[webbeans-dev] conversation context lifecycle

Gavin, Since you reached an interlude (however brief it may be), I'd like to take the opportunity to reconsider the conversation context lifecycle. Currently, the spec states: - For a JSF faces request, the context is active from the beginning of the apply request values phase until the response is complete. - For a JSF non-faces request, the context is active during the render response phase. I feel that these boundaries are two narrow. I'll focus first on the faces request. In Seam, it's necessary to delay resuming the conversation until the apply request values phase because the conversation id is stored in the view root. At one time, the conversation context was even stored in the view root, making it even more imperative. But we get a chance to start fresh. There are three factors that call for the boundaries to be extended: - As of JSF 2.0, parts of the component tree is visited in the restore view phase, which happens to resolve value expressions bound to UIData components. This triggers a scope not active exception if a conversation-scoped bean is hit. - JSF 2.0 gives us far greater flexibility to control inbound and outbound requests. So it's no longer necessary to store the id in the view root. The query string would be sufficient (I've already modified Web Beans to prototype this) - Servlets on subsequent requests may want to participate in the conversation (and perhaps even servlet filters) For all of these reasons, I'd like the conversation lifecycle to wrap the entire JSF lifecycle and i'd like the conversation id to be propagated using a query string parameter since that's the most universal way of propagating state. As a result, custom servlets can read this value and restore the conversation as needed. It's really inconvenient for the conversation id to be hidden away into the component tree, aside from being problematic in JSF 2.0. Please reconsider. Thanks. -Dan -- Dan Allen Senior Software Engineer, Red Hat | Author of Seam in Action http://mojavelinux.com http://mojavelinux.com/seaminaction http://in.relation.to/Bloggers/Dan NOTE: While I make a strong effort to keep up with my email on a daily basis, personal or other work matters can sometimes keep me away from my email. If you contact me, but don't hear back for more than a week, it is very likely that I am excessively backlogged or the message was caught in the spam filters. Please don't hesitate to resend a message if you feel that it did not reach my attention.