WebWork uses a number of properties that can be changed to fit your needs. To change them, specify your values in webwork.properties in the classpath (typically /WEB-INF/classes). The list of properties can be found in default.properties (inside webwork.jar):

### Webwork default properties
###(can be overridden by a webwork.properties file in the root of the classpath)
###

### Specifies the Configuration used to configure webwork
### one could extend com.opensymphony.webwork.config.Configuration
### to build one's customize way of getting the configurations parameters into webwork
# webwork.configuration=com.opensymphony.webwork.config.DefaultConfiguration

### This can be used to set your default locale and encoding scheme
# webwork.locale=en_US
webwork.i18n.encoding=UTF-8

### if specified, the default object factory can be overridden here
### Note: short-hand notation is supported in some cases, such as "spring"
###       Alternatively, you can provide a com.opensymphony.xwork.ObjectFactory subclass name here  
# webwork.objectFactory = spring

### specifies the autoWiring logic when using the SpringObjectFactory.
### valid values are: name, type, auto, and constructor (name is the default)
webwork.objectFactory.spring.autoWire=name

### indicates to the webwork-spring integration if Class instances should be cached
### this should, until a future Spring release makes it possible, be left as true
### unless you know exactly what you are doing!
### valid values are: true, false (true is the default)
webwork.objectFactory.spring.useClassCache=true

### if specified, the default object type determiner can be overridden here
### Note: short-hand notation is supported in some cases, such as "tiger" or "notiger"
###       Alternatively, you can provide a com.opensymphony.xwork.util.ObjectTypeDeterminer implementation name here
### Note: if you have the xwork-tiger.jar within your classpath, GenericsObjectTypeDeterminer is used by default
###       To disable tiger support use the "notiger" property value here.
#webwork.objectTypeDeterminer=tiger
#webwork.objectTypeDeterminer=notiger

### Parser to handle HTTP POST requests, encoded using the MIME-type multipart/form-data
# webwork.multipart.parser=cos
# webwork.multipart.parser=pell
webwork.multipart.parser=jakarta
# uses javax.servlet.context.tempdir by default
webwork.multipart.saveDir=
webwork.multipart.maxSize=2097152

### Load custom property files (does not override webwork.properties!)
# webwork.custom.properties=application,com/webwork/extension/custom

### How request URLs are mapped to and from actions
webwork.mapper.class=com.opensymphony.webwork.dispatcher.mapper.DefaultActionMapper

### Used by the DefaultActionMapper
### You may provide a comma separated list, e.g. webwork.action.extension=action,jnlp,do
webwork.action.extension=action

### Used by FilterDispatcher
### If true than WW serves static content from inside its jar. 
### If false than the static content must be available at <context_path>/webwork
webwork.serve.static=true

### use alternative syntax that requires %{} in most places
### to evaluate expressions for String attributes for tags
webwork.tag.altSyntax=true

### when set to true, WebWork will act much more friendly for developers. This
### includes:
### - webwork.i18n.reload = true
### - webwork.configuration.xml.reload = true
### - raising various debug or ignorable problems to errors
###   For example: normally a request to foo.action?someUnknownField=true should
###                be ignored (given that any value can come from the web and it
###                should not be trusted). However, during development, it may be
###                useful to know when these errors are happening and be told of
###                them right away.
webwork.devMode=false

### when set to true, resource bundles will be reloaded on _every_ request.
### this is good during development, but should never be used in production
webwork.i18n.reload=false

### Standard UI theme
### Change this to reflect which path should be used for JSP control tag templates by default
webwork.ui.theme=xhtml
webwork.ui.templateDir=template
#sets the default template type. Either ftl, vm, or jsp
webwork.ui.templateSuffix=ftl

### Configuration reloading
### This will cause the configuration to reload xwork.xml when it is changed
webwork.configuration.xml.reload=false

### Location of velocity.properties file.  defaults to velocity.properties
# webwork.velocity.configfile=velocity.properties

### Comma separated list of VelocityContext classnames to chain to the WebWorkVelocityContext
# webwork.velocity.contexts=

### used to build URLs, such as the UrlTag
webwork.url.http.port=80
webwork.url.https.port=443

### possible values are: none, get or all
webwork.url.includeParams=get

### Load custom default resource bundles
# webwork.custom.i18n.resources=testmessages,testmessages2

### workaround for some app servers that don't handle HttpServletRequest.getParameterMap()
### often used for WebLogic, Orion, and OC4J
webwork.dispatcher.parametersWorkaround=false

### configure the Freemarker Manager class to be used
### Allows user to plug-in customised Freemarker Manager if necessary
### MUST extends off com.opensymphony.webwork.views.freemarker.FreemarkerManager
#webwork.freemarker.manager.classname=com.opensymphony.webwork.views.freemarker.FreemarkerManager

### See the WebWorkBeanWrapper javadocs for more information
webwork.freemarker.wrapper.altMap=true

### configure the XSLTResult class to use stylesheet caching.
### Set to true for developers and false for production.
webwork.xslt.nocache=false

### insert Freemarker's Sitemesh applydecorator transform to be put
### into freemarker's model allowing sitemesh's applydecorator tag to 
### be used in freemarker's page eg.
### <@sitemesh.applydecorator name="someDecorator" page="/pages/somePage.ftl" />
#
webwork.freemarker.sitemesh.applyDecoratorTransform=true

### A start up listener class name (must implements com.opensymphony.webwork.dispatcher.StartUpListener 
### interface) that will get invoked only once when WebWork started up. The class names could be 
### comma separated and will be executed in order.
#
#webwork.dispatcher.startUpListener=foo.bar.StartUpListener1,foo.bar.StartUpListener2

### A shut down listener class name (must implements com.opensymphony.webwork.dispatcher.ShutDownListener
### interface) that will get invoked only once when WebWork shuts down.  The class names could be
### comma separated and will be executed in order.
#
#webwork.dispatcher.shutDownListener=foo.bar.ShutDownListener1,foo.bar.ShutDownListener2

Additional information Development Mode (aka devMode)

What does it do ?

  • When enabled, WebWork will reload the resource bundles on every request (meaning that the resource bundle (.properties files), could be change instantly and have the changes reflected on the next request).

This option can also be configured independently via the webwork.i18n.reload entry}

  • It will also reload the xml configuration files (xwork.xml), the validation files, etc, on every request. This is useful for testing or finetuning those configurations, without having to redeploy your application every time.

This option can also be configured indipendently via webwork.configuration.xml.reload = true

  • And thirdly, perhaps this setting is less widely known, and therefore a source of much confusion: it will raise the level of debug or normally ignorable problems to errors. For example: during submition of a field that cannot be set on an action hereafter called the 'someUnknownField', it will normally be ignored. However, when in development mode, an exception will be logged, indicating that an invalid field was submitted. This is very useful for debugging or testing large forms, but can also be confusing if relying on parameters in your request that are not set on the action, but are used directly in your view layer.

bad practice, input from the web should always be validated).

By default, the development mode is disabled, because it has a significant impact on performance, since the entire configuration will be reloaded on every request.