Java EE: Struts for Enterprise Java Web Development

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Course Overview

Today's Java developers are faced with the challenge of constructing complex Web applications. The Struts framework provides an infrastructure that allows developers to build scalable, enterprise Web applications that are easier to maintain.

This course provides the skills to design and build Web applications using the Struts framework. You learn to streamline the development process by integrating, applying and extending Struts components.

Audience

This course is valuable for those interested in developing Java Web applications with Struts. Knowledge of Java at the level of Course 471, " Java Programming ", plus real-world Java programming experience, is assumed.

Skills Gained

• Develop scalable, enterprise Java Web applications using the Struts framework
• Apply Struts to build wizard-style page flows
• Build Action Classes to handle application requests
• Leverage Struts custom tags and the JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL)
• Perform client- and server-side data validation using the Struts Validator Framework
• Integrate the Struts Tile Framework to develop reusable JSP layouts

Course Outline

Enterprise Web Application Development

• Design goals of a Web application
• Components of an enterprise architecture
• Java Web components: servlets and JSP

Struts Fundamentals

Getting started with Struts

• Installing and configuring Struts
• Identifying Struts core classes
• Integrating Struts Custom Tag Libraries

Struts development process

• Analysing application flow
• Building the JavaBean model
• Presenting a view with JSP
• Dispatching actions with the controller

Handling Application Requests

Defining Action Classes

• Configuring the Struts Controller
• Processing requests with Actions
• Managing application state
• Forwarding business data to JSP view components

Processing HTML forms

• Defining ActionForm beans
• Populating ActionForms with form data
• Creating wizard-style page flows
• Preventing duplicate form submission
• Allowing file uploads

Integrating business logic with Java EE design patterns

• Decoupling the business tier using the Business Delegate pattern
• Transferring data using the Value Object pattern

Advanced controller features

• Leveraging pre-defined Struts Actions
• Handling exceptions: declarative and programmatic approaches
• Extending Struts with Plug-Ins
• Creating a custom RequestProcessor

Generating Dynamic Views

Integrating JSP custom tags

• Custom tag usage model
• Configuring tag libraries

Building Struts views

• Handling data input with Struts HTML tags
• Generating output with Struts Bean tags

Streamlining JSP development

• Defining JSTL functionality
• Formatting output using JSTL-EL
• Controlling page content using JSTL logic tags

Internationalising applications

• Translating views to multiple languages
• Integrating resource bundles with Struts
• Changing locale on the fly

Validating User Input

Developing validation strategies

• Identifying validation requirements
• Client- vs. server-side validation

Struts Validator essentials

• Benefits of the Struts Validator Architecture
• Leveraging pre-defined validation rules

Enabling validation

• Assigning validation rules to HTML forms
• Validating forms with JavaScript
• Server-side validation with the DynaValidatorForm
• Dependent field validation
• Creating custom validation rules

Adding Tiles for Presentation Flexibility

Employing the Tiles Framework

• Installing and configuring Tiles
• Creating a layout using Tiles custom tags

Changing the layout of the application

• Modifying XML Tiles definitions
• Nesting tiles to customise the layout

Struts Shale and Java Server Faces

Exploring Struts Shale

• Developing with Shale
• Shale-Ajax integration

JSF architecture

• Creating views with JSF components
• Faces request processing life cycle
• Comparing Struts and JSF

Java EE: Struts for Enterprise Java Web Development / SJEE-SEJ