UPDATE TO PROBLEM PLEASE HELP: validator on af:inputText not being called

Question

I have the following inputText component bound to a validator method on my page:
<af:inputText inlineStyle="width:650px" id="txtDescription"
binding="#{backing_osQualAdd.txtDescription}"
validator="#{backing_osQualAdd.validate}"/>
Below is the validate method:
public void validate(FacesContext facesContext,
UIComponent uiComponent, Object object)
// Add event code here...
System.out.println("test");
Upon submit (partial submit) of the page this method does not get called. Why is this?

Answer 1

I found what the problem is but now I have another problem. The problem was if there is nothing in the inputText then the validation method won't be called. But the problem with this is I can't just set required="true" on the inputText because I'm using a button that does a partialSubmit to fill in the inputText.
So basically what I'm saying is I need to create my own required validation. Is this even possible?