Prior to Version 1.1, each Struts application was limited to a single configuration file. The single instance of the file, normally called struts-config.xml , was specified in the web application deployment descriptor. It was the sole provider of the configuration information for the Struts application. The fact that there was only one place to put configuration information made it very difficult for larger projects, because it often became a bottleneck and caused contentions to use and modify this file.

With the advent of multi-application support in Version 1.1, this problem has been alleviated. You now can define multiple configuration files, allowing developers to work better in parallel. Applications modules, as they currently are known, are discussed further in Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, and Chapter 7.