 | About SiteMesh SiteMesh |
The Sitemesh plugin allows Sitemesh templates to access framework resources.
The framework stores all its value stack information as request attributes, meaning that if you wish to display data that is on the stack (or even the ActionContext), you can do so by using the normal tag libraries that come with the framework. That's it!
Features
- Can use Struts tags in Sitemesh decorator templates
Usage
ActionContextCleanUp
Under the framework's architecture
, the standard filter-chain optionally starts with the ActionContextCleanUp filter, followed by other desired filters. Lastly, the FilterDispatcher handles the request, usually passing it on to the ActionMapper. The primary purpose of the ActionContextCleanUp is to provide SiteMesh integration. The clean-up filter tells the dispatcher filter exactly when to remove obsolete objects from the request. Otherwise, the ActionContext may be removed before the decorator attempts to access it.
 | Order Matters If ActionContext access is required within the decorators, the ActionContextCleanUp filter must be placed at the beginning of the filter-chain. |
| Javadoc: (org.apache.struts.action2.dispatcher.ActionContextCleanUp) Special filter designed to work with the FilterDispatcher and allow for easier integration with SiteMesh. Normally, ordering your filters to have SiteMesh go first, and then FilterDispatcher go second is perfectly fine. However, sometimes you may wish to access Struts features, including the value stack, from within your SiteMesh decorators. Because FilterDispatcher cleans up the ActionContext, your decorator won't have access to the data you want.
By adding this filter, the FilterDispatcher will know to not clean up and instead defer cleanup to this filter. The ordering of the filters should then be:
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FreeMarker and Velocity Decorators
The plugin provides an extension of the SiteMesh PageFilter to assist with integration with Velocity and FreeMarker. Our filters provide the standard variables and Struts Tags that you used to create views in your favorite template language.
FreeMarker
The FreeMarkerPageFilter extends the SiteMesh PageFilter to allow direct access to framework variables such as $stack and $request.
In the web.xml, the VelocityPageFilter should be placed between the ActionContextCleanUp and the FilterDispatcher.
| Javadoc: (org.apache.struts2.sitemesh.FreeMarkerPageFilter) The following variables are available to the decorating freemarker page :-
With the following decorated page :-
<html>
<meta name="author" content="tm_jee" />
<head>
<title>My Title</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mycss.css" />
<style type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="myjavascript.js"></script>
</head>
<body<
<h1>Sample</h1>
</body>
</html>
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Velocity
The VelocityPageFilter extends the SiteMesh PageFilter to allow direct access to framework variables such as $stack and $request.
In the web.xml, the VelocityPageFilter should be placed between the ActionContextCleanUp and the FilterDispatcher.
Example
Here is an example of how to configure the filter chains in web.xml:
<filter> <filter-name>struts-cleanup</filter-name> <filter-class>org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.ActionContextCleanUp</filter-class> </filter> <filter> <filter-name>sitemesh</filter-name> <filter-class>org.apache.struts2.sitemesh.FreeMarkerPageFilter</filter-class> </filter> <filter> <filter-name>struts</filter-name> <filter-class>org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher</filter-class> </filter> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>struts-cleanup</filter-name> <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern> </filter-mapping> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>sitemesh</filter-name> <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern> </filter-mapping> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>struts</filter-name> <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern> </filter-mapping>
Settings
This plugin doesn't support any global settings.
Installation
This plugin can be installed by copying the plugin jar into your application's /WEB-INF/lib directory. No other files need to be copied or created.