Taken from Learning JSF2: Ajax in JSF – using f:ajax tag
Sending an Ajax request
JSF comes with one tag to send an Ajax request, the tag is called
f:ajax. This tag is actually a client side behavior. Being a behavior
implies it’s never just used by itself on a page, it is always added
as a child tag (behavior) to another UI component (or can even wrap
several components). Let’s use a small echo application to demonstrate
usage of this tag.
<h:form>
<h:panelGrid>
<h:inputText value="#{bean.text}" >
<f:ajax event="keyup" render="text"/>
</h:inputText>
<h:outputText id="text" value="#{bean.text}" />
</h:panelGrid>
</h:form>
Code snippet above takes care of firing an Ajax request based on onkeyup event. Notice the actual event name is keyup. This takes care of firing an Ajax request. Next we need to figure out how to do partial view rendering.
Attribute Description event:
String on which event Ajax request will be
fired. If not specified, a default behavior based on parent component
will be applied. The default event is action for ActionSource (ie:
button) components and valueChange for EditableValueHolder components
(ie: input). action and valueChange are actual String values that can
be applied applied event attribute.