
String reqMethod = req.getMethod();
if ("GET".equals(reqMethod)) {
readPeople();
}
}
With the above method you could keep this part of your defaultContext.xhtml in place, provided it is actually called (I assume so), just with the listener method changed:
<f:event listener="#{phController.readPeopleOnGet}" type="preRenderView">
</f:event>
The method readPeopleOnGet will still be called with every request to the page, but since Ajax requests are POST, it will only call readPeople when the page is loaded or refreshed as whole.
This may not be a "perfectly clean" solution, but seemed to work properly when I tested it.
UPDATE #3
Well, since you use PrimeFaces, it would be possible to identify Ajax call also this way:
public void readPeopleOnGet() {
RequestContext rc = RequestContext.getCurrentInstance();
if (!rc.isAjaxRequest()) {
readPeople();
}
}
But if I got your point from latest comments, you want to only run readPeople when the page is loaded for the very first time - so the following part could be even better for that.
You didn't answer if PhController is actually a bean, but I assume it is (there were no annotations visible from the code you posted). You may try making it #SessionScoped:
#ManagedBean
#SessionScoped
public class PhController extends BaseController implements Serializable {
// the rest of the PhController goes here...
Then you could add something like this to the PhController:
#PostConstruct
private void init() {
readPeople();
}
The annotation #PostConstruct ensures the method init is called exactly once after the bean was created. You can continue calling the method readPeople from other places as necessary, while removing both the <f:event ... /> and readPeopleOnGet as these will no longer be needed.