Navigation (Webflow) JSP Tags

The <webflow:createWebflowURL> tag (Table 4-1) is used in a JSP to dynamically create a Webflow URL in a JSP. The Webflow URL may include the protocol, domain name, port, Web application URI, WebflowServlet URI, and query string.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Class Implemented	CreateWebflowURLTag

Table 4-1 <webflow:createWebflowURL>

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
domainName	No	String	Used to change the domain name or IP address of the URL. This may be used if Webflow is fronted by a proxy server and that server resides on another machine.	R
doRedirect	No	String	Causes the WebflowServlet to perform a redirect instead of a forward to a presentation node. Valid values are true and false. The default is false (not to redirect).	R
encode	No	String	Informs Webflow to encode the URL. URLs need to be encoded if you wish to maintain session state and the browser does not accept cookies. Valid values are true and false. The default value is determined by the value of ENCODE_URLS set in the web app's web.xml file. URLs will only need to be encoded if the browser does not accept cookies. See "Encoding Webflow URLs"for more information.	R
escape	No	String	Tells Weblfow to escape the URL. URLs must be escaped if they will contain any characters (with some exceptions - see below) that would be encoded using java.net.URLEncoder.encode(). Note however that even when escaping is on the entire URL is not encoded rather the URL will be tokenized using the characters ':', '/', '?', '=', and '&' then the substrings between the tokens are encoded using java.net.URLEncoder.encode(). The tokenizing is necessary so that the URL will still be recognized by the Webflow engine. Valid values for this attribute are 'NO', 'YES' or 'CALCULATE'. Escaping is relatively costly and should be avoided if possible but is required if the URL might have any characters other then those ignored by java.net.URLEncoder.encode(), that is any characters other than 'a' through 'z', 'A' through 'Z, '0' through '9', '-', '_', '.', or '*' with the exception of the tokenizing characters mentioned above. If the content of the URL will not be determined until runtime and might contain "illegal" characters you should use either 'YES' or 'CALCULATE'. 'CALCULATE' should be used with care.
escape (con't)	No	String	(Continued from previous page) For sites that have a small number of URLs that will need escaping using 'CALCULATE' rather then 'YES' will result in a performance improvement. But, since 'CALCULATE' first checks the URL then encodes if needed, sites where most URLs need escaping will have poorer performance using 'CALCULATE' rather then 'YES'. If omitted the default value for escaping is determined by the value of ESCAPE_URLS in the web app's web.xml file. See "Encoding Webflow URLs" for more information.
event	Yes	String	Webflow will use this in combination with the origin to resolve a destination in the supplied namespace XML file.	R
extraParams	No	String	Used to supply additional request parameters as name/value pairs.	R
httpsInd	No	String	Informs Webflow to calculate the protocol or use HTTPS or HTTP. Valid values are calculate, http, and https. Calculate will yield HTTPS if any node in the origin/event branch chain list is matched under the HTTPS_URL_PATTERNS context parameter in the application's WEB-INF/web.xml file. Calculate is more dynamic and expensive, but if the protocol needs to be forced you can specify it here. If a value is not set for this attribute, the context-param value for HTTPSIND_DEFAULT_VALUE in web.xml is used. If no value is found there, calculate is used. If an invalid value is used for this attribute, calculate is used. The following example shows a protocol set in web.xml. This value would be used if no JSP tag attribute is set. <context-param> <param-name>HTTPSIND_DEFAULT_VALUE</param-name> <param-value>HTTPS</param-value> </context-param> The possible values of HTTP, HTTPS or CALCULATE can be specified in all uppercase or all lowercase.	R
namespace	No	String	Indicates which Webflow configuration file the origin and event are defined in. If omitted, then the current (last successful) namespace is used.	R
origin	No	String	The node where the event will be coming from. Origins follow the node-name.node-type format. This may or may not be equal to the page name. If omitted, then the JSP page name is used.	R
pathPrefix	No	String	Used to prefix the path information. This string will be placed in front of the Web application URI. This can be used when the proxy server is located on the same machine. Note: The proxy must strip the path prefix before forwarding the request to Webflow.	R
pathSuffix	No	String	Used to suffix the path information. The additional path information will be placed after the WebflowServlet URI. This information can then be retrieved via the request.getPathInfo() method.	R

