Dion, This is possible to do using Xdoclet's templating language. I hacked up a set of Xdoclet templates to create my form beans from the Hibernate Xdoclet markkup.
For each entity object, it creates a JSP, form bean, action, manager object (DAO) and the associated bits. Entity references have selection popups, and so on. It allowed us to get an application up and running very quickly. Granted working with a page/screen per entity object is not ideal and can be a little cumbersome when configuring application entries - but it worked. We only had to create one custom screen for results entry and several to create the charts our application produces. Since then we have slowly replace many of these basic forms with custom forms that update several related objects. But we still use the basic generated forms for rarely used configuration objects - it is just not worth the labor to do a custom screen for them. BTW, I used Matt Raible's AppFuse application for inspiration and a starting point, which also builds upon ideas Erik Hatcher's book Java Development with Ant. Now, the down side :) 1) I say "hacked" up, because the right way would have been to spend a little more time understanding Xdoclet and have written the correct Java support classes. Using just the template language, I have much, much repetitious code. My intention is to completely re-write the generation at some point in the future - but now sure when. For now I've got a hacked up, working prototype that does what I need - but it would not work for others without a lot of work. 2) I made a lot of assumptions based on the limited set of data types in my application and my application domain model. Its a very rich, multi-object domain with lots of inheritance - but I'm sure my assumptions do not apply to many, many situations - e.g. how I handle referenced collections, object selection, date choosers, etc. So, the point of my response is that this can be done, Xdoclet is a very flexible tool. You'll get good results quickly, especially if you limit your scope and do not try to generate every possible form, just the 80% that are really repetitive. I notice that some others have suggested other solutions - these may be much closer to a ready-to-use solution. Good luck. - Richard -----Original Message----- From: Dionisius Purba [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 10:21 PM To: 'Struts Users Mailing List' Subject: generate struts ActionForm & strut's jsp from hibernate's mapping Altough my question is related to hibernate, I hope it's still relevant. Is anyone aware of tools, open source is better, that can generate ActionForm and the JSP's (containing struts's HTML Input tag) based on a hibernate's mapping (i.e. *.hmb.xml)? cheers, dion --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
