Since my summer article on java.net I developed a different approach to page-embeddable Struts components. Now I can create them working on any SRV2.3/JSP1.2 compatible container including Tomcat 4.x and Tomcat 5.x.
Important: this is not an Ajax approach. Despite that the Redirect-after-Post pattern which I am using to implement the embeddable components is less relevant for ajaxified applications, it still makes a lot of sense for applications that do not use client-side scripting. Also, this approach can be easily combined with Ajax flavor where the component returns bare HTML chunk as modified view instead of fancy XML. Author of Simple Web Framework calls this approach In-Place Updating (IPU). I don't like how abbreviation sounds, but I like expanded name ;-) Check out live sample, which shows MailReader implemented with new component technique: http://www.superinterface.com/mailreadercmp (Only home page is of interest). What you see is a page with an HTML table. The table contains three cells. Left-top cell corresponds to default view for the home page, and contains welcome/main menu. Nothing interesting there, just a menu which displays links relevant to user's state. The other two cells are of more interest. The right cell embeds login component, the left-bottom cell embeds locale component. Use "user"/"pass" to log in, or create a new user if someone changed the password. See how the page reloads and other components change their presentation. Also try Back, Forward and Refresh buttons. Note that input is submitted to components *directly*. Request is not routed through Home action. Components are built in a way that they can be embedded into a page, but they do not know at design time which page they will be embedded into. They are informed about their parent page at runtime. So, the home page is kind of a simple portal page, but without portlet engine and portlet API. Components, once developed, can be inserted into any page with a simple <jsp:include> tag. The home page looks like this: ------------------------------ <%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" language="java" %> <%@ taglib uri="http://struts.apache.org/tags-bean"; prefix="bean" %> <%@ taglib uri="http://struts.apache.org/tags-html"; prefix="html" %> <%@ taglib uri="http://struts.apache.org/tags-logic"; prefix="logic" %> <html> <head> <html:base/> </head> <body> <h3>MailReader Home Page</h3> <table border="1"> <tr> <!-- State-sensitive Main Menu goes here --> <td> ... </td> <!-- This is login component --> <td rowspan="2"> <jsp:include page="loginComponent.jsp"/> </td> </tr> <tr> <!-- This is locale component --> <td> <jsp:include page="localeComponent.jsp" flush="false"> <jsp:param name="DIALOG-PARENT-LOCATION" value="HomeAggregate.do"/> </jsp:include> </td> </tr> </table> </body> </html> === cut here === The live site and source code presented here is a preview before I release the code for next version of Struts Dialogs. Hopefully, this preview will start further discussion. Is there interest in such approach? Michael. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
