actionSupport not rendering siblings

Question

Here is my code the idea is when the user picks a value from the drop down i want to render siblings. I looked at http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/Visualforce_DynamicEditPage but i can't get mine to render the conditional part at the bootom (the 2nd close date)

Any ideas how to accomplish this? I don't want to nest them in a pageblockSection

        <apex:page standardController="Opportunity" sidebar="false">
        <apex:sectionHeader title="Edit Opportunity" subtitle="{!opportunity.name}"/>
        <apex:form >
            <apex:pageBlock title="Edit Opportunity" id="thePageBlock" mode="edit">
                <apex:pageMessages />
                <apex:pageBlockButtons >
                    <apex:commandButton value="Save" action="{!save}"/>
                    <apex:commandButton value="Cancel" action="{!cancel}"/>                
                </apex:pageBlockButtons>
                <apex:actionRegion >
                    <apex:pageBlockSection title="Basic Information" columns="1">
                        <apex:inputField value="{!opportunity.name}"/>
                        <apex:pageBlockSectionItem >
                            <apex:outputLabel value="Stage"/>
                            <apex:outputPanel >
                                <apex:inputField value="{!opportunity.stageName}">
                                    <apex:actionSupport event="onchange" rerender="test"
                                                        status="status" />
                                </apex:inputField>
                                <apex:actionStatus startText="applying value..." id="status"/>
                            </apex:outputPanel>
                        </apex:pageBlockSectionItem>
                        <apex:inputField value="{!opportunity.amount}"/>
                        <apex:inputField value="{!opportunity.closedate}"/>
                    </apex:pageBlockSection>
                </apex:actionRegion>
                <apex:pageBlockSection title="Closed Lost Information" columns="1"
                                       rendered="{!opportunity.stageName == 'Closed Lost'}" id="test">
                    <apex:inputField value="{!opportunity.CloseDate}"  required="true"/>

                </apex:pageBlockSection>
            </apex:pageBlock>
        </apex:form>
    </apex:page>

Answer 1

The outputPanel with id=test does not render if at load the Stage is not Closed Lost. I don't believe it is possible to rerender an element (pageBlockSection in this case) which hasn't rendered when the page loaded. You would need to reRender a parent such as the pageBlock.

Here is a great blog post explaining this behaviour.

Answer 2

change your actionsupport as below as your action region encompasses other required fields which i believe are not getting validated:

<apex:actionSupport event="onchange" rerender="test, thePageBlock"
                                                        status="status" />

but it is better if you move the actionregion to include only the stage field (source) as below:

 <apex:pageBlockSection title="Basic Information" columns="1">
                        <apex:inputField value="{!opportunity.name}"/>
                        <apex:PageBlockSectionItem >
                         <apex:outputLabel value="Stage"/>
                         <apex:actionRegion >
                          <apex:inputField value="{!Opportunity.StageName}">
                          <apex:actionSupport event="onchange" reRender="test" />
                          </apex:inputField>
                         </apex:actionRegion>
                      </apex:PageBlockSectionItem>
                        <apex:inputField value="{!opportunity.amount}"/>
                        <apex:inputField value="{!opportunity.closedate}"/>
                    </apex:pageBlockSection>

                <apex:outputPanel id="test">
                <apex:pageBlockSection title="Closed Lost Information" columns="1"
                                       rendered="{!opportunity.stageName == 'Closed Lost'}">
                    <apex:inputField value="{!opportunity.CloseDate}"  required="true"/>

                </apex:pageBlockSection>
                </apex:outputPanel>