NAVIGATING WITHIN WIZARD

Navigation among all the steps of a wizard is a important feature because users must be allowed to ba able to get back a previous step or to go to the second step to update his input.

NEXT STEP

The process to go to the next step is not handled by the API. It is your choice to go to page you want/need, depending or not on the user's input. The only thing the API does is to keep trace of where the user has been.

One of this API's benefits is to store as many fields as the user entered. If the user switches from step 1 to step 6 for example, all the fields of steps 2 to 5 won't be stored at all (--> memory gain).

BACK STEP

Because the API knows which steps the user has done, the process to go back to the previous step can be automatic. The plugin provides a class named WizardBackAction which handles all the process. All you need to do is declaring this action in your struts-config file and calling it like this :

<html:form action="goBack">
<html:submit>back</html:submit>
</html:form>

<action path="/goBack" type="net.aejase.plugin.wizard.actions.WizardBack Action" />

No parameters are necessary.

DIRECT ACCESS

To go directly to a specific step of a wizard, this API provides a specific action named WizardDirectAction. A parameter is needed to know wherre to go; there is two type of parameter : formIndex and formName. One of thses parameter needs to be passed to the action.

You can do it with a link : <a href="directWizard.do?formAction=/message">. You can also do it with a form. If this is the case, the WizardDirectAction must be linked in your struts-config file with the WizardDirectForm which contains two fields, formName and formIndex.

Do not forget to declare the action and the form in your struts-config file.

<form-bean name="wizardDirectForm" type="net.aejase.plugin.wizard.Wizard DirectForm" />
<action path="/directWizard" type="net.aejase.plugin.wizard.actions.Wizard DirectAction" name="wizardDirectForm" validate="false" scope="request" />