Best practices for "Back" navigation links in JSF

Question

What is the best way to make "Back" links, so that the application stays consistent after navigation.

• onclick="history.go(-1)". Is this very harmful?
• Using a stack in a backing bean that pops you the navigation case of the last view. You can do this by setting the navigation case with <f:setPropertyActionListener>.
• None of these... other solutions.

Any help would be appreciated! Share your thoughts! Daniel

Answer 1

If you want to solve this by programmed navigation links, you can use a LinkedList as a stack. This way you can set boundaries for the number of stored navigation cases.

Example:

public class BackNavigationBean {

    public BackNavigationBean() {
        history = new LinkedList<String>();
    }
    private LinkedList<String> history;

    public LinkedList getHistory() {
        return history;
    }

    public void setLastPage(String navigationCase) {
        history.push(navigationCase);
        if (history.size() > 10) {
            history.pollLast();
        }
    }

    public String getLastPage() {
        return history.pop();
    }
}

So in 'forward' links:

<h:commandLink value="Forward" action="#{myBean.someMethod}">
    <f:setPropertyActionListener target="#{backNavigationBean.lastPage}"
                                 value="back_to_index" />
</h:commandLink>

And a 'back' link would be:

<h:commandLink value="Back"
               action="#{backNavigationBean.getLastPage}" />

Answer 2

I'm using:

• MyFaces orchestra for providing conversation scope
• <redirect /> for each navigation rule

This ensures that on pressing the "back" button or history.go(-1):

• the data that has been available in the previous screen will be still there (because the conversation is still active)
• the "resubmit" browser dialog won't open.

P.S. "backlink" has a different meaning