JSF app - open report in new Window - via JSP?

Question

I have been reading through this forum but no one has done quite what I am trying so I thought I'd post my own version of this problem.
The web app I'm working on is basically a report generator. Data is formatted via XSLT to .html files - that part works great. The problem is getting the app to open this new HTML file in a new window. I want to get this working with little or no JavaScript.
startReport.jsp (a JSF file) is the form that validates the user input. The sole h:commandButton (I do NOT want a link) works fine sending the form and JSF returns its errors or mine (if the criteria results in nothing) as it should; the action method returns "failure" so the page stays the same.
But when the action method returns "success" the JSF navigation-rule is setup to route to showReportFile.jsp (which is NOT a JSF file). This JSP is very simple:
<%@ page import="java.io.File" %>
<%@ page import="java.io.PrintWriter" %>
<%@ page import="java.io.FileReader" %>
<%@ page import="com.logipath.gict.cts.reporting.client.ReportClient" %>
<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1" %>
<jsp:useBean id="reportClient" scope="session" class="com.logipath.gict.cts.reporting.client.ReportClient" />
<%
String fileName = reportClient.getReportOutputFile();
PrintWriter writer = response.getWriter();
char[] buffer = new char[1024];
FileReader reader = new FileReader(fileName);
int numRead = reader.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length);
while ( numRead != -1 ) {
     writer.write(buffer, 0, numRead);
     numRead = reader.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length);
reader.close();
writer.close();
File file = new File(fileName);
file.delete();
%>This works believe it or not. If I put the target="_blank" on the form tag in the startReport.jsp it even opens in a new window. Great. But with that attribute on the form element, if the page comes back in error - it shows up in a new window (as it is apt to do given the attiribute).
Ok, the h:commandButton tag's target attribute is ignored. Fine. There has to be a way to do this but I just cannot figure it out and I'm no JSP expert.
What I think will work is this. Since my report beans create HTML files, I've created a session bean called "currentReportBean" which holds a single attribute - the name of the HTML file to display. (This is how the JSP above works.)
What I need to know now *(this is the question part)* is how can I flush the render response of my JSF life cycle, trigger the opening of this JSP in a new window, the restart the JSF life cycle at the begining so the "parent" page repaints normally? The JSP isn't part of the JSF page flow so I there's no "going back" or "refresh" to worry about. I would like to take the showReportFile.jsp file out of the navigation files altogether.
I know this topic has been worked on at length, but not quite this way. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

arnieAustin wrote:
No, the JSP resets the bean value after showing the file.My mistake; it wasn't the reload scenario that is an issue. It is when the user goes back and forth in history that this can be a problem.
>
But now I'm confused. JS cannot access server-based session values. How is it going to know to open the page? A cookie?Write the value to a JS variable when you render the page.