Jakarta Struts

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Course Length:

5 Days

Course Description:

This advanced course shows JSP and servlet programmers how to build "Model-2" Web applications using the Jakarta Struts project from Apache. Students learn the Struts architecture and see how it captures a great deal of pre-existing best practice in Web application development. They build applications from scratch using the Struts 1.1 code base, advancing through actions and action mappings, form beans, and request forwarding. They use relational data at the model layer and learn to configure JDBC data sources under Struts. Throughout, the course emphasizes the great facility in Struts of using XML declarations to replace boilerplate Java coding. The course then shifts from these controller techniques to a focus on presentation. Students learn to use various libraries of custom JSP tags: the JSP Standard Tag Library (which supersedes a number of Struts tags), Struts HTML tags for form-building and validation, and the Tiles library for robust and reusable page layouts. Two chapters near the end of the course treat issues of effective Struts development: one focuses on "under the hood" coding techniques and one on best practices at a design level. By the end of the course, students are building complex, internationalized Web applications that validate user input, handle error conditions gracefully, and make best use and reuse of control and presentation logic through actions, form beans, validators, business and persistence JavaBeans, and Tiles.

Who Should Attend:

Benefits of Attendance:

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Use Struts actions and action mappings to take control of HTTP requests/responses.
• Manage HTML form input and output with form beans, and use these beans to simplify data handling in the controller.
• Use persistent data in a Struts application with JDBC.
• Use JSTL and Struts custom tags to build robust and reusable JSP presentation logic.
• Support multiple client locales with various internationalization techniques.
• Define validation rules for input forms, and provide clear user feedback.
• Build complex presentations using decoupled, reusable tiles, screens and layouts.

Prerequisites:

Students should have experience with Java programming, Servlets programming, JSP, and basic knowledge of XML.

Course Outline:

• Chapter 1: Struts Architecture
  1. MVC and Model 2
  2. Command Pattern
  3. Jakarta Struts
  4. More XML, Less Java!
  5. Action Mappings
  6. JavaBeans in Struts
  7. Working with Forms
  8. Validation
  9. Relational Models
  10. Presentation Technology
  11. Tiles
• Chapter 2: Action Mappings
  1. Command Pattern for Web Applications
  2. ActionServlet
  3. Action
  4. ActionMapping
  5. Struts Configuration
  6. Selecting a Forward
  7. Global Forwards
  8. Forwarding Actions
  9. Other Action Subtypes
  10. Declarative Exception Handling
• Chapter 3: Forms
  1. Working with HTML Forms
  2. What Not To Do
  3. Action Forms
  4. Relationship to Input
  5. Relationship to Actions
  6. Relationship to the Model
  7. Relationship to Output
  8. DynaActionForm and Map-Backed Forms
  9. Validation
  10. Coarse-Grained Form Beans
• Chapter 4: Relational Data
  1. JDBC
  2. Drivers
  3. DriverManager (JDBC 1.0)
  4. DataSource (JDBC 2.0)
  5. Connection
  6. Statement
  7. ResultSet
  8. The Struts Data-Source Manager
  9. Multi-Tier Design
  10. Business Logic Beans
  11. Persistence Logic
  12. EJB
• Chapter 5: Struts Tag Libraries
  1. Building View Components
  2. Struts Tag Libraries
  3. Attributes
  4. Building Forms
  5. <html:form>
  6. <html:text> et. al.
  7. Forms and Form Beans
  8. Scope and Duration of Form Data
  9. Managing Hyperlinks
  10. Error Messages
  11. Logic Tags
• Chapter 6: The JSP Standard Tag Library
  1. JSTL Overview
  2. JSP Expression Language
  3. Core Tags
  4. Formatting Tags
  5. XML Tags
  6. SQL Tags
  7. Mixing JSTL, EL, Scripts and Actions
• Chapter 7: Internationalization And Localization
  1. i18n in Java
  2. Locale
  3. ResourceBundle
  4. i18n in Actions
  5. i18n in JSTL
  6. i18n in Validation
• Chapter 8: Input Validation
  1. Validation in Web Applications
  2. Validation in Struts
  3. The Struts Validator Plug-In
  4. Validating ActionForm Subtypes
  5. Configuring Validation
  6. Validators
  7. Rules
  8. Is <html:form> Necessary?
  9. Reporting Errors
  10. Multi-Page Validation
  11. Client-Side Validation
  12. Limitations on the Client Side
  13. Implementing a Validator
  14. Implementing ActionForm.validate
• Chapter 9: Under The Hood
  1. Global Objects and Keys
  2. Modules
  3. ActionServlet, RequestProcessor, ExceptionHandler
  4. Struts Configuration in Depth
  5. The org.apache.struts.config Package
  6. Plug-Ins
  7. Logging with Commons and Log4J
  8. Configuring Log4J
  9. Logging in Web Applications
  10. The org.apache.struts.util Package
  11. Commons BeanUtils
• Chapter 10: Best Practices
  1. Cardinalities in Struts Design
  2. Coarse-Grained Form Beans
  3. Many Actions from One View
  4. Multiple Forwards
  5. Many Mappings to One Action
  6. Chaining Actions
  7. Dynamic Forwarding
  8. Form Beans as Mediators
  9. Using Reflection and BeanUtils
  10. Reusing Validation Rules
  11. Mapping-Based Validation
  12. Graceful Validation
• Chapter 11: Tiles
  1. Consistent Look and Feel
  2. Reusable Layouts and Content
  3. The Tiles Framework
  4. Instantiating Layouts
  5. Body-Wrap Insertions
  6. Tiles and Stylesheets
  7. Working with Tiles Attributes
  8. The Tiles Context
  9. Definitions
  10. Aggregation and Inheritance
  11. The Tiles Plug-In
  12. Forwarding to Definitions
  13. Performance Considerations
• Appendix A: Learning Resources