Referencing af:selectManyCheckbox w/ adf.PAGE.findComponentByAbsoluteId()

Question

I've been getting a null error when using adf.page.findComponentByAbsoluteId(). At first i was using document.getElementsByName(*direct DOM name in here*) but of course while it worked locally it wasn't working on other servers so I've been trying to get the AdfPage.PAGE.findComponentByAbsoluteId() to work. This is for my job so I can't post the complete code but I'll post what is necessary to understand what is going on. It's a .jsff so there is no af:document tag.
I would like to access the below component as an array of checkboxes so I can go through it and perform some validation: disable the unchecked boxes if the number of checked boxes is above a constant, 7, but re-enable them if it goes below 7. I've been forced to use javascript because I don't see a way to see if an individual check box is checked or not. The number of checkboxes is allocated dynamically based on how many beneficiaries there are.
<af:selectManyCheckbox id="letterSelectMany" value="#{giqdBackingBean.selectedBeneficiariesForPdf}"
autoSubmit="true" clientComponent="true">
<af:forEach var="bene" items="#{giqdBackingBean.eligibleBeneficiaries}">
<af:selectItem id="letterBeneSelect" label="#{bene.firstLastName} (#{bene.associationReason})" value="#{bene}"/>
</af:forEach> />
Here is the javascript:
<af:resource type="javascript">
window.setTimeout(init,3000); // i was having trouble with onload for some reason but this seems to work for the moment
function init() {
var boxes=document.getElementById(AdfPage.PAGE.findComponentByAbsoluteId('letterSelectMany').getClientId()); // this results in a null currently
for (var i=0;i < boxes.length;i++) {
if(boxes.addEventListener) {
boxes.addEventListener("click",checkBoxValidator,false); // one of these is for older versions of IE and the other is for other chrome/mozilla etc. but i forget which is which
else if (boxes.attachEvent) {
boxes.attachEvent("onclick", checkBoxValidator);
function checkBoxValidator() {
var boxes=document.getElementById(AdfPage.PAGE.findComponentByAbsoluteId('letterSelectMany').getClientId());
var checkedBoxes = 0;
for (var i=0;i < boxes.length;i++) {
if(boxes.tagName == "INPUT" && boxes.checked) {
checkedBoxes++;
if(checkedBoxes >= 7) {
for (var j=0;j < boxes.length;j++) {
if(boxes[j].tagName == "INPUT" && ! boxes[j].checked) {
boxes[j].disabled = true;
else {
for (var k=0;k < boxes.length;k++) {
if(boxes[k].tagName == "INPUT" && ! boxes[k].checked) {
boxes[k].disabled = false;
</af:resource>
So there you have it. Pretty simple stuff but I've been struggling to get it to reference the checkbox component in javascript. I had been using, var boxes= document.getElementsByName("r1:0:letterSelectMany"); , which worked just fine on my server but it doesn't work on other servers. Thanks for any input.
PS: I had initially replied to relevant thread but I thought it was more appropriate and hopefully will get more attention as its own thread.
Edited by: 976856 on Dec 13, 2012 2:45 PM

Answer 1

Hi,
var boxes=document.getElementById(AdfPage.PAGE.findComponentByAbsoluteId('letterSelectMany').getClientId());
This assumes that the selectMany component is part of the form component with no additional naming container (e.g. pageTemplate, region, etc. involved). If you have a naming container between then the ID needs to be added upfront (note that the client ID actually returns the full ID string including the naming container). So check for naming containers and correct the ID
Frank
Ps.: The use of document.getElementById is not recommended and considered bad coding practice in ADF Faces. Just wanted to make sure someone mentioned this to you