Struts2 Integration with Tiles2 & Spring3

In this tutorial we will discuss about Tiles Framework and its Integration with Struts2. We will add Tiles support to our previous Struts application with Spring 3 that we created in previous parts. I strongly recommend you to go through previous articles and download the source code of our sample application.

Introduction to Tiles 2:
Nowadays, website are generally divided into pieces of reusable template that are being rendered among different web pages. For example a site containing header, footer, menu etc. This items remains same through out the website and give it a common look and feel. It is very difficult to hard code this in each and every webpage and if later a change is needed than all the pages needs to be modified. Hence we use templatization mechanism. We create a common Header, Footer, Menu page and include this in each page.

Tiles Plugin allow both templating and componentization. In fact, both mechanisms are similar: you
define parts of page (a "Tile") that you assemble to build another part or a full page. A part can
take parameters, allowing dynamic content, and can be seen as a method in JAVA language. Tiles is a templating system used to maintain a consistent look and feel across all the web pages of a web application. It increase the reusability of template and reduce code duplication.

A common layout of website is defined in a central configuration file and this layout can be extended across all the webpages of the web application.
Our Application Layout
Our goal is to add Header, Footer, Menu and Body to our Struts2TilesIntegration application. Following will be the layout of the same.

There are following tool we need to create this application.
1. Strus2
2. Spring3
3. STS or Eclipse
4. Tiles 2

In this example we will using the three frameworks Struts2, Spring3 and Tiles2 with Internationalization in one application.
Step 1: Project Structure-

Step 2: There are following jars file need to be add
commons-beanutils-1.8.0.jar
commons-digester-2.0.jar
commons-fileupload-1.2.1.jar
commons-io-1.3.2.jar
commons-lang-2.4.jar
commons-lang3-3.1.jar
commons-logging-1.0.4.jar
commons-logging-api-1.1.jar
freemarker-2.3.18.jar
javassist-3.0.jar
ognl-3.0.4.jar
spring-asm-3.0.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-beans-3.0.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-context-3.0.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-core-3.0.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-expression-3.0.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-jdbc-3.0.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-orm-3.0.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-tx-3.0.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-web-3.0.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-webmvc-3.0.1.RELEASE.jar
struts2-core-2.3.1.2.jar
struts2-dojo-plugin-2.3.15.jar
struts2-spring-plugin-2.3.15.jar
struts2-tiles-plugin-2.3.15.jar
tiles-api-2.0.6.jar
tiles-compat-3.0.1.jar
tiles-core-2.0.6.jar
tiles-jsp-2.0.6.jar
tiles-servlet-3.0.1.jar
xwork-core-2.3.1.2.jar

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="3.0">
  <display-name>Struts2TilesIntegration</display-name>
  <welcome-file-list>
        <welcome-file>user</welcome-file>
    </welcome-file-list>
    <context-param>
    <param-name>
       org.apache.tiles.impl.BasicTilesContainer.DEFINITIONS_CONFIG
    </param-name>
    <param-value>
       /WEB-INF/tiles-def.xml
    </param-value>
   </context-param>
   <listener>
      <listener-class>
         org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
      </listener-class>
   </listener>
   <listener>
       <listener-class>
        org.apache.struts2.tiles.StrutsTilesListener
       </listener-class>
   </listener>
   <filter>
        <filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
        <filter-class>
           org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.ng.filter.StrutsPrepