If i understand correctly, the solution is to tie the source of the event and potential areas of change using the reRender attribute. This should work for most of the cases. This is true for GWT as well, since you could link the UI event with the widget to be refreshed. Probably i could have a very specific case. The potential areas of change in my case is not completely static (not known when i define the UI). Only at runtime, after executing the controller action would i know the areas of change. (depending on data entered in a widget, the logic determines what parameters should be modified). So currently if i have to define it statically it would be the union of all the potential areas of change (which becomes almost the entire object graph itself.) I hope i am not asking too much. But wouldnt it be great to automatically detect the changes (atleast for the managed objects in JPA/hibernate) and render those sections of UI alone, without even mentioning reRender ? mani View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4043848#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...