WComponent content models

• WComponents by content type
  • Any content
  • Components which require phrasing content
  • Components which must not include interactive controls
• WComponents by category
  • Phrasing content
  • Flow content which is not phrasing content
  • Sectioning content
  • form-bound controls
  • No output
• Further information

WComponents by content type

The following lists the allowed content types for container WComponents. For information about content types see

• Content model definition on WHATWG
• Content categories on WHATWG

Any content

These WComponents may contain any content including form-bound controls:

• WCollapsible;
• WContainer;
• WPanel (and therefore WAjaxPollingRegion;
• WFieldSet;
• WFigure;
• WSection;
• WDecoratedLabel if it is the title component of a WSection, the description of a WFigure or a column header in a WTable.

Components which require phrasing content

The WComponents below may have other WComponents added to them but may not contain any of the WComponents which output content which is not phrasing content (see below)

• WDecoratedLabel including:

  • the title component of a WCollapsible;
  • the title component of a WFieldSet;
  • the title component of a WHeading;
  • the title component of a WSection;
  • the title component of a WSubMenu;
  • the title component of a WMenuItem;
  • the title component of a WTab;

  unless the WDecoratedLabel is the title component of a WSection, the description of a WFigure or a column header in a WTable;

• WLabel.

Components which must not include interactive controls

The following WComponents are able to accept other components as content but which may not contain any of the form bound controls listed on this page.

• the title component of a WSubMenu;
• the title component of a WMenuItem;
• the title component of a WTab before v1.2.3;
• WLabel (with some exceptions which are harder to implement than not).

In addition it is strongly recommended that the title component of a WTab and the title component of a WCollapsible should not contain interactive components.

WComponents by category

The following lists WComponents by their category. You should also consult the list of WComponent form controls.

Phrasing content

These WComponents are stand-alone components which output only phrasing content and may, therefore be used anywhere where phrasing content is permitted.

• WAbbrText;
• WContentLink;
• WDecoratedLabel unless it is the titling element of a WSection, the title component of a WTab (from 1.2x) or a column in a WTable;
• WImage;
• WInternaLink;
• WLabel;
• WLink;
• WProgressBar;
• WStyledText unless the whiteSpace property is PARAGRAPH or PRESERVE;
• WText;
• WComponents which output labelable elements except WDateField, WPartialDateField and WTextArea in rich-text mode - note that these components may not be used where interactive components are forbidden;
• WComponents which output labelable elements if the readOnly property is true except WTextArea in rich-text mode which outputs non-phrasing content and may output form-bound controls.

Flow content which is not phrasing content

The following WComponents are those which are stand-alone components so can be placed anywhere in the Java tree but output HTML which contains one or more elements which are incompatible with a phrasing content content model. None of these elements may be used where phrasing content is required.

• WAjaxPollingRegion
• WAudio;
• WCollapsible;
• WCollapsibleToggle;
• WDateField unless the readOnly property is true;
• WDefinitionList;
• WDialog;
• WDropdown if the type property is COMBO;
• WFieldLayout;
• WFieldSet;
• WFieldWarningIndicator;
• WFigure;
• WHeading;
• WHorizontalRule;
• WMenu;
• WMessageBox;
• WPanel;
• WPartialDateField;
• WRow;
• WSection;
• WSelectToggle unless the renderAs property is CONTROL;
• WStyledText if the whiteSpace property is PARAGRAPH or PRESERVE;
• WTable;
• WTabSet;
• WTree;
• WValidationErrors;
• WVideo;
• All WComponents which output complex form controls.

Sectioning content

The following components will output sectioning content:

• WPanel (and therefore WAjaxPollingRegion) if the Type property is ACTION or CHROME;
• WSection.

Sectioning roots

The following WComponents will output a sectioning root.

• WCollapsible;
• WDialog;
• WFieldSet;
• WFigure.

form-bound controls

• See WComponent form controls.

No output

WComponents without UI artefacts (except WComponents in a hidden state) do not output HTML at the point in the output tree equivalent to their point in the component tree.

For most purposes they can be considered empty and any WComponent or (or sub-component which outputs a wrapper element) which contains only one or more of these components suffers from being empty.

A WComponent which contains only WComponents without UI artefacts (including WComponents in a hidden state) does not have palpable content which may create an accessibility issue.

Further information

• List of WComponents
• WComponent form controls
• WComponents without UI artefacts