I've been working with the <ice:inputRichText /> component and it seems like the only way to get the HTML contents (value) of the component into the server-side bean is to click the "Save" icon. This is counter-intuitive to the way that the rest of the ICEfaces input components work, such as the <ice:inputTextArea /> component.

In a typical web form, you expect to type-in values into fields, and hit a SUBMIT button at the bottom of the page. When I do this with an <ice:inputRichText /> component, the value is not submitted to the bean. Additionally, it does not pass its value in an "onblur" type of mechanism with ICEfaces partial submit.

Although the attached file is a portlet designed for use within Liferay, I suspect that this is a problem in the webapp world as well.

I guess what I'm saying is that from a usability perspective, we just can't expect the end-user to know that he has to click on the "Save" icon to partial-submit his rich text before clicking on the SUBMIT button at the bottom of the page.

To reproduce this scenario:

1. Download and Install the Liferay 4.4.2 + Tomcat 6.0.16 bundle
2. Run the bundle, which will create a $HOME/liferay/deploy folder
3. Download the sample-icefaces-rich-text-portlet.war attached to this ticket and copy to $HOME/liferay/deploy
5. Start IE7
6. Login as test@liferay.com with password test
7. Position the mouse over the "Welcome" dock in the upper right hand corner
8. Navigate to "My Places > My Community > Private Pages"
9. Add a page named "Rich Text"
10. Under the "Add Content" menu, expand the "Samples" category
11. Add the "Sample ICEfaces Rich Text" portlet
12. Monitor the Tomcat log
13. Type in a name in the "name" field and press TAB on the keyboard to cause an ONBLUR -- see that the setBiography() setter gets called via partial submit (since ICEfaces submits the whole form. Note that the default value of "I was born in 1902..." is passed to the setter.
14. Change the year in the rich text component from 1902 to 2002 and press TAB on the keyboard -- notice that the cursor DOES NOT LEAVE the rich text component as it should. What it should do, is cause an ONBLUR event, invoke the ICEfaces partial submit mechanism, and then send input focus to the SUBMIT button.
15. Click on the SUBMIT button -- check the Tomcat log, and note that the new year value of "2002" is not passed to the setter -- instead, "1902" is passed.