Struts 2.1 is a modern, extensible, agile web application framework, which is suitable for both small- and large-scale web applications.
The book begins with a comprehensive look at the basics of Struts 2.1, interspersed with detours into more advanced development topics. You'll learn about configuring Struts 2.1 actions, results, and interceptors via both XML and Java annotations. You'll get an introduction to most of the Struts 2.1 custom tags, and also learn how they can assist in rapid application prototyping and development.
From there, you'll make your way into Struts 2.1's strong support for form validation and type conversion, which allows you to treat your form values as domain objects without cluttering your code. A look at Struts 2.1's interceptors is the final piece of the Struts 2.1 puzzle, which allows you to leverage the standard Struts 2 interceptors, as well as implement your own custom behavior.
After covering Struts 2.1, you'll journey into the world of JavaScript (a surprisingly capable language), the Document Object Model (DOM), and CSS, and learn how to create clean and concise client-side behavior. You'll leverage that knowledge as you move on to Struts 2 themes and templates, which give you a powerful way to encapsulate site-wide user interface behavior.
The book closes with a look at some tools that make the application development life cycle easier to manage, particularly in a team environment, and more automatic.
Chapter 1 gives us a bird's-eye view of Struts 2 and examines some useful techniques of lightweight, agile development.
Chapter 2 gives an introduction to Struts 2 application configuration, using both XML and annotations. It also covers the beginning of our sample application, RecipeBox.
Chapter 3 covers some of the functionality provided by Struts 2's ActionSupport class, including I18N, and a first look at form validation. It also covers some basic RecipeBox functionality after gathering some user stories.
Chapter 4 examines several common, standard Struts 2 result types. It also covers how to write our own custom result types.
Chapter 5 gives an in-depth look at the generic Struts 2 custom tags. These include tags for iteration, list generation, conditionals, and internationalization (I18N).
Chapter 6 continues our exploration of Struts 2 custom tags, focusing especially on its form tags.
Chapter 7 examines Struts 2 form validation, including both XML and annotation-driven validation. It also teaches more about how Struts 2 converts our form values into domain objects, and shows how to create our own type converters to handle custom data types.
Chapter 8 finishes our comprehensive introduction to Struts 2, by checking out the included Struts 2 interceptors. It also discusses how to write and configure our own interceptors.
Chapter 9 looks at how to handle errors in Struts 2, as well as discusses error and exception handling in general. It also covers some general Java logging topics, focusing on using Apache Commons Logging and Log4J.
Chapter 10 explores how to best leverage JavaScript and how to keep it modular.
Chapter 11 covers the client-side functionality, which depends on more than JavaScript. By using CSS and the DOM effectively, we can accomplish a lot with a minimal amount of code.
Chapter 12 covers Struts 2 themes and templates. The themes and templates in Struts 2 allow for application-wide functionality on the client side, keeping our JSP pages lightweight and adaptable. Rather than writing boilerplate HTML on our pages, we can separate it into themes and templates.
Chapter 13 takes a look at some of Struts 2's built-in support for Ajax using the Dojo tags. It also covers the Struts 2 REST plug-in that furthers our "convention over configuration" path.
Chapter 14 covers how to apply the TDD concepts to several testing aspects, including unit, functional, and acceptance tests.
Chapter 15 looks at many aspects of documentation, including "self-documenting" code, Javadocs, generators, methodologies, and so on, with a focus on automating as much documentation as possible.
You'll need all the typical Java web application development tools. An IDE is very handy, but it doesn't matter which one you use. Almost any modern application server can be used to run the sample application.
Having an Internet connection while reading is extremely useful. The Struts 2 download includes the documentation wiki, along with the XWork and Struts 2 API Javadocs. However, we may also need to reference the Servlet API, various library APIs, and so on. Having access to the Struts 2 user mailing list can also be very beneficial, as sometimes searching the web for a question is the quickest way to get it answered.
The most important requirements aren't dependent on a particular Java version or specification. Curiosity, willingness to experiment, and patience will never be written up as a JSR, but they're critical qualities in a developer. It's perfectly fine to never learn the ins and outs of a framework. However, by digging into the documentation, and especially the source, we gain a much better understanding of why things happen the way they do. This increases our efficiency, our usefulness, and our value.
This book is for Java developers who are interested in developing web applications using Struts. If you need a comprehensive introduction to Struts 2.1, along with the most important aspects of additional web application development technologies, agile programming practices, tool creation, and application life cycle management, this book is for you. You needn't know JavaScript and CSS to use this book, as the author will teach you the required basics.
If you are a Struts 1 or WebWork user, and wish to go ahead and migrate to Struts 2, this is a perfectly practical guide for you.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "ActionSupport is an XWork class that provides validation and default implementations of several common interfaces needed for I18N."
A block of code will be set as follows:
package com.packt.s2wad.ch03.actions.i18n;
public class TextExamplesAction extends ActionSupport
implements TextInterface {
private static Log log =
LogFactory.getLog(TextExamplesAction.class);
public String execute() throws Exception {
log.debug(getText("from.class.props"));
return SUCCESS;
}
}
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items will be shown in bold:
<!-- Incorrect "validation" interceptor configuration. -->
<action name="brokenConfiguration"
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
$ find . -name "*.java" | xargs grep -l "public interface"
./com/opensymphony/xwork2/Action.java
New terms and important words are shown in bold.
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