I have an abstract User class and subclasses for different types of users in the system. I would like Seam to manage a "currentUser" component which I put into session context after login. I would ideally annotate the abstract User class with @Name("currentUser") so whatever User subclass was being used could still be bijected this way. I want to test the existence of the currentUser in EL with #{empty currentUser} but SeamVariableResolver always tries to create it - resulting in an InstantiationException due to the User class being abstract. So effectively what I want is the ability to reference the EL variable without the SeamVariableResolver trying to auto-instantiate it. Or am I missing an obvious alternative? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3985190#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...