User input either from drop down list or input text filed

[Gopu Akraju]

I am trying to craete a JSF page. I want to get the user input either from a drop down list or input text field
If the user starts typing in "input text" then the drop down list should be disabled. Otherwise if the user selects a name from the drop down list, then input text filed should be disabled. I tried as follows. But it doesn't work properly. Can anyone give me some suggestion?

<h:selectOneMenu id="selectName" onchange="submit()" valueChangeListener="#{Bean.tprocess}" value="#{Bean.currentName}" >
                    <f:selectItems value="#{Bean.sampleNameList}"/>
                </h:selectOneMenu>
                
                <h:inputText id="input the Name"   onchange="submit()" valueChangeListener="#{Bean.tprocess}" disabled="#{selectName}" value="#{Bean.currentName}"/>
                
                <h:commandButton action="#{Bean.selectRunDetail}" value="Next>>"/>

public String process(ValueChangeEvent e){
        return "ChooseNamePage";
    }
    
    public String tprocess(ValueChangeEvent e){
        return "ChooseNamePage";
    }

[Gopu Akraju]

Should I use Ajax for this? But I haven't used it before.
So any simple solution for the above situation? Thanks.

[Tim Holloway]

What you are describing closely resembles a ComboBox control, except that a traditional ComboBox doesn't actually disable the list, since typing can be used to more rapidly locate an entry in the list. A variation of this for Web 2.0 is to use AJAX to cause the list to dynamically adjust itself based on what has already been typed.

Basic HTML does not support a ComboBox control, although a lot of OS native GUIs do. Because of that, you have to use JavaScript to glue a TextBox and a Select control together. Or, better yet, find a JSF extension tag library that does ComboBoxes for you.