Dynamic nested tabs with or without adding other libraries.

I'm using tomcat 5.5 with Sun's JSF implementation. As far as I can tell there are no built in libraries that will support tabbing. Basically, I want/need up to 3 sets of tabs.

The top will be static and navigate to different sets of pages. If the products tab is chosen, on the products page there will be another 2 sets of tabs right below. The top will be for the main categories (headings) and the bottom will be for further distinctions (subheadings).

My original plan was to use some h:dataTables and some CSS to make dynamic buttons look like the tabs. I'd generate buttons based on a list (that I would generate from the database), and simply have them call a method, look up the row, and populate either the results or the subheadings based on which was clicked. I had everything planned out until I realized I couldn't get a dynamic set of columns, only rows for dataTable. I could make my buttons run down the right side and it would work fine, but I would rather have them organized horizontally.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can accomplish this? Do I need to just suck it up and install some extra libraries that support tabbing? If that is the case, does anyone have a recommendation?

Thanks!

John

For a better idea of what i'm looking to achieve I want something like this:

Products | FAQ | Contact

<Home page content here>

And if they click products it goes to something like this:

Products | FAQ | Contact
Fans | Cables | Water Cooling
80mm | 120mm

<List of products>

Now preferably the last set of tabs wouldn't show up until after they select Fans or whatever, but that's a detail I can worry about once the main logic is working.

Please refer following link

http://facestutorials.icefaces.org/tutorial/tabset-tutorial.html#dynamicAddRemove

Hope it wil solve your problem

I was hoping not to have to change over to iceFaces just for one thing, but I may not have any other choice. Right now I'm going to try out a sidebar instead of horizontal tabs. I believe that it should work just fine and will still look pretty good.

IceFaces, RichFaces, whatever. You've got a choice between using a pre-coded, pre-debugged, standardized solution versus taking time, effort, and ultimately money to design, code, debug, and maintain a one-off custom solution.

These days the mantra is "Git 'R Dun!" and the cheaper the better.