[SalesForce] Update Record values on Visualforce Extension by actionSupport

Background

I have a VF page that use StandardController="Opportunity" and also extensions="OpportunityControllerExt".

I'm showing the opp.stageName and the opp.Probability. When the StageName changes I need to update the right probability.

Approach

I've created a map<stageName,probability> and also a actionSupport onchange that update the probability (for visualisation) on my extension.

sample code:

page:

<apex:actionRegion >
                    <apex:inputField value="{!Opportunity.StageName}" id="status">
                        <apex:actionSupport event="onchange" action="{!updateProbability}"
                            rerender="blockSection"  immediate="true">
                        </apex:actionSupport>    
                    </apex:inputField>    
                </apex:actionRegion>  

<apex:inputField value="{!Opportunity.Probability}" id="probability"/>

extension:

public class OpportunityControllerExt {
    public static Opportunity opp {get;set;}
   
    private map<string,decimal> probabilities = new map<string,decimal>();
    public OpportunityControllerExt(ApexPages.StandardController stdController){        
        OpportunityControllerExt.opp = (Opportunity)stdController.getRecord();
        .....
    }
    public PageReference updateProbability(){
        //probabilities map was made before
        OpportunityControllerExt.opp.Probability = probabilities.get(OpportunityControllerExt.opp.StageName);
        
        return null;
    }

The method is called fine, but…

Problem

The referenced Opp on my extension is not getting the updated value of stageName. I think that I'm doing something wrong when i'm binding the opp record.

Question

Is any way to get a changed field value from and extension and then update the value of other field?

Best Answer

Yes. You have specified immediate="true". Doing that causes the setters to not be called, so the value is not set. You need to change it to immediate="false" or just remove it as false is the default.

The <apex:actionSupport> documentation doesn't exactly specify that, so it isn't clear. Note that setting immediate="false" will cause validation to fire, so if you have anything like required fields or something on the page you should look into using <apex:actionRegion> to limit what is processed on the submission.

The Order of Execution for Visualforce Postback Requests documents the behavior of immediate="true", specifically that the view state is not decoded (i.e., new values won't be used). It has the following for step #1 in the processing:

During a postback request, the view state is decoded and used as the basis for updating the values on the page.

Note A component with the immediate attribute set to true bypasses this phase of the request. In other words, the action executes, but no validation is performed on the inputs and no data changes on the page.

A common use of immediate="true" is navigating via a command button. For example:

<apex:commandButton action="{!cancel}" value="Cancel" immediate="true"/>

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Controller Extension Test – action method in actionSupport not invoked automatically

The test environment really only handles Apex code. AFAIK the only value of Test.setCurrentPage is to fake the return value of ApexPages.currentPage() that an Apex controller might rely on. The Visualforce page is not executed to produce HTML and there is no emulation of a browser and its DOM events such as "onchange".

So your Apex test code has to take the place of the Visualforce and directly call the methods and reference the properties. That makes it possible to check that the Apex does what you expect it to to. If your Visualforce is doing relatively little, then that is probably enough. And the Visualforce can be manually tested...

But if you want to automate the testing of how the overall combination of Visualforce (and perhaps jQuery) and the Apex controller work together, then you will have to build UI-level tests too and Selenium is the commonly chosen platform to use for that. But it is quite a lot of work and such tests tend to be fragile unless carefully written, where a small change in a page can break lots of tests.

[SalesForce] Visualforce – ActionFunction and ActionSupport not calling action methods

When rerendering an outputpanel, you must rerender a container. Wrap your outputpanels in another outputpanel and use the outer panel when rerendering. Here is an example of an action function that may help you achieve what you're trying to accomplish.

******* VISUALFORCE ******

<apex:page controller="TestLookupActionFunctionCtrl">

<script>

  function myFunc(){
    myAction();    
  }

</script>

<apex:form id="myform">
  <apex:actionFunction name="myAction" action="{!test}" reRender="RerenderMe" />
    <apex:pageBlock >
      <apex:pageBlockSection title="Section 1">

        <!-- Change onKeyup to the event you desire. onChange, onBlur, etc.  -->
        <apex:inputField value="{!c.Department}" onKeyup="myFunc()" />

        <!-- You must rerender a container.  We wrap the conditionally rendered outputPanel in another outputPanel.  Then rerender the outer panel. -->
        <apex:outputpanel id="RerenderMe">

        <!-- Inner panel rendered based on boolean in controller -->
        <apex:outputpanel id="out" rendered="{!show}">
          <apex:outputLabel for="output" value="The Output: ">
            <apex:outputfield value="{!c.department}"/>
          </apex:outputlabel>
        </apex:outputpanel>
        </apex:outputpanel>
      </apex:pageBlockSection>
    </apex:pageBlock>
</apex:form>
</apex:page>

********* CONTROLLER **********

public class TestLookupActionFunctionCtrl {

public Contact c {get;set;}

public boolean show {get;set;}

public TestLookupActionFunctionCtrl() {
    c = new Contact();
    show = false;
}

public PageReference test() {
    show = true;
    return null;
}
}