PrimeFaces Extensions Showcase

BlockUI

BlockUI component allows to block any piece(s) of page during various Ajax calls. Blocking is initiated by a "source" component which blocks one or more "target" components. BlockUI adds a layer and any custom content over target elements to be blocked and gives the appearance and behavior of blocking user interaction. It's very handy if you have e.g. a large datatable and sorting, filtering, pagination takes much time. You can block everything, even the entire page, but keep im mind that some HTML elements as table or span can not be blocked. The best approach is to wrap them in a div (h:panelGroup with layout="block").

There are two methods how to use BlockUI. The first one utilizes widget's JavaScript API. This method is shown in the first use case. The second one utilizes jQuery global ajax callbacks. This method hooks into ajax calls automatically, so that there are no needs to call block() / unblock() explicitly. This is so-called "autoShow" mode which is demonstrated in the second use case. Keep in mind please that some PrimeFaces components and p:ajax have the "global" attribute. Setting "global" to false will not trigger BlockUI in "autoShow" mode.

BlockUI is smart enough to recognize multiply blocking of the same element by different ajax calls. Only when all ajax calls finish their work, the blocked element gets unblocked.

Use Cases

Documentation pe:blockUI

Attributes (move mouse over the names to see data types)

Name	Description
autoShow	When true, the block is shown automatically when source triggers.Default is false.
binding	An EL expression referring to a server side UIComponent instance in a backing bean.Default is generated.
centerX	Whether to center the block message horizontally.Default is true.
centerY	Whether to center the block message vertically.Default is true.
content	Search expression for the component whose markup is used as blocking content.
css	CSS to be applied to the blocking overlay.
cssOverlay	CSS to be applied to the overlay element.
event	Comma-separated list of event names that trigger the block. If empty, all events from source are accepted.
fadeIn	Fade-in duration in milliseconds.Default is 200.
fadeOut	Fade-out duration in milliseconds.Default is 400.
focusInput	Whether to focus the first input in the block content.Default is true.
id	Unique identifier of the component in a namingContainer.Default is generated.
rendered	Boolean value to specify the rendering of the component, when set to false component will not be rendered.Default is true.
showOverlay	Whether to show the overlay.Default is true.
source	Search expression for the component(s) to block.Default is parent.
target	Search expression for the element to use as the blocking container.
timeout	Timeout in milliseconds to automatically unblock. 0 means no timeout.Default is 0.
widgetVar	Name of the client side widget.