[ANN] FreeMarker 2.3pre13 available
Greetings, I'm making this announcement because I consider that it is of general interest to Struts users who are investigating other view technologies (i.e. alternatives to JSP). A new preview release of FreeMarker 2.3 is available. Though it's a preview, at this point, FM 2.3 is really approaching its final state. FreeMarker is a well known template engine written in 100% pure Java. It is used as a component in various web application frameworks, such as JPublish, Niggle, Open for Business, and Tammi. Also, FreeMarker can be configured for use as the view layer for model 2 web frameworks, of which Struts is the best known example. Here is a link to the manual page that explains how to configure FreeMarker for use in conjunction with Struts: http://freemarker.org/docs/pgui_misc_servlet.html With the 2.3 release cycle, FreeMarker continues to get better. FreeMarker 2.2 introduced clean support for JSP taglibs. One user raved that he was amazed that it was actually simpler and more straightforward to use JSP taglibs from FreeMarker templates than from JSP's! What this means, of course, is that Struts users can migrate from JSP-FM without losing any investment they may have in JSP taglibs (their own or from third parties.) In FreeMarker 2.3, the new visit and recurse directives may well make it easier to do recursive XSLT-style transformations in FreeMarker than with XSLT itself! FM 2.3 also adds some other appealing new features, such as the ability to use variable interpolations in string literals, and the ability to define functions with return values in the template language. In short, for those of you who are open to making your lives simpler by finding more usable alternatives to better-known (and more widely-hyped) technologies such as JSP and XSLT, FreeMarker really deserves some serious attention. For more information, visit http://freemarker.org/ (or http://freemarker.sourceforge.net/) or the FreeMarker project page at http://sf.net/projects/freemarker . Best Regards, Jonathan Revusky - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[ANN] FreeMarker 2.3pre2 available
Greetings, I'm making this announcement because I consider that it is of general interest to Struts users who are investigating other view technologies (i.e. alternatives to JSP). A second preview release of FreeMarker 2.3 is available. FreeMarker is a well known template engine written in 100% pure Java. It is used as a component in various web application frameworks, such as JPublish, Niggle, Open for Business, and Tammi. Also, FreeMarker can be configured for use as the view layer for model 2 web frameworks, of which Struts is the best known example. Here is a link to the manual page that explains how to configure FreeMarker for use in conjunction with Struts: http://freemarker.org/docs/pgui_misc_servlet.html With the 2.3 release cycle, FreeMarker continues to get better. FreeMarker 2.2 introduced clean support for JSP taglibs. One user raved that he was amazed that it was actually simpler and more straightforward to use JSP taglibs from FreeMarker templates than from JSP's! What this means, of course, is that Struts users can migrate from JSP-FM without losing any investment they may have in JSP taglibs (their own or from third parties.) In FreeMarker 2.3, the new visit and recurse directives may well make it easier to do recursive XSLT-style transformations in FreeMarker than with XSLT itself! FM 2.3 also adds some other appealing new features, such as the ability to use variable interpolations in string literals, and the ability to define functions with return values in the template language. In short, for those of you who are open to making your lives simpler by finding more usable alternatives to better-known (and more widely-hyped) technologies such as JSP and XSLT, FreeMarker really deserves some serious attention. For more information, visit http://freemarker.org/ (or http://freemarker.sourceforge.net/) or the FreeMarker project page at http://sf.net/projects/freemarker . Best Regards, Jonathan Revusky -- lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/ - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Struts Velocity
Met @ Uber wrote: Could anyone point me towards some good resources on using struts and velocity together? I get the general idea, it replaces JSP, but how do I set it up within my struts actions (and anywhere else needed for use within struts)? I know this isn't precisely what you're asking for, but if you're interested in replacing the use of JSP with a template engine, you might consider FreeMarker, which is a template engine like Velocity, but more powerful, and more actively developed and maintained currently. FreeMarker integrates quite well with Struts. Here is the appropriate manual section. http://freemarker.org/docs/pgui_misc_servlet.html One major advantage of FM is that 3rd party JSP taglibs are supported from within FreeMarker templates. So, basically, you get your cake and eat it too. If there is some really cool JSP taglib that does something you need, you don't lose the ability to leverage that by opting for FM over JSP. Anyway, I hope that's helpful. Best Regards, Jonathan Revusky -- lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/ - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ANN] Struts-FreeMarker-JSP taglibs integration
Folks, The first release of FreeMarker 2.2 labeled production/stable is available. FreeMarker 2.2 may be of special interest to Struts users because it is the first template engine, to our knowledge, that supports the usage of 3rd party JSP taglibs. This means that you can have the cleanness and simplicity of a template engine like FreeMarker without giving up the ability to use powerful 3rd party JSP taglibs like Cewolf or SiteMesh and so on. You have the best of both worlds! See http://freemarker.org/docs/pgui_misc_servlet.html for more details about how to configure Struts for use with FreeMarker. There is also an example of struts usage in the distro. For those who don't know it, FreeMarker is a well-known, tried-and-true tool for doing page templates in Java. In practice, it is mostly used in the web space to get data from servlets into HTML pages. Aside from the ability to use JSP taglibs, FreeMarker 2.2 introduces a host of powerful new features. Here is a not-necessarily exhaustive list: namespaces -- macro libraries can be defined in separate namespaces so that different people can work on different pieces without any possibility of naming clashes. For more details, see: http://freemarker.org/docs/dgui_misc_namespace.html fine control of whitespace -- this has been the bane of template engines and a constant subject on mailing lists. We think we've really nailed this problem now. For more details, see: http://freemarker.org/docs/dgui_misc_whitespace.html more powerful macros -- Macros can defined with default parameters, and can be invoked with optional body content. For more details, see: http://freemarker.org/docs/ref_directive_macro.html Simplified syntax -- Macros and transforms are now invoked with a common syntax, so, despite the increased power, FM 2.2 is actually substantially simpler! For more details, see: http://freemarker.org/docs/ref_directive_userDefined.html clean interoperability with jython -- Of special interest to python fans, jython objects can be used transparently from within FreeMarker templates. For more details, see: http://freemarker.org/docs/pgui_misc_jythonwrapper.html Okay, 'nuff said, I guess. If that doesn't pique your interest, I don't know what will. Enjoy, Jonathan Revusky -- lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/ Available for java/internet consulting - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