The <webflow:createResourceURL> tag (Table 4-2) is used in a JSP to create a static URL for a resource, using the value of the P13N_STATIC_ROOT context parameter in the application's WEB-INF/web.xml file. This tag may be used to load GIF images from a separate server.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Class Implemented	CreateResourceURLTag

Table 4-2 <webflow:createResourceURL>

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
encode	No	Boolean	Informs Webflow to encode the URL. URLs need to be encoded if you wish to maintain session state and the browser does not accept cookies. Valid values are true and false. The default value is determined by the value of ENCODE_STATIC_URLS set in the web app's web.xml file. URLs will only need to be encoded if the browser does not accept cookies. See "Encoding Webflow URLs" for more information.	R
escape	No	String	Tells Weblfow to escape the URL. URLs must be escaped if they will contain any characters (with some exceptions - see below) that would be encoded using java.net.URLEncoder.encode(). Note however that even when escaping is on the entire URL is not encoded rather the URL will be tokenized using the characters ':', '/', '?', '=', and '&' then the substrings between the tokens are encoded using java.net.URLEncoder.encode(). The tokenizing is necessary so that the URL will still be recognized by the Webflow engine. Valid values for this attribute are 'NO', 'YES' or 'CALCULATE'. Escaping is relatively costly and should be avoided if possible but is required if the URL might have any characters other then those ignored by java.net.URLEncoder.encode(), that is any characters other than 'a' through 'z', 'A' through 'Z, '0' through '9', '-', '_', '.', or '*' with the exception of the tokenizing characters mentioned above. If the content of the URL will not be determined until runtime and might contain "illegal" characters you should use either 'YES' or 'CALCULATE'. 'CALCULATE' should be used with care.
escape (con't)	No	String	(Continued from previous page) For sites that have a small number of URLs that will need escaping using 'CALCULATE' rather then 'YES' will result in a performance improvement. But, since 'CALCULATE' first checks the URL then encodes if needed, sites where most URLs need escaping will have poorer performance using 'CALCULATE' rather then 'YES'. If omitted the default value for escaping is determined by the value of ESCAPE_STATIC_URLS in the web app's web.xml file. See "Encoding Webflow URLs" for more information.
resource	No	String	Relative path to the file or image.	R

The <webflow:form> tag is used in a JSP to dynamically generate an HTML form tag. This tag is not as sophisticated as the <webflow:validatedForm> tag, but is simpler.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Class Implemented	WebflowFormTag

