JSF 2.0: View Scope Problem

Question

Hey,
I 'm having trouble using the JSF 2.0 view scope. My application is a search page displaying some search parameters and a list of results. The search parameters are backed by a session scope bean, the results a backed by a request scoped bean and there is some kind of controller bean in request scope, too. Searching and displaying the results works fine.
The second step was some kind of details page to display when clicking on one result element. I have another controller bean for this goal, but when pressing the link the requested action is not performed. I remembered similar problems I had in the past where I put the bean containing the result list into view scope.
But after putting the results bean into view scope searching is not working anymore. You click the search button, the search action is performed. But after successfully storing the results a new results bean is instantiated. An empty one of course.
Now I 'm not sure anymore if I understand the view scope: I have a single page, I search something and the results are displayed on the same page. I cannot believe that request scoped results work fine and view scoped results do not.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks,
Stephan

Answer 1

I found the problem and a solution :-) The missing piece of the puzzle was the id attribute for the form tag. After some debugging of the JSF JavaScript I found the solution.
The JavaScript function response(request, context) is invoked to handle the server response. Inside this function the doUpdate(element, context) is invoked.
The doUpdate() function is doing the modification of the DOM. The function doUpdate() is two times invoked for a response. The first time the html elements are updated.
The second time the view state hidden field is updated or created but only under the following condition:
Comment in the JavaScript source code of the jsf.js
//Now set the view state from the server into the DOM
//but only for the form that submitted the request.If the forms of the both side haven't the same id the form can't be found on the second page.
In the following way it is working:
page1.xhtml
<h:form id="myform">
        <h:commandLink value="Go to page 2" action="page2">
            <f:ajax render="@all" execute="@all"/>
        </h:commandLink>
</h:form>
.....page2.xhtml
<h:form id="myform">
            <h:commandLink value="Go to page 1" action="page1">
                <f:ajax render="@all" execute="@all"/>
            </h:commandLink>
</h:form>So always set an explicit id for each JSF tag.