AbstractWizardFormController and Browser's Back Button

[sethladd]

Hello,

I have a simple 2 page Wizard using AbstractWizardFormController. If the user is on the second page, and then hits the Back button on the browser, the first page shows up, but with none of the fields populated.

I would assume that because AWFC is uses a Session form, that viewing the first page again would show the form fields populated. I have not finished the wizard, so I wouldn't assume the form has been removed from the session.

Is it possible to use the browser's back button, and see the previous page with its form fields populated?

Thanks very much!
Seth

[croco]

Usually when the user clicks the Back button of the browser, the browser just redisplays the previous page from a local cache, without issuing a request to the web server. This is the reason why you were getting the first page empty.
In order to force the browser to make a request to the web server when using the Back button, you must set a pragma : no-cache header in your HttpServletResponse. Or you could use a meta tag in your HTML page.
There are some issues on how browsers interpret this no-cache directive. After a quick googling I have found these links:
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/nocache.html
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html