JSF Navigation Tutorial - The three golden rules of use

Check also:
JSF Navigation Tutorial - Implicit Navigation
JSF Navigation Tutorial - Declarative Navigation
JSF Navigation Tutorial - Conditional Navigation
JSF Navigation Tutorial - Preemptive Navigation
JSF Navigation Tutorial - Programmatic Navigation

We can talk for hours and hours about JSF navigation, but there are at least three golden rules that save us from falling for the most common mistakes when we need to choose between GET and POST. It might be useful to know that:

• It is recommended to use the GET request for page-to-page navigation, search forms, URLs that you want to be visible and bookmarkable, and, in general, for any idempotent request. By specification, GET, HEAD, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS, and TRACE are idempotent.

Navigating via JSF GET request with <h:link/> and <h:button/>:

Navigating via non-JSF GET request with <h:outputLink/>:

• For requests that shouldn't be bookmarkable or use the same view repeatedly use POST and forward, not redirect.

Submitting and navigating via JSF POST request with <h:commandLink/> and <h:commandButton/> (using forward mechanism)

• For requests that shouldn't be bookmarkable, but have bookmarkable targets, use POST and redirect (PRG via faces-redirect).

Submitting and navigating via JSF POST request with <h:commandLink/> and <h:commandButton/> (using redirect mechanism)