Thanks for your response. I guess I didn't make me clear here. My question
is how to call a method in the backing bean from a JSF page without
rendering out anything to the screen.
I would suggest using Shale with JSF. Use the Shale jars and then have your backing bean implement a ViewController (I just extend AbstractViewController), and then you'll have several nice methods you can override. One is called prerender(). So if you map this backingbean to the correct path, for example "fooBar", when "fooBar.jsp" is called the prerender method is invoked. That's the ultra simplified explanation and since I'm new to this, others (Craig) will probably elaborate more. It's really useful though for exactly what you want.
--
Rick
