Is this a correct approach to use subviews for partial page refresh?

Hi everyone,

I would like to seek your advice, whether the following approach to implement partial page refresh using subviews is correct.

This is the main jsf page that holds a menu subview and a content subview:

<%@taglib uri="http://richfaces.org/a4j" prefix="a4j"%>
<%@taglib uri="http://richfaces.org/rich" prefix="rich"%>

<%@taglib prefix="f" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"%>
<%@taglib prefix="h" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"%>
<%@taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

<f:view>
    <html>
        <head>
            <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
            <title><h:outputText value="#{msgGlobal.title}"/></title>
        </head>
        <body>
            <rich:layout id="container">
                <rich:layoutPanel id="menuContainer" position="top">
                    <f:subview id="menupanel">
                        <c:import url="/modules/menu/pages/menu.jsp"/>
                    </f:subview>
                </rich:layoutPanel>
                <rich:layoutPanel id="contentContainer" position="center">
                    <center>
                        <a4j:outputPanel id="contents" ajaxRendered="true" layout="block" >
                            <a4j:status>
                                <f:facet name="start">
                                    <h:graphicImage value="/resources/images/hourglass.gif"/>
                                </f:facet>
                            </a4j:status>
                            <h:form id="contentForm">
                                <f:subview id="contentpanel">
                                    <c:import url="${urlBean.url}"/>
                                </f:subview>
                            </h:form>
                        </a4j:outputPanel>
                    </center>
                </rich:layoutPanel>
            </rich:layout>
        </body>
    </html>
</f:view>

The uncompleted menu.jsp in /modules/menu/pages folder looks something like this:

<%@taglib uri="http://richfaces.org/a4j" prefix="a4j"%>
<%@taglib uri="http://richfaces.org/rich" prefix="rich"%>

<%@taglib prefix="f" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"%>
<%@taglib prefix="h" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"%>

<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>

<h:form>
    <rich:toolBar>
        <rich:dropDownMenu>
            <f:facet name="label">
                <h:outputText value="#{msgMenu.file}"/>
            </f:facet>
            <rich:menuItem value="#{msgMenu.logout}"/>
        </rich:dropDownMenu>
        <rich:dropDownMenu direction="bottom-right" value="#{msgMenu.edit}">
            <rich:menuGroup direction="bottom-right" value="#{msgMenu.type1}">
                <rich:menuItem submitMode="ajax" action="#{menuBean.addPatient_action}" value="#{msgMenu.addtype1}"/>
                <rich:menuItem submitMode="ajax" action="#{menuBean.editPatient_action}" value="#{msgMenu.edittype1}"/>
            </rich:menuGroup>
            <rich:menuGroup direction="bottom-right" value="#{msgMenu.type2}">
                <rich:menuItem value="#{msgMenu.addtype2}"/>
                <rich:menuItem value="#{msgMenu.edittype2}"/>
            </rich:menuGroup>
        </rich:dropDownMenu>
    </rich:toolBar>
</h:form>

And the value of url in the c:import tag in contentForm is determined at the managed beans.

Basically the intention is to refresh only the content in

and keep the menu unrefreshed (partial page refresh).

Is this a correct approach?

* I noticed that this approach has a drawback where I will lose control of the navigation using the browser's Back and Forward buttons.