Fast Track to Jakarta Struts

Struts is an open source, Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework developed by The Apache Software Foundation as part of its Jakarta project. Struts is built on top of JSP, Servlets, and custom tag libraries.

After reading the first J2EE Blueprints from Sun with their explanation of MVC and how to accomplish it with custom tags, Servlets, and JSP, one can clearly see that Struts is a manifestation of Sun's J2EE MVC vision.

Struts addresses many major issues in using vanilla Servlets/JSP to build web systems. It solves the problem of controller complexity by removing the workflow logic from the Servlets, and directing workflow in an XML configuration file. Struts improves on the limited form support in JSP by adding numerous capabilities to form processing including easy validation, easy error display, and the refilling of form input on form retries from a users previous entries. It minimizes the complexity of JSP pages, by integrating with the JSTL tag library, and additionally supplying a very extensive and flexible set of custom tag libraries for many of the standard operations needed in JSP pages.

This course will get you up to speed with Struts in a very short time. It includes all the important concepts, and hands on labs that will have you building working Struts applications in no time flat. In addition, this course covers how to extend the Struts framework to fit your unique needs.

Duration:
3 days
Supported Platforms:
Skills Gained:
Understand the shortcomings of servlets/JSP, and the need for a framework like Struts
Understand MVC, the Struts architecture, Struts controller, Struts views,  Struts resource bundles
Create & configure applications using Struts
Define views, actions, and FormBeans
Use Struts for form processing
Use ActionMappings
Handle errors and debug Struts applications
Use Struts Dynamic Forms capabilities
Utilize the Validator framework with Struts
Use the Bean, Logic, and HTML Custom Tag Libraries
Use the JSTL Tag Library with Struts
Use the Tiles library to manage your Look & Feel
Customize and extend Struts
And much more
Course Details:
Getting started with Struts
Jakarta Struts Project
MVC and Struts
Review Servlets, JSP and Web Applications
Struts Architecture
Your first Struts Application
Configuring Struts applications
Defining views – the input JSP
Defining ActionForms (FormBeans)
Defining Actions
Mapping the Model to the View
Review of Custom Tags
Introduction to JSTL (JSP Standard Template Library)
Using the Struts HTML Tags, Struts Bean Tags and Struts Logic Tags
Pre-populating forms from FormBeans
Errors and Debugging Struts Applications
Error Handling
Action Error and ActionErrors
ActionForm validate() method
Error Management in Action.execute()
Error display in JSP pages:  <html:errors> tag
Writing all errors to JSP page
Writing selected errors to JSP page
Handling exceptions
Declarative Exception Handling
Logging – A critical tool
Overview of logging
Simple Servlet Logging
Jakarta Commons Logging
Using Commons Logging
Log Message Levels
Apache log4j
Overview, Loggers, Appenders, Layouts, Using log4j    Dynamic Forms and the Validator Framework
Dynamic Forms
Issues with Regular Forms
Overview of Dynamic Forms
Configuring Dynamic Forms - The DynaActionForm and Form Properties
Using the Dynamic Form in the Action
The Validator Framework - Overview
Validation Rules
Adding Errors to the Resource Bundle
Using Validators with Dynamic and Static Forms
Important Predefined Validators : Email, mask, range, length, date and credit card validation
Using the Mask Rule
Working with the Tiles Custom Library
Issues with Managing JSP Complexity
View Reuse
The Tiles Framework
Defining Layouts for View Reuse
Using tiles:get, tiles:put, tiles:getAsString and tiles:insert
Tiles Definitions
JSP Definitions – Uses, Shortcomings
Using Definitions
XML Definitions
The Tiles Plugin
Tiles Controllers
Additional Capabilities
Forward and Include Actions
Setup Actions
DispatchAction
Managing Complexity
Multiple struts config files
Multiple resource bundles