The Java RIA Framework

Hi Pierre,
If I understand correctly your requirement, you might use the Jspresso built-in wizard action. It can be configured from the simplest use-case (as for your value entering) to the most complex, multi-step wizard. As it lacks documentation , let me give you some hints for using it :

1. The generic wizard front-end action is registered in the Spring context under the name wizardAction. So you will typically inherit the bean definition using the parent="wizardAction" when declaring yours.
2. The goal of the wizard action is to work on a map - the wizard model - (potentially containing other maps) that represents a hierarchical data structure that can be used seamlessly as model for any Jspresso view. In your case, the map will only contain 1 key-value pair (the property you want your user to enter). When finishing the wizard, the action context will contain the map with all the key-value pairs the user has created/modified through the wizard steps. It will be accessible in the action context under the ActionContextConstants.ACTION_PARAM key and will typically serve as input for the finish chained action.
3. The wizard action is configured using chained org.jspresso.framework.application.frontend.action.wizard.IWizardStepDescriptor. A concrete, directly usable, implementation of this interface is org.jspresso.framework.application.frontend.action.wizard.StaticWizardStepDescriptor. Each wizard step is highly configurable (name, description, icon,  ...) but its most important properties are :
   
   • viewDescriptor : the Jspresso view descriptor to be shown in the wizard GUI when the user enters this step. It can be arbitrarily complex (even with master-detail like views, inner actions, constraints, security enforcements, ...). Of course, the view descriptor needs a model descriptor. So you must describe the wizard model as you would do for persistent entities or components (so that step views can configure themselves). You will typically use a BasicComponentDescriptor without name so that it is automatically excluded from code generation. Note that your actual model object will be a map (and not Jpresso generated java bean) but Jspresso connectors are "smart" enough to detect the situation and work with the hierarchy of maps as if it was a hierarchy of java beans.
   • optional onEnterAction and onLeaveAction : actions that will respectively be executed when entering and when exitting the wizard step.
   • optional nextLabelKey and previousLabelKey : I18N keys for next and previous buttons if you want to change the default ones.
   • optional nextStepDescriptor : the next wizard step. If null, the wizard GUI will present the finish action.
4. The first wizard step is registered on the wizard action using the firstWizardStep property.
5. When the user leaves the last wizard step (clicking the finish action button), the finish action is triggered. The finish action can be registered on the wizard action using the finishAction property. This is typically the place where you explore the wizard map model - actionContext.get(ActionContextConstants.ACTION_PARAM) - to get back all the data the user has worked on. Note that the finish button is entirely configured from the finish action (label and icon).

This may seem a little bit complex but it is actually quite straightforward to implement.

Of course, don't hesitate to post back if you need more details or if the action doesn't work as expected.

Regards,
Vincent