David, First, thanks for taking time to reply. I think I prefer your first approach over the second. Our users want to see a red asterisk next to the required field name. However, the one drawback I see with your suggested approach is if we decide to make the required field marker (again, a red asterisk) a prefix instead of a suffix, we have to modify every JSP. In other words, globally changing the character/color for the required field indication can be controlled via the "resource bundle" and "stylesheet". But changing, it's location can't -- unless we extend the Struts tags. But, we really want to keep the number of Struts tags that we extend to a minimum, as that will minimize the pain when migrating to new releases of Struts.
JOHN -----Original Message----- From: David Graham [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 2:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: JSTL or Struts Tags: Required Field Indication I've defined a message in my resource bundle like this: required.icon=<span class="required">*</span> and I output it like this <fmt:message key="required.icon/> next to my field names. Alternatively, you could use standard <label> elements and apply a style to them so they show up in red or bold (i.e. <label for="username" class="required">). Both these approaches don't require tag subclasses. David >From: "Hohlen, John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reply-To: "Struts Users Mailing List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "Struts-User (E-mail)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: JSTL or Struts Tags: Required Field Indication >Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 14:19:01 -0600 > >My team extended the Struts <bean:message> custom tag to accept an >additional attribute called "required". If this optional attribute is set >to true, then a red asterisk is appended to the text corresponding to the >key. For example, the following tag: > > <abc:beanMessage key="login.userId" required="true"/> > >would produce the following: > > User ID* > >Obviously, placing the code to generate the required field marker in the >tag >creates a single isolation point for future changes. For example, if it >desired to make the asterisk blue instead of red, or to place the asterisk >at the beginning of the label instead of the end. Otherwise, if this >wasn't >part of the tag, then every JSP with a required field would have to be >changed. More specifically, JSPs would contain the following: > ><bean:message key="login.userId"/><font color="red">*</font> > >Are others extending the Struts tags to generate the required field marker? >My team is also interested in using JSTL and the "Struts-EL" subproject. >Is >there an existing tag in either of these libraries that could be used? >Unlike the Struts tags, the JSTL tags can't really be extended since you >don't have access to the JSTL implementation (source), correct? I realize >I >could extend the JSTL tags provided via the Jakarta implementation (since >the source is available), but my extensions most likely wouldn't work once >I >started using my container's implementation, correct? > >Thanks, > >JOHN > > >-- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: ><mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >For additional commands, e-mail: ><mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail -- 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]>