Table 4-3 <webflow:form>

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
domainName	No	String	Used to change the domain name or IP address of the URL. This may be used if Webflow is fronted by a proxy server and that server resides on another machine.	R
doRedirect	No	String	Causes the WebflowServlet to perform a redirect instead of a forward to a presentation node. Valid values are true and false. The default is false (not to redirect).	R
encode	No	String	Informs Webflow to encode the URL. URLs need to be encoded if you wish to maintain session state and the browser does not accept cookies. Valid values are true and false. The default value is determined by the value of ENCODE_URLS set in the web app's web.xml file. URLs will only need to be encoded if the browser does not accept cookies. See "Encoding Webflow URLs" for more information.	R
escape	No	String	Tells Weblfow to escape the URL. URLs must be escaped if they will contain any characters (with some exceptions - see below) that would be encoded using java.net.URLEncoder.encode(). Note however that even when escaping is on the entire URL is not encoded rather the URL will be tokenized using the characters ':', '/', '?', '=', and '&' then the substrings between the tokens are encoded using java.net.URLEncoder.encode(). The tokenizing is necessary so that the URL will still be recognized by the Webflow engine. Valid values for this attribute are 'NO', 'YES' or 'CALCULATE'. Escaping is relatively costly and should be avoided if possible but is required if the URL might have any characters other then those ignored by java.net.URLEncoder.encode(), that is any characters other than 'a' through 'z', 'A' through 'Z, '0' through '9', '-', '_', '.', or '*' with the exception of the tokenizing characters mentioned above. If the content of the URL will not be determined until runtime and might contain "illegal" characters you should use either 'YES' or 'CALCULATE'. 'CALCULATE' should be used with care.
escape (con't)	No	String	(Continued from previous page) For sites that have a small number of URLs that will need escaping using 'CALCULATE' rather then 'YES' will result in a performance improvement. But, since 'CALCULATE' first checks the URL then encodes if needed, sites where most URLs need escaping will have poorer performance using 'CALCULATE' rather then 'YES'. If omitted the default value for escaping is determined by the value of ESCAPE_URLS in the web app's web.xml file. See "Encoding Webflow URLs" for more information.
event	Yes	String	Webflow will use this in combination with the origin to resolve a destination in the supplied namespace XML file.	R
extraParams	No	String	Used to supply additional request parameters as name/value pairs.	R
hide	No	String	If set to false, the namespace, origin, and event will be displayed on the command line instead of as hidden form fields. Valid values are true and false. The default value is true.	R
httpsInd	No	String	Informs Webflow to calculate the protocol or use HTTPS or HTTP. Valid values are calculate, http, and https. Calculate will yield HTTPS if any node in the origin/event branch chain list is matched under the HTTPS_URL_PATTERNS context parameter in the application's WEB-INF/web.xml file. Calculate is more dynamic and expensive, but if the protocol needs to be forced you can specify it here. If a value is not set for this attribute, the context-param value for HTTPSIND_DEFAULT_VALUE in web.xml is used. If no value is found there, calculate is used. If an invalid value is used for this attribute, calculate is used. The following example shows a protocol set in web.xml. This value would be used if no JSP tag attribute is set. <context-param> <param-name>HTTPSIND_DEFAULT_VALUE</param-name> <param-value>HTTPS</param-value> </context-param> The possible values of HTTP, HTTPS or CALCULATE can be specified in all uppercase or all lowercase.	R
method	No	String	The method to be used for the form. Valid values are get and post. The default value is post.	R
name	No	String	The name of the form.	R
namespace	No	String	Indicates which Webflow configuration file the origin and event are defined in. If omitted, then the current (last successful) namespace is used.	R
origin	No	String	The node where the event will be coming from. Origins follow the node-name.node-type format. This may or may not be equal to the page name. If omitted, then the JSP page name is used.	R
pathPrefix	No	String	Used to prefix the path information. This string will be placed in front of the Web application URI. This can be used when the proxy server is located on the same machine. Note: The proxy must strip the path prefix before forwarding the request to Webflow.	R
pathSuffix	No	String	Used to suffix the path information. The additional path information will be placed after the WebflowServlet URI. This information can then be retrieved via the request.getPathInfo() method.	R
htmlAttributes	No	String	Additional HTML attributes. Any attribute not supported directly can be supplied here.	R

The <webflow:validatedForm> tag is used in a JSP to dynamically create the URL that defines the action in an HTML form. This tag should be used in conjunction with the com.bea.p13n.appflow.webflow.forms.* package and the other nested form tags defined in the webflow.tld file (which are described later in this section).

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Classes Implemented	WebflowValidatedFormTag WebflowValidatedFormTagExtraInfo

