Hello,
There is a well-known problem with JSF's choice of using a colon
as the NAMING_SEPARATOR character: The CSS standard does
not work well with HTML IDs that include a colon in the name.
So for example, if you try to style a specific input element...
<h:form id='x'>
<h:inputText id='name' ... />
</h:form>
...with a CSS file entry...
input#x:name { /* style configuration */}
This is illegal in CSS. As I said, this is well known. Here are a few
links that a co-worker discovered in his investigation:
https://javaserverfaces-spec-public.dev.java.net/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=161
http://www.nabble.com/Colons-in-component-ids-tf1476983.html#a4015739
http://wiki.apache.org/myfaces/css_component_ids
My team is investigating a work-around for this. I read through
the UIComponentBase.getClientId() code and it is clear that we
cannot alter the NAMING_SEPARATOR character. However,
I did notice the component's renderer is given the opportunity to
convert the name before it is stored (and returned from the getClientId
method). The base Renderer.convertClientId method simply returns
the passed in string; no conversion.
Has anyone tried to override this convertClientId method to change the
colon to some other, CSS-compatible character? If so, which character
did you use to replace the colon? And did this conversion cause other
problems within the JSF framework itself?
The PROs are clear: enables component-specific styling. The CONs are
not so obvious, but the biggest "gotcha" I have found is that if you use
standard JSF components, you must override their renderers to support
the conversion. Can anyone think of other gotchas?
Regards,
Bryan
