Multi-theme web applications require a theme switcher component. The default PrimeFaces' theme switcher is a component which enables switching themes on the fly, without sending an AJAX or a full-page request. We speak about a stateless theme switcher because the current selected theme is only known on the client side. Users also often need a stateful theme switcher to save the chosen theme on the server side in user preferences or settings.
In this recipe, we will show the usage of a stateless theme switcher and implement a stateful theme switcher, which is able to save the current selected theme on the server side.
The theme switcher usage is very similar to the usage of p:selectOneMenu. The component is represented by the p:themeSwitcher tag and accepts f:selectItem or f:selectItems. The code snippet for a stateless theme switcher is as follows:
<p:themeSwitcher style="width:165px" effect="fade"> <f:selectItem itemLabel="Choose...