Table 4-4 <webflow:validatedForm>

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
applyStyle	No	String	Applies the associated CCS style as indicated by the field status to the message, the field, or to none. Therefore, valid values are message, field, and none. The default value is message. See also: invalidStyle styleId validStyle unspecifiedStyle	R
domainName	No	String	Used to change the domain name or IP address of the URL. This may be used if Webflow is fronted by a proxy server and that server resides on another machine.	R
doRedirect	No	String	Causes the WebflowServlet to perform a redirect instead of a forward to a presentation node. Valid values are true and false. The default is false (not to redirect).	R
encode	No	String	Informs Webflow to encode the URL. URLs need to be encoded if you wish to maintain session state and the browser does not accept cookies. Valid values are true and false. The default value is determined by the value of ENCODE_URLS set in the web app's web.xml file. URLs will only need to be encoded if the browser does not accept cookies. See "Encoding Webflow URLs" for more information.	R
escape	No	String	Tells Weblfow to escape the URL. URLs must be escaped if they will contain any characters (with some exceptions - see below) that would be encoded using java.net.URLEncoder.encode(). Note however that even when escaping is on the entire URL is not encoded rather the URL will be tokenized using the characters ':', '/', '?', '=', and '&' then the substrings between the tokens are encoded using java.net.URLEncoder.encode(). The tokenizing is necessary so that the URL will still be recognized by the Webflow engine. Valid values for this attribute are 'NO', 'YES' or 'CALCULATE'. Escaping is relatively costly and should be avoided if possible but is required if the URL might have any characters other then those ignored by java.net.URLEncoder.encode(), that is any characters other than 'a' through 'z', 'A' through 'Z, '0' through '9', '-', '_', '.', or '*' with the exception of the tokenizing characters mentioned above. If the content of the URL will not be determined until runtime and might contain "illegal" characters you should use either 'YES' or 'CALCULATE'. 'CALCULATE' should be used with care.
escape (con't)	No	String	(Continued from previous page) For sites that have a small number of URLs that will need escaping using 'CALCULATE' rather then 'YES' will result in a performance improvement. But, since 'CALCULATE' first checks the URL then encodes if needed, sites where most URLs need escaping will have poorer performance using 'CALCULATE' rather then 'YES'. If omitted the default value for escaping is determined by the value of ESCAPE_URLS in the web app's web.xml file. See "Encoding Webflow URLs" for more information.
event	Yes	String	Webflow will use this in combination with the origin to resolve a destination in the supplied namespace XML file.	R
extraParams	No	String	Used to supply additional request parameters as name/value pairs.	R
hide	No	String	If set to false, the namespace, origin, and event will be displayed on the command line instead of as hidden form fields. Valid values are true and false. The default value is true.	R
httpsInd	No	String	Informs Webflow to calculate the protocol or use HTTPS or HTTP. Valid values are calculate, http, and https. Calculate will yield HTTPS if any node in the origin/event branch chain list is matched under the HTTPS_URL_PATTERNS context parameter in the application's WEB-INF/web.xml file. Calculate is more dynamic and expensive, but if the protocol needs to be forced you can specify it here. If a value is not set for this attribute, the context-param value for HTTPSIND_DEFAULT_VALUE in web.xml is used. If no value is found there, calculate is used. If an invalid value is used for this attribute, calculate is used. The following example shows a protocol set in web.xml. This value would be used if no JSP tag attribute is set. <context-param> <param-name>HTTPSIND_DEFAULT_VALUE</param-name> <param-value>HTTPS</param-value> </context-param> The possible values of HTTP, HTTPS or CALCULATE can be specified in all uppercase or all lowercase.	R
invalidStyle	No	String	The CSS style used to format the HTML field or the message when the field is invalid.	R
messageAlign	No	String	Indicates whether to align the error message above the field, to the right of the field, or below the field. Therefore, value values are top, right, and bottom. The default value is right.	R
method	No	String	The method to be used for the form. Valid values are get and post. The default value is post.	R
name	No	String	The name of the form.	R
namespace	No	String	Indicates which Webflow configuration file the origin and event are defined in. If omitted, then the current (last successful) namespace is used.	R
origin	No	String	The node where the event will be coming from. Origins follow the node-name.node-type format. This may or may not be equal to the page name. If omitted, then the JSP page name is used.	R
pathPrefix	No	String	Used to prefix the path information. This string will be placed in front of the Web application URI. This can be used when the proxy server is located on the same machine. Note: The proxy must strip the path prefix before forwarding the request to Webflow.	R
pathSuffix	No	String	Used to suffix the path information. The additional path information will be placed after the WebflowServlet URI. This information can then be retrieved via the request.getPathInfo() method.	R
styleId	No	String	Scripting variable that will be set to one of invalidStyle, unSpecifiedStyle, or validStyle, depending on the field's status: valid, invalid, unspecified. Can be used for finer control of formatting the HTML form.	R
unspecifiedStyle	No	String	Used to specify the intial CSS style of the HTML field before validation occurs.	R
validStyle	No	String	The CSS style used to format the HTML field when it is valid.	R
htmlAttributes	No	String	Additional HTML attributes. Any attribute not supported directly can be supplied here.	R

Listing 4-4 illustrates how to use the <webflow:validatedForm> JSP tag to dynamically create the URL that defines the action in an HTML form..

