[Wicket-user] Render Page to String

[Aaron Hiniker]

I would like to render a page to a String for sending as an HTML email.

I searched the list and found a possible solution using wicket.protocol.http.MockWebApplication.. however, upon implementing that solution I am having problems.  Here is the code I am using (with garbage stuff removed) which is called from my web application's Form#onSubmit().


    public static void mail( Message msg, MailTemplate pageToMail )    // MailTemplate extends WebPage
    {
        // create a mock application
        MockWebApplication app = new MockWebApplication( pageToMail.getApplication().getApplicationSettings().getContextPath() );

        // set a null home page.. we will set the page later
        app.setHomePage( NullHomePage.class );

            // setup the request/response
            app.setupRequestAndResponse();
            app.processRequestCycle( pageToMail );
           
            // get the output
            String output = new String( app.getServletResponse().getBinaryContent() );

            // add the template to the output
            msg.getBodies().add( new TextBody( output ) );

        Mailer.mail( msg );

    }


generates

java.lang.NullPointerException

	wicket.request.compound.DefaultExceptionResponseStrategy.onRuntimeException(DefaultExceptionResponseStrategy.java:141)
	wicket.request.compound.DefaultExceptionResponseStrategy.respond(DefaultExceptionResponseStrategy.java:64)
	wicket.request.compound.AbstractCompoundRequestCycleProcessor.respond(AbstractCompoundRequestCycleProcessor.java:76)
	wicket.RequestCycle.step(RequestCycle.java:976)
	wicket.RequestCycle.steps(RequestCycle.java:1010)
	wicket.RequestCycle.request(RequestCycle.java:452)
	wicket.protocol.http.WicketServlet.doGet(WicketServlet.java:210)
	wicket.protocol.http.WicketServlet.doPost(WicketServlet.java:251)
	javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
	javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:810)
	org.jboss.web.tomcat.filters.ReplyHeaderFilter.doFilter(ReplyHeaderFilter.java:96)



The mail gets sent but with empty content (no output captured)


Questions.. 

can I just generate the output of a Page *instance*? Many of my pages have no default constructor, so I can't set them as the Mock homePage.
is using MockWebApplication the best way to achieve these results?