Might also need a simpleSelectOneMenu that uses the native browser widget like h:selectOneMenu, but works correctly with ICEfaces.

Another JIRA exists to also enhance ace:list to align its features when used as a "selectOneManyList" with those described in this JIRA (ICE-8934).

The ace:selectMenu is complete as of revision 33506.

One of the challenges in developing this component was having to use a text input element in order to use the ace:autoCompleteEntry code as the base for this component. Since, this is not a text entry component, it didn't make much sense to have a text input element. So, several approaches were tried to try to conceal the look of a text input field while still being able to use a text input element in order to be able to focus and blur the field and to be able to listen to several keypress events while the field has focus. Different techniques were tried to hide the text caret from the text input that made the component look like a text entry component. Most of them didn't work. There was one technique, consisting in hiding the text input element from the view, did work, but it was very elaborate. Eventually, it was found that it was possible to use a focusable span element and still be able to register all the keypress listeners on it that are necessary for this component to work.

Another challenge was to make the component work on IE browsers. Because of some fundamental differences in the event mechanism in IE, as opposed to other browsers, like the event bubbling order and focus policies, it was necessary to add substantial amounts of code in different places to handle the actions on IE browsers in a more specific way for those browsers.

Some of the most important features that this component supports are the following:

• Behaviour and looks resembiling an HTML <select> element.
• Usage of distinct selected and highlighted classes.
• Mechanism to preselect and to maintain the value across requests, as well as to support programmatic value changes.
• Support for using the Home, End, PageUp, and PageDown keys when navigating the different options.
• Support for selecting an option that starts with the character just typed while the component had focus.
• Automatic scroll to the most recent highlighted option, if it wasn't visible.
• Themeroller support.
• ace:ajax blur and valueChange events.
• Support for disabled items.
• ARIA support.
• Label and indicator positioning.
• Ability to set specific width and height to the list and value field
• Full support for styling every part of the component.

Another challenge had to do with the validation mechanism. Since this component extended from UISelectOne, the validation mechanism in this parent class verifies that the submitted value is exactly one of the options specified in the SelectItem children of the component. Since ace:selectMenu also supports rendering via a facet, which doesn't use instances of SelectItem, whenever the input is submitted it fails validation because the validation mechanism cannot match the submitted value to any SelectItem options, because there aren't any of them. Thus, the component had to be changed to extend from UIInput instead and implement its own validation mechanism that works for both cases: SelectItem's and facet rendering. It wasn't possible to keep UISelectOne as the parent and use the parent validation and then do some custom validation in this component, since the parent was already adding an error message, which is impossible to remove after the fact.

Committed changes at revision 33562.

Another situation that was identified was that there was no distinction between the item label and the item value of the options. Since, most of the code for this component was based on existing code for ace:autoCompleteEntry, which is a text entry component, there was no distinction between value and label (i.e. WYSIWYG). However, ace:selectMenu is a selection component, and the internal value in the application might not be exactly as it is presented to the user. So, it was necessary to make this distinction in the code and establish these conventions:

• When an option is selected, display the label in the field at the top, and put the value of the option in the hidden input for submitting to the server.
• In the case of facet rendering, collect all the text nodes of the item and use that as a label to display in the field at the top. Allow the app developer to specify what text should be ignored from the entry by adding the 'ui-select-item-ignore' CSS class to the component or ancestor tag whose contents should be ignored when determining the label.

Committed changes at revision 33584.

One other issue I noted is that on Chrome at least, in showcase, the first time you select a Province and the submit returns with the City component it causes the Province drop down to appear again.

Added missing attributes at revision 33927. Added label, indicator, and required styling demos at revision. 33936.