Jsf newbie :: converter and navigation issues

Question

Hi,
Iam facing a problem in my first jsf application.
Iam using jsf 1.1 and tomcat 5.5.7
I have a UserBean with a single attribute userName (which has public getter and setter methods).
* I have an index.jsp that redirects to login.faces.
* I have the appropriate servlet url-mapping in my web.xml that maps *.faces to the FacesServlet
Here's the code for login.jsp
<f:view>
   <h:form>
         <h3>Please enter your name </h3>
     <table>
      <tr>
          <td>Name:</td>
        <td><h:inputText id = "name" value="#{user.userName}"/></td>
     </tr>               
     </table>
     <p><h:commandButton value="Login" action="welcome"/>
     </p>
     </h:form>
   </body>
</f:view>Next I have a welcome.jsp which simply outputs Hello <userName>
<f:view>
  <h:form>
     <h:outputText value="#{user.userName}"></h:outputText>
  </h:form>
</f:view>And this is my faces-config.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE faces-config PUBLIC
  "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD JavaServer Faces Config 1.1//EN"
  "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-facesconfig_1_1.dtd">
<faces-config>
     <managed-bean>
          <managed-bean-name>user</managed-bean-name>
          <managed-bean-class>com.myjsf.UserBean</managed-bean-class>
          <managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope>
     </managed-bean>
     <navigation-rule>
          <from-view-id>/index.jsp</from-view-id>
          <navigation-case>
               <from-outcome>welcome</from-outcome>
               <to-view-id>/welcome.jsp</to-view-id>
          </navigation-case>
     </navigation-rule>
</faces-config>Now when I start my application , the index page redirects me to login.faces. I believe the FacesServlet intercepts this call, strips of .faces and forwards to login.jsp. Login.jsp is displayed correctly, so far so good. However from here on, I have all kinds of problems
1. Should the <from-view-id> be /index.jsp (my actual url) or /login.jsp (the url to which index.jsp forwards me to). Actually both seem to work (or not work depending on how you look at it :( )
2. Anyways whatever I set it to, the login.jsp is displayed correctly. The action attribute of the commandButton tag is set to 'welcome' which matches with the <from-outcome> value in navigation rule in faces-config.xml and I would have expected the welcome.jsp to load on form submit.
But the form just reloads itself on clicking submit.
I googled around and discovered that this may be due to validation errors or conversion errors and adding <h:messages/> would indicate the error source. AQccordingly I added it and got this o/p
" "name": " Conversion Error setting value 'Duke' for 'null Converter'. To cut a long agony story short, I found that I have to define a converter for some data types for validation and/or display. But all I have is a String property. Doesnt jsf provide a default Converter ?
3. I couldnt get my app to work when I put my jsps in a folder and access them as /<foldername>/jsp in my faces-config.xml. Isnt this possible ? Should all jsps be under the root folder ?
Will be thankful for any help.
cheers,
ram.
2. Whenever I click on

Answer 1

Thanks for the reference , I shall definitely go through it.
My immediate concern is to get the first program working.
Here is my source code for the bean.
package com.myjsf;
import java.io.Serializable;
public class UserBean implements Serializable {
    private String userName;  
    public String getUserName() {
        return userName;
    public void setName(String userName) {
        this.userName = userName;
}Here's my login.jsp which comes up fine
<f:view>
   <h:form>
     <h:messages/>
         <h3>Please enter your name.</h3>               
             Name: <h:inputText id = "userName" value="#{user.userName}"/><br>
              <h:commandButton value="Login" action="welcome"/>
     </h:form>
  </f:view>Here's my faces-config.xml
<faces-config>
     <managed-bean>
          <managed-bean-name>user</managed-bean-name>
          <managed-bean-class>com.myjsf.UserBean</managed-bean-class>
          <managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope>
     </managed-bean>
     <navigation-rule>
          <from-view-id>/login.jsp</from-view-id>
          <navigation-case>
               <from-outcome>welcome</from-outcome>
               <to-view-id>/welcome.jsp</to-view-id>
          </navigation-case>
     </navigation-rule>
</faces-config>     And this is the error that I get
"userName": Conversion error occurred. The page gets displayed again. One thing I noticed was that in the html - view source the action attribute of the form tag is set to /myjsf/faces/login.jsp. Shouldnt it be welcome.jsp rather ?
Iam at my wits end. I have decided to write a Converter which may solve my problem, but is it required ?
Please help.
Thanks,
Ram.