Course Description:

Fast Track to Jakarta Struts Using Rational™ Application Developer (RAD)

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.

All labs are done using the RAD Development Environment, and the lab instructions include detailed directions on using RAD and the RAD wizards and tools.

Course Information

Duration: 3 days

Hands-on: 50% hands-on, 50% lecture

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