I was expecting the EL in the search widget (query.xhtml) to have created it when restoring the view after the post back. It appears that this happens as I expect if the widget is inserted into the same define tag or (as I've hacked it at the moment) if I simply put a comment with some EL in before the results list: | <!-- #{query.expression} --> | <ui:define name="results"> | <h:outputText value="Results are #{search.results}"/> | </ui:define> | Is it the case that if you are relying on EL to create your instances, then the order of the elements in the page is important? i.e. if A is injected into B then the element EL that creates A MUST come before the element EL that creates B View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4120926#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...