Hi guys:
I'm trying to build a complex variation of interfaces using several
level of tiles extending. However, I'm having problem with declaring and
using tile attribute.
Here is a compact version of what I want to build:
Given I have these definition:
<definition name="master" template="/WEB-INF/layouts/master/master.jsp">
</definition>
<definition name="master-no-small" extends="master">
<put-attribute name="content"
value="/WEB-INF/layouts/master/content-no-small.jsp"/>
</definition>
<definition name="master-small-left" extends="master">
<put-attribute name="content"
value="/WEB-INF/layouts/master/content-small-left.jsp"/>
</definition>
Inside content-no-small.jsp, I will use tiles:insertAttribute to include
an attribute named "body" that will be defined in later extension of
master-no-small
And inside content-small-left, I will use tiles:insertAttribute to
include an attribute named "side" that will be defined in later
extension of master-small-left.
The main idea is to have several sub-masters page that inherit from
theimportAttribute same master so that I can have several version of
interface that share some similar elements.
<definition name="admin.moderators" extends="master-no-small">
<put-attribute name="body"
value="/WEB-INF/layouts/admin/admin-moderators.ftl" />
</definition>
<definition name="admin.site-settings" extends="admin.master">
<put-attribute name="side"
value="/WEB-INF/layouts/admin/admin-site-settings.ftl" />
</definition>
However, since the attribute won't be "passed through", I must use
importAttribute from the master template to pass "body" and "side"
attribute to the content, so the master.jsp would look like:
<tiles:importAttribute/>
<tiles:insertAttribute name="content">
<tiles:putAttribute name="body" value="${body}">
<tiles.putAttribute name="side" value="${side}">
</tiles:insertAttribute>
and init default value for both "body" and "side" attribute inside
definition of "master". So, it now would be like this:
<definition name="master"
template="/WEB-INF/layouts/master/so/skeleton-so.jsp">
<!-- Pre-init all possible attribute of the page -->
<put-attribute name="side" value=""/>
<put-attribute name="body" value=""/>
</definition>
The problem is, I have to pass both "body" and "side" attribute to
"content-no-small.jsp" as well as "content-small-left.jsp" mean while
each of these two template needs only one attribute (either "body" or
"side").
This would be a small problem, but imagine I want to scale up to several
dozen variation of the interface (by add child, grand-child extensions),
each with their own attributes. And then declaration all of these
attributes (both in importAttribute and in definition of "master") would
be unreasonable. I hope there would be a better way to do that. Would
any body help me on that? I'm having googling for several whole days
with these phrases but didn't get it: "tiles passing attribute", "tiles
hierarchical definition". It would be excellent if anyone lighting me by
pointing out how tiles (specifically, tiles 2.1.2) passing attributes
around.
Thanks.
Phuong.
