Passing ADF events between Task Flow regions

Passing events and handle these events in an ADF Task Flow region or page is in JDeveloper 11G very simple and you don't need to program java to achieve this. Lucas already made an article about this where he use java to achieve this.
To explain the ADF way, I made a page which is located in the default unbounded Task Flow adfc-config.xml. This ADF JSF page contains two bounded Task Flows. The Task Flow contains one page fragment with has its own HR department iterator.
In this blog I will show you the different ADF Event options.

Let's start with an easy one. When I press on the next button of the Left department region then I want that the right region also goes to the next department.
First we need to define the event. Start by opening the Left page fragment page ( this page will fire the event) and go the bindings tab. This will give you an overview of the ADF bindings. The Structure window will also give you an overview. Here we will select the Next action

Use the right button so we can add the events element to this action binding.

Add an event element to the events element.


Give the event a meaningfull name

That's all for defining event on a binding. You can add an event on every adf binding type( For example, a methodaction, an action or an attributevalue)
This is how it looks in the pagedef.

<action IterBinding="DepartmentsViewTFLeftIterator" id="Next"
       RequiresUpdateModel="true" Action="next">
 <events xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adfm/contextualEvent">
   <event name="LeftNext"/>
 </events>
</action>

The next step is to do something with this event. For this we need to open jsf the page which contains the departments Task Flow regions. This pagedef is the event mediator. It listen for events and can start the action or method in a pagedef.
Go the bindings tab of the jsf page and open the structure window.

Select the pagedef root node and press Edit Event Map


This opens the event wizard where we can add a new eventmap entry
We need to select the producer of the event. Go the pagedef of the department region and select the LeftNext event.

The next step is to select the action or method action in the other department region pagedf. You can only select action or methodactions. That's all. The next button in the left department also fire the next action of the right department region.

This is how the pagedef of the main jsf page looks like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<pageDefinition xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adfm/uimodel"
            version="11.1.1.51.88" id="mainPageDef"
            Package="nl.whitehorses.view.pageDefs">
<parameters/>
<executables>
<taskFlow id="taskflowdefinitionleft1"
          taskFlowId="/WEB-INF/task-flow-definition-left.xml#task-flow-definition-left"
          xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/controller/binding"/>
<taskFlow id="taskflowdefinitionright1"
          taskFlowId="/WEB-INF/task-flow-definition-right.xml#task-flow-definition-right"
          xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/controller/binding"/>
</executables>
<bindings/>
<eventMap xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adfm/contextualEvent">
<event name="LeftNext">
  <producer region="taskflowdefinitionleft1.leftPageDef.Next">
    <consumer region="taskflowdefinitionright1"
              handler="rightPageDef.Next"/>
  </producer>
</event>
</eventMap>
</pageDefinition>

We can make it more complex by adding parameters to an event. For this I will add an event to SetCurrentRowWithKeyValue operation in the left department and fire the SetCurrentRowWithKeyValue of the right region. So I can lookup the department in the left and right department region. The only difference with this and the Next action is that we need to pass the rowKey variable. We have to do the same actions as with the Next action event.
Add the rowKey variable and its value.
In my case I add a setActionlistener to the button which fires the setCurrentRow operation. This setActionlistener copies the rowkey to the request bean or you can use the special PayLoad variable.
The Payload variable has some handy attributes. For Example is you add an event on an attributevalue like departmentId then ${payload.newValue} contains the new value of the attribute.
If the called operation returns an value then this value is stored in the payload variable.

To fire more operations on an event we can add more consumers to an event. Here is an example of this.

   <event name="Change">
     <producer region="*">
       <consumer region="taskflowdefinitionright1"
                 handler="rightPageDef.valueMethod">
         <parameters>
           <parameter name="attribute" value="${payLoad.newValue}"/>
         </parameters>
       </consumer>
       <consumer region="taskflowdefinitionleft1"
                 handler="leftPageDef.valueMethod">
         <parameters>
           <parameter name="attribute" value="${payLoad.newValue}"/>
         </parameters>
       </consumer>
     </producer>
   </event>

In the example I used an * in the producer region. This means that it listen for an event with the name Change and it does not matter which pagedef fires this event.

Here is my example workspace.