Sorry if I appear overly aggressive, but this reminds me of an argument I had with a former project manager (note the word *former* because he didn't last too long)
If you look at the source code http://jakarta.apache.org/builds/jakarta-struts/release/v1.0.2/src/ (or) the developer guide http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/struts-html.html#cancel (or) the taglib documentation http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/struts-html.html#cancel it clearly states that using the html:cancel will render an <input type="submit" name="......and so on and so forth. Therefore it is up to you (the developer) to decide what to do inside your action class. If you have decided to give the user one last chance (Are you sure? Yes/No) You certainly don't want your auto-magically populated form bean to be "kicked-to-the-curb" (sorry, I'm from Georgia). On the other hand. If you want to avoid the overhead (however little it might be) of having your form populated, then you could create a separate html:form on the page and stick your cancel where the sun don't shi.....(sorry, getting off track here).....have your cancel submit its own form so that struts has nothing to populate. You even get the added bonus of specifying a different action so you don't have to figure it out in (what would have been) the original action class. This issue is really specific to someone's application, not really about struts. Good Luck JM (I never did like that project manager anyway) > -----Original Message----- > From: Craig R. McClanahan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 10:31 PM > To: Struts Developers List > Subject: Re: The Semantic of 'Cancel' Button > > > > > On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Jing Zhou wrote: > > > Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 16:42:13 -0500 > > From: Jing Zhou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Reply-To: Struts Developers List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: Struts Developers List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Subject: The Semantic of 'Cancel' Button > > > > In STRUTS, the 'Cancel' button (the html tag) will populate > > the form beans, if there is one, and skip over the validation. > > The question is why STRUTS need to populate the form beans > > When a 'Cancel' button signal is received. > > > > The original thinking for this design is that "cancellation is in the eyes > of the beholder" -- it's the action that decides whether the user really > cancelled or not. In addition, you couldn't do an "are you sure" page > that redisplayed the partially filled out form unless the form bean was > populated. > > I can see your reasoning for the opposite behavior as well -- but changing > it now would also be a backwards compatibility issue. At best, we could > make it a configurable behavior. (Or, you can subclass ActionServlet in > 1.0 or RequestProcessor in 1.1 and achieve that behavior for yourself by > overriding a single method.) > > Craig > > > > >From my past experiences on UI development, if the 'Cancel' button > > is clicked in a dialog, it will close the dialog and do NOT apply > > any changes to the underlying data buffer, in STRUTS contexts, > > the data buffer is the form beans. If the 'Cancel' button > > is shown on a html page, when it is clicked, it will take the users > > to a different page, which is the first page of a wizard like app, > > or some index page. So in either cases, STRUTS do not need > > to populate the form beans. > > > > More important is that when user click the 'Cancel' button, she > > means to discard whatever data on the screen. But STRUTS > > populate the discarded data into the working form beans, so > > it creates possibility that developers may use wrong data > > in the form beans and make further logic decisions. Actually, > > all the developers need to know is the Action.isCancelled(), > > that is enough, in my opinion. > > > > It gets another problem if the application would like to > > re-produce the screen before the 'Cancel' button is clicked. > > The re-produced screen will show up with the data which > > she means to discard in the previous clicking of the 'Cancel' > > button in the current STRUTS implementation. > > > > In all scenarios I think STRUTS should skip over the population > > of the form beans when the 'Cancel' button is clicked. > > Could anyone clarify this issue? It is possible I am missing > > some other scenarios where populating form beans are > > necessary when clicking the 'Cancel' button. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Jing > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > For additional commands, e-mail: > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
