Hi everybody, Let me start off by describing a bit of our site. We are doing e-commerce (orders being sent through our site..not VISA card sales), and we are using Java Servlets on the server side to handle all the requests and responses. We use what I consider a weird setup. Maybe someone can tell me differently. An example is our "order" page. It calls OrderServlet, with a hidden field in the form, command_code, set to a value. In the servlet code, this value is compared and a method is called based on what it is. That method then handles some data, and returns a new page (not redirects), with a new hidden command_code field set. The next time a specific button is clicked, it calls the servlet again and the new method based on that new command_code setting is called. First of all, is there anything wrong with this design? Now..currently we are using .shtml files, IIS Web server and JRUN servlet engine. I recently downloaded Orion App Server because we are considering to use Oracle App Server soon. I figured I would see what these are about, learn them, etc. I discovered Java Server Pages. To my dismay, Orion doesnt allow .shtml <SERVLET> tags to be processed, and the ApacheJSSI servlet that I downloaded uses JSDK 2.0, and Orion is using JSDK 2.1, so there seems to be some incompatibility problem there. So, needless to say, I have to convert a few .shtml files to .jsp files to get my "local" test site working with Orion and see it in action. This is where I am having some trouble. First, I am not quite clear what the main advantage of using JSP over SHTML is, if what we are using does what we need, namely, it "includes" header/footer files on every page, and calls a servlet in the middle to be replaced by dynamic content. We are definitely moving towards a production server using Solaris, but our development systems all use NT, so we need a dual OS capability here. What we write on NT and work with, should also work on Solaris. As I said above, the <SERVLET> tags aren't being processed by Orion, so I was considering going to JSP. Seems easy enough. Just name .shtml to .jsp everywhere, and replace the <SERVLET code="bm.ui.servlets.ServletName"> with <jsp:include page="/servlet/bm.ui.servlets.ServletName"> Anyways, can someone give me some examples of why to use JSP over SHTML. I need legitimate proof that it is "better" to go to JSP than stay with SHTML as we move to an app server. Actually, I need to know why we might NOT want to as well. I dont see any reason why we cant, if it does the same thing, but also allows us to add scripting if we need it. Currently we dont do that, but we might like to eventually, and JSP seems to be here to stay. What is the deal with SHTML..is it on the way out being replaced by JSP, is it smarter to go to JSP now while our site isnt full of traffic yet, etc. I dont plan on embeding a ton of JAVA code in the JSP files. Mainly we plan to use some sort of setup where I can place "tokens" on a page (jsp) and that token is replaced with dynamic content from some servlets. Also, is there a correct way to call a servlet to return dynamic content in the middle of a page other than <jsp:include...>? OR is that the only way its done with JSP? I keep seeing this <%@ "..." %> tags, and am not familiar with them at all. Thanks for any help and examples. Kevin Duffey Software Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED] =========================================================================== To unsubscribe: mailto [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body: "signoff JSP-INTEREST". FAQs on JSP can be found at: http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/faq.html http://www.esperanto.org.nz/jsp/jspfaq.html