The <webflow:text> tag is used in a JSP to validate an HTML text field. This tag must be nested in the <webflow:validatedForm> tag.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Classes Implemented	TexTag

Table 4-5 <webflow:text>

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
htmlAttributes	No	String	Additional HTML attributes. Any attribute not supported directly can be supplied here.	R
maxlength	No	String	The maximum length of the text field.	R
name	Yes	String	The name of the text field.	R
retainValue	No	String	Determines whether or not the text field should retain its input upon redisplay. Valid values are true and false.	R
size	No	String	The size of the text field.	R
style	No	String	The HTML CSS style associated with the text field.	R
value	No	String	The initial value of the text field.	R

The <webflow:password> tag is similar to the <webflow:text> tag except that field input is masked with asterisks (****). This tag must be nested in the <webflow:validatedForm> tag.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Classes Implemented	PasswordTag

Table 4-6 <webflow:password>

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
htmlAttributes	No	String	Additional HTML attributes. Any attribute not supported directly can be supplied here.	R
maxlength	No	String	The maximum length of the password field.	R
name	Yes	String	The name of the password field.	R
retainValue	No	String	Determines whether or not the password field should retain its input upon redisplay. Valid values are true and false. The default value is false.	R
size	No	String	The size of the password field.	R
style	No	String	The HTML CSS style associated with the password field.	R
value	No	String	The initial value of the password field.	R

The <webflow:radio> tag is used in a JSP to represent an HTML radio button, but preserves the input. This tag must be nested in the <webflow:validatedForm> tag.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Classes Implemented	RadioTag

Table 4-7 <webflow:radio>

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
checked	No	String	Determines whether or not the radio button is initially selected. Valid values are true and false. The default value is false.	R
htmlAttributes	No	String	Additional HTML attributes. Any attribute not supported directly can be supplied here.	R
name	Yes	String	The name of the radio button field.	R
value	Yes	String	The initial value of the radio button field.	R

The <webflow:checkbox> tag is used in a JSP to generate the required HTML for a check box. This tag will preserve input upon the InputProcessor throwing an InvalidFormFieldException. This tag must be nested in the <webflow:validatedForm> tag.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Classes Implemented	CheckboxTag

Table 4-8 <webflow:checkbox>

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
checked	No	String	Determines whether or not the check box field is initially selected. Valid values are true and false. The default value is false.	R
htmlAttributes	No	String	Additional HTML attributes. Any attribute not supported directly can be supplied here.	R
name	Yes	String	The name of the check box field.	R
value	Yes	String	The initial value of the check box field.	R

The <webflow:textarea> tag is used in a JSP to represent an HTML text area, but preserves the input. This tag must be nested in the <webflow:validatedForm> tag.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Classes Implemented	TextareaTag

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
cols	No	String	The number of columns for the text area.	R
name	Yes	String	The name of the text area.	R
retainValue	No	String	Determines whether or not the text area should retain its input upon redisplay. Valid values are true and false.	R
rows	No	String	The number of rows for the text area.	R
style	No	String	The HTML CSS style associated with the text area.	R
value	No	String	The initial value of the text area.	R
wrap	No	String	Determines whether or not the text area should wrap input. Valid values are true and false. The default value is true.	R

The <webflow:select> tag is used in a JSP to represent a list box, but preserves its input. This tag must be nested in the <webflow:validatedForm> tag.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Classes Implemented	SelectTag

The <webflow:option> tag (Table 4-11) is used in a JSP to represent an HTML option, but preserves the input. An option is one value in a list box. This tag must be nested in the <webflow:select> tag.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Classes Implemented	OptionTag

Table 4-11 <webflow:option>

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
selected	No	String	Determines whether or not the option is initially selected. Valid values are true and false. The default value is false.	R
style	No	String	The HTML style attribute.	R
value	Yes	String	The value the option represents.	R

Listing 4-5 uses each of the validated form tags in an HTML form page that gathers some information about a Web site's visitors.

Tag Library	webflow.tld
Import Statement	<%@ taglib uri="webflow.tld" prefix="webflow" %>
Classes Implemented	SetPropertyTag

Table 4-12 <webflow:setProperty>

Tag Attribute	Required	Type	Description	R/C
namespace	No	String	Use the namespace attribute to force webflow to use a particular webflow configuration file defining a specific origin and event. If omitted then the current namespace (last successful namespace) is used.	R
property	Yes	String	Name or key with which the given property is to be associated.	R
scope	No	String	The scope of the property. Valid values are session and request. The default value is session.	R
value	Yes	Object	The value to associate with the property, specified as an object name or Java expression.	R

Listing 4-6 illustrates how to use the <webflow:setProperty> JSP tag to set some arbitrary object in the Pipeline Session (Request-scoped):

The <webflow:getProperty> tag (Table 4-13) retrieves a named property from the Pipeline Session. This tag can be inlined or return a scripting variable.