Navigation rule not working

[Scott Stephens]

I have a string literal "LOGOUT" as action that should trigger a navigation rule:

<t:panelLayout id="page" layout="classic" styleClass="pageLayout"
		headerClass="pageHeader" navigationClass="pageNavigation"
		bodyClass="pageBody" footerClass="pageFooter">
		<f:facet name="header">
			<h2>Perso Information</h2>
		</f:facet>
		<f:facet name="navigation">
			<t:panelNavigation id="nav" styleClass="navigation"
				separatorClass="navseparator" itemClass="navitem"
				activeItemClass="navitem_active" openItemClass="navitem_open">

				<t:commandNavigation id="nav_1" value="login" action="LOGOUT" />

			</t:panelNavigation>
		</f:facet>

Here the faces-config.xml

<faces-config xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_0.xsd"
	version="2.0">

	<navigation-rule>
		<description>Login</description>
		<from-view-id>/index.xhtml</from-view-id>
		<navigation-case>
			<from-outcome>STANDARD</from-outcome>
			<to-view-id>/person.xhtml</to-view-id>
		</navigation-case>
		<navigation-case>
			<from-outcome>ADMIN</from-outcome>
			<to-view-id>/admin.xhtml</to-view-id>
		</navigation-case>
	</navigation-rule>

	<navigation-rule>
		<description>
            Navigation rules für Navigation components
		Go directly to the page
        </description>
		<from-view-id>*</from-view-id>
		<navigation-case>
			<from-outcome>LOGOUT</from-outcome>
			<to-view-id>/index.xhtml</to-view-id>
		</navigation-case>
	</navigation-rule>

	<managed-bean>

the first rule for navigation to the right page following login works good. My logout <t:commandNavigation ´... action="LOGOUT"> however doesnt. The browser URL shows only http://localhost:8080/Perso/index.xhtml#
What is wrong? Maybe someone has an idea.

[Scott Stephens]

I wrapped the navigation panel with a <h:form> tag . Now it works. Apparently, a POST OR GET REQUEST is necessary to send the string literal to the web server. I assume this is taken care of by the <h:form> tag.

[Tim Holloway]

You are correct. JSF operates primarily via a series of postback operations done via HTTP POST. For HTTP POST, a form must exist, and to get the extra indicators that help JSF process propertly, it should be a JSF "h:form" or equivalent and not a bare HTML FORM tag with ACTION=POST on it.

This is true even for "hyperlink" tags such as h:commandLink and for menu tags, since, unlike bare HTML A HREF= tags, they will go through the JSF postback engine.