richfaces pickList - converters

Here are a few things to remember when using richfaces pickList:

1. If the value of your selectItem is a non-String object type, then you need to write a converter. You can have a property on your backing bean to hold an instance of the converter, and you can point the pickList converter to use it.

Like below:

1. -------------- Converter ----------------------------

package org.fastkangaroo.quasimodo.converters;

import java.util.Map;

import javax.faces.component.UIComponent;
import javax.faces.context.FacesContext;
import javax.faces.convert.Converter;

import org.fastkangaroo.quasimodo.entities.UserProfile;

public class UserProfileConverter implements Converter {
private Map choiceMap;

public Object getAsObject(FacesContext arg0, UIComponent arg1, String label) {
return choiceMap.get(label);
}

public String getAsString(FacesContext arg0, UIComponent arg1, Object obj) {
UserProfile userProfile = (UserProfile) obj;
String label = userProfile.getFirstName() + " " + userProfile.getLastName() + " " + userProfile.getMiddleName();
return label;
}

/**
* @param choiceMap the choiceMap to set
*/
public void setChoiceMap(Map choiceMap) {
this.choiceMap = choiceMap;
}

}


2. ------------------ Beacking Bean --------------------------

public class ProjectBean {

...
private UserProfileConverter userProfileConverter;

...

+ getter/setter
}




3. ------------------- XHTML ------------------

<rich:pickList id="memberPickList"
value="#{projectBean.selectedMembers}"
converter="#{projectBean.userProfileConverter}"
validator="#{projectBean.projectMembersValidator}" >
<f:selectItems value="#{projectBean.memberSelection}" />
</rich:pickList>