> >> In general, this "app created from subapps" is something that needs
> >> to be considered in all aspects. WebWork was monolithic in this
> >> sense, and it'd be good if we can move away from that. As I've
> >> already noted a couple of times, I think in the future it will be
> >> more common to build webapps from smaller webapps, e.g. through
> >> portlets.
> >
> >
> > I agree. How would the sub-apps configuration get loaded? How are
> > they packaged?
>
> That's a good question. Are there any other frameworks we can look at
> for inspiration here?
The struts model for doing this is to:
1. create a separate struts-config.xml file for each subapp. For
example, struts-config.xml, struts-config-admin.xml,
struts-config-user.xml.
2. register each subapp via web.xml
<init-param>
<param-name>config</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>config/admin</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/struts-config-admin.xml</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>config/voice</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/struts-config-voice.xml</param-value>
</init-param>
The main challenge I saw to this model was having a shared JSP space.
The sub-application developers need to coordinate with one another to
ensure that there aren't any conflicts in JSP path selection. For
example, if one project wants to place its views in /WEB-INF/jsp/, then
none of the other subprojects should place their views there. The same
is true of resources such as images and js files, etc.
Using velocity views was a lot cleaner as you could just dump a jar file
into the /WEB-INF/lib/ directory and be done with it. However, velocity
is a second class citizen in the struts world.
Here's a suggested solution:
* Each application should have its own xwork.xml file that is placed at
the root level of the project. For example,
com/indigoegg/myproject/xwork.xml for a project with a root of
com.indigoegg.myproject
* Allow xwork.xml to include other xml files via the follow (or similar)
construct:
<package namespace="subapp">
<subapp name="com.indigoegg.myproject"/>
</package>
* These included configuration files should be able to to, in turn call
other configuration files to allow creation of applications by
composition.
* The subapp need only be aware of its defined namespace. For example,
if an Action from the subapp calls
ActionInvocation invocation = new ActionInvocation("/", "login")
;
They should get a reference to /subapp/login essentially.
* In addition to the <subapp> tag, there should also be an <include>
tag, peered with <package>, to allow developers to break up large
xwork.xml files.
--
Matt Ho
Principal
Indigo Egg, Inc.
http://www.indigoegg.com/
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