After completing this course, the student should be able to:

• Understand and explain the Jakarta Struts framework
• Design and build Struts based applications

• Struts Architecture and Overview
• A Simple Struts Application
• Struts Development Cycle
• Struts Tag Libraries
• Struts Extensions, Internationalization, Error Handling and Logging
• Miscellaneous Advanced Features such as Validators and DynaActionForm
• Database Programming
• Templates and Tiles
• Unit Testing Struts Applications - StrutsTestCase
• JSTL

1. Struts Architecture and Overview
• Introduction to Struts
• Objectives
• Review: MVC model
• What is Struts?
• Struts flow
• Components in Struts?
  • The Model
  • The View
  • The Controller
  
  
• struts-config.xml
  • The <data-sources> element
  • The <form-beans> element
  • The <global-forwards> element
  • The <action-mappings> element
  • Sample
  
  
• The role of web.xml for the application
• Configuring Struts in web.xml
  • web.xml content
  • Steps to configuring Struts in web.xml
  • Sample
  
  
• Summary


2. A Simple Struts Application
• The Goal of the Application
• The input form· The struts-config.xml
• The Form Bean class
• The Action class
• The result page


3. Struts features in WSAD
• Objectives
• Struts binary distribution
• Directory structure of Struts application
  • Example
  
  
• WSAD support for Struts
• Developing a web application using WSAD features of Struts


4. Struts Development Cycle
• Objectives
• Struts development cycle
• Gathering requirements
• Defining screen requirements
  • Data vs. FormBean
  • define FormBean
  
  
• Determining the screen flow
• Defining the ActionMappings in struts-config.xml
• Developing the FormBean
  • The reset ( ) method
  • Form validation using the validate ( ) method
  • ActionError
  • Define message key
  
  
• Developing Action Class
  • Action and Action Class
  • The execute() method
  • ActionForward
  • ActionMapping class
  • execute() example
  • Example execute() method
  • Developing business logic - EJB
  
  
• Developing JSPs
• Configuring struts-config.xml and web.xml
• Build, pack and deploy


5. Struts Tag Libraries
• Objectives
• JSP taglib directive
• Components of a tag library
• The JSP File
• The tag library descriptor
• The tag Handler Class
• An example
  • The TLD File - carPrice.tld
  • TDL File - example
  • The Handler Class - CarPriceHandler.java
  • The Handler Class - example
  • The JSP File - Carprice.jsp
  
  
• Tag Lib Handler life cycle
• Directory structure: where custom tag libraries fit
• Struts TagLib
• Bean tags
  • bean:message
  • bean:define
  • bean:page
  • bean:include
  • bean:cookie
  • HTML tags
    • html:form
    • html:submit
    • html:text
    • html:link
    • html:password
  • Logic tags
    • Functionality
    • logic:equal
    • logic:iterate
  • Template tags


6. Struts Plugin, Internationalization and Error Handling
• Objectives
• Struts plugins
  • Creating a plugin
  • Configuring a plugin
• Internationalization
  • Struts Internationalization Mechanisms
  • Adding internationalization to the example application
  • Formatting messages
• Error Handling
  • Struts Error Handling Mechanisms
  • ActionError and ActionErrors
  • Error handling from a form bean
  • Error handling from an action
  • Formatting error messages
  • Struts exception handling
  • Adding error handling to the example application


7. Miscellaneous Advanced Features
• Objectives
• HTTP Redirection
• Dealing with check boxes
• Context sensitive form validation
• DispatchAction
• BeanUtils package
• Digester package
• DynaActionForms
• Multi-application support
• Validators


8. Database Programming
• Configuring and using a Struts Data Source
• Using a J2EE Data Source
• Transaction management from an action
• Sharing a connection with the model classes
• Pre-populating a form for editing data
• Paginated listing of large amounts of data


9. Templates, Tiles and JSTL
• Objectives
• Struts Templates
• Template tags - insert, get and put
• Struts 1.1 tiles support
• Inheritance in tiles definitions
• JSTL overview
• JSTL and Struts


10. Unit Testing Struts Applications - StrutsTestCase
• Objectives
• What is JUnit?
• A sample JUnit test case
• A simple StrutsTest test case
• Executing a StrutsTest test
• Testing strategies


11. JSTL
• Objectives
• The future of Struts Tags
• JSTL - What does it provide?
• JSTL actions
  • Core JSTL tags
  • Formatting tags
  • Database tags
  • XML tags
• JSTL Expression Language
• JSTL Implicit Objects