1. Michael Rimov Centerline Computers Craig McClanahan Sun Microsystems O’Reilly Open Source Convention July 7 - 11, 2003

2. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Introduction Presentation Slides, Notes and Samples Available At: http://www.centercomp.com/beyondstruts/

3. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan What Defines Struts? Lightweight Model 2 J2EE framework for the HTTP Servlet portion of the application. NOT Meant to dictate the entire J2EE implementation.

4. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Model 2 Typical Flow MVC Based Model 2 Architecture Diagram

5. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Abbreviated Model

6. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan What Makes Struts So Extensible? Lightweight and Focused: Doesn’t Try To Do Everything. Well Designed: Very good separation of concerns, very clean coding implementation. Uses Java Reflection to allow freedom of objects.

7. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Studies

8. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Studies Struts and Expresso Struts and Macromedia Flash Struts and XML Struts and Java Server Faces

9. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Expresso 5 http:// www.jcorporate.com /

10. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Expresso 5

11. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Expresso 5 Controller Extension: Provided Application Level Security Matrix Added in-request routing ability. Provided mostly-Servlet Independent flow of control.

12. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Expresso 5 Struts Action: public ActionForward perform( ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) Expresso Version: protected void runPromptLoginState (ControllerRequest request, ControllerResponse response)

13. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Expresso 5 Model Extension: ControllerRequest / ControllerResponse objects. ControllerResponse is populated with Inputs/Outputs/Blocks/Transitions. Can use Struts Beans as well. Added Database Access Layer

14. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Expresso 5 View Extension: Default UI Renderer Customizable XSLT Processing Capabilities. Compatible with Struts Views.

15. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Expresso 5 Integration Experiences: Extremely supportive community Reaped Performance Improvements Partial Integrations still work well. Easy to extend even the Struts internals.

16. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Macromedia Flash http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash

17. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Macromedia Flash

18. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Macromedia Flash Integration Methods: XMLSocket and XML formatted pages. LoadVariables and property formatted pages. NOT covering Flash Remoting All Integration methods need some sort of template view system such as JSP or Velocity.

19. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Macromedia Flash Start Page Tell Flash Where To Get Its Data.

20. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Macromedia Flash XML Socket Method Create Flash Starting Page Load initial data through the ‘data’ parameter. On-submit, the movie opens an XML Socket to the server and Struts. Struts formats return data as XML.

21. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Macromedia Flash XML Socket Method: Drawbacks XML Parsing on the Client Side. XML Parsing on the Server Side Expansion of Bandwidth

22. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Macromedia Flash Load Variables Method Create Flash Starting Page Load initial data through the ‘data’ parameter. On-submit, the movie opens an http request to the server. Struts formats return data in a “property=value” format.

23. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Macromedia Flash Load Variables Method: Drawbacks Simple format of return data only. Fancier formats require parsing again. Similar drawbacks as XMLSocket. Recommended you use simple beans for rendering only Flash 6 Only

24. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Quick ActionScript Sample on (release) { LoadVars lv = new LoadVars(); LoadVars receiveVars = new LoadVars(); lv.loginName=LoginName; lv.password = Password; receiveVars.onLoad = processResult; //Not Shown Here lv.sendAndLoad(data,receiveVars,"POST"); }

25. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Introducing Craig McClanahan

26. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Struts and XML

27. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Struts and XML Most Struts apps generate HTML –With the Struts HTML tags (JSP) –With alternative presentation systems like Velocity and Freemarker Templates accessed via RequestDispatcher. forward() call, but there's another way... Action.execute() -- return null to indicate that the response has been created already Opens the door to XML-based output

28. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Struts and XML: General Approach Form submitted to Action, as usual Action creates result beans, as usual, or renders XML objects Action renders XML directly (or forwards to an XML-generating template) Template incorporates dynamic data from result beans or rendered XML objects XSLT stylesheet(s) transform to HTML or other markup language

29. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Struts and XML: Resources JSP and JSTL can be used directly instead of HTML tags Two Popular Struts and XML Extensions: –StrutsCX Http://it.cappuccinonet.com/strutscx/ –Stxx http://www.openroad.ca/opencode/ More information online, on the Struts Resources pages: http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/resources/

30. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: Struts and JavaServer Faces

31. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Case Study: JavaServer Faces What Is JavaServer Faces? –Server-side user interface component framework for Java-based web apps –Under development in the Java Community Process (JSR-127) –Currently at Public Draft 2 in the process –Early Access 4 of Reference Implementation is available –http://java.sun.com/j2ee/javaserverfaces/

32. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces: Goals Accessible to corporate developers Usable via tools and by hand Usable with and without JSP Usable with and without HTML Usable with servlet and portlet APIs Can be adopted immediately –Minimum platform: Servlet 2.3, JSP 1.2 –Final 1.0 version: 4QCY2003

33. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces: Features Extensible UI component model Flexible rendering model –Standard HTML renderkit included Event and listener model Validation framework Basic page navigation support Internationalization and accessibility

34. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces: Sample Page <h:input_text id=”username” length=”16” valueRef=”logonBean.username”/> <h:input_secret id=”password” length=”16” valueRef=”logonBean.password”/>

35. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces: Sample Page <h:command_button type=”submit” label=”Log On” actionRef=”logonBean.logon”/> <h:command_button type=”reset” label=”Reset”/>

36. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces: Managed Bean logonBean mypackage.mybeans.LogonBean request

37. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces: Bean Class public class LogonBean { // No base class! // The usual property getters/setters public String getUsername() {... } public void setUsername(String username) {... } public String getPassword() {... } public void setPassword(String password) {... }

38. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces: Bean Class... // Getter returns “Action” for button public Action getLogon() { // Anonymous inner class used here return new Action() { public String invoke() { // Invoke method on bean class return (logon()); } }; }

39. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces: Bean Class... protected String logon() { // Business logic can access form fields // as instance variables if (username/password combo is ok) { return (“success”); // Logical outcome } else { return (null); }

40. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces: Navigation // Wildcard and global patterns ok /logon.jsp // Optional logonBean.logon // Optional success /mainmenu.jsp

41. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces and Struts So, is JavaServer Faces Replacing Struts? –NO!!! –Struts 1.1 is and remains very popular –Struts will continue to innovate & advance Then, can I use them together? –YES!!! –With the Struts-Faces Integration Library http://jakarta.apache.org/builds/jakarta- struts/ release/struts-faces/

42. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces And Struts Replaces Struts HTML Tags With More Powerful JavaServer Faces Components Continue to use struts-config.xml file Integrates with Struts RequestProcessor Supports Standard Struts Features: –Form Beans and Actions –Validator Framework –Tiles Framework (coming soon...)

43. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan JavaServer Faces and Struts To use the library with an existing app: –Get the JavaServer Faces RI –Drop it and struts-faces.jar into your /WEB- INF/lib directory –Change HTML tags on one page at a time –Tweak your forward paths, and –Don't touch your form beans or actions MVC works... what a concept :-).

44. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Conclusion

45. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan Presentation Information Michael Rimov: rimovm@centercomp.com Craig McClanahan: craigmcc@apache.org Slides, Notes and Sample Code Available http://www.centercomp.com/beyondstruts/

46. Michael Rimov & Craig McClanahan