About Client Actions

Not all components in ADF UIX support client actions. Client actions are events that are triggered in response to user actions (such as clicking a link or a button) and sent to the server or middle tier for further processing.

The ClientAction API enable supported components to send arbitrary events and parameters that can be acted upon by the server or middle tier. The events can be partial page events or full page events.

Client action enabled components wrap client actions in a primaryClientAction element, as shown in the following UIX XML example:


...
<button text="Client action enabled button">
  <primaryClientAction>
    ...
    <!-- client actions here -->
    ...
  </primaryClientAction>
</button>
...

Most UIX form components can use the primaryClientAction element to wrap client actions:

button
choice
link
radioSet
singleSelection
textInput
messageCheckBox
messageChoice
messageColorField
messageDateField
messageLovField
messageLovInput
messageRadioSet
messageStyledText
messageTextInput, and so on.

There are two basic client actions:

firePartialAction - Delivers the event as a partial page event. Use this client action to fire partial page updates of arbitrary contents. Any client action enabled component can use firePartialAction. If the client browser and platform does not support partial page rendering, then a trigger button or link will be rendered to allow the user to send the event to the server.
fireAction - Delivers the event as a full page event.

You can set the following attributes for firePartialAction and fireAction:

event - Specifies the name of the event to generate. Default is update.
formSubmitted - Specifies whether to use form submission or GET to fire the event.
targets - (firePartialAction only). Specifies a whitespace separated set of partial targets to update. The list cannot be databound.
triggerText - (firePartialAction only). Specifies the text to render in a trigger button or link when partial page rendering is not supported on the target browser. If no text is specified, then a localized version of the 'Go' button will be rendered.
unvalidated -Specifies whether client side validation is performed when the action is invoked. By default validation is performed. Note that the formSubmitted attribute takes precedence over this attribute.
source - (fireAction only). Specifies the name to send as the source parameter when the event is delivered. If this attribute is not set, the ID of the component to which the action is attached will be sent. If the ID is not set, the value of the name attribute of the parent component will be sent.

For form submitted events, you can also set arbitrary event parameters to send with the form in a partial page update event. Note that a formValue element must also be specified for each additional event parameter that you send.

Note: The Client Action is extended to allow rendering actions with a link instead of using JavaScript events. The getParameters method returns all the query parameters that are needed on the link. If the renderAsEvent method returns true, the renderer should render the script on one of the events (e.g. onClick, onChange etc.). If renderAsEvent returns false, the renderer has the option of rendering directly as a link.