ok i solved it using h:commandbutton erm new question
say i have 130 items in a List and i use t:dataTable to display them and i use a t:dataScroller to scroll through the data say a page holds 20 items if i drill down, to say, record number 23 on page number 2, the details for that record gets displayed.. no problem when i click the "back to list" button, the list is displayed, no problem.. but.. its displayed at the 1st page displaying records 1 to 20 how do i get it to display records 21-40 (the records it displayed before it displayed the record details). i've managed to use HtmlDataTable.getFirst() to get first item on the page but, i have no idea where to put the HtmlDataTable.setFirst(int value) code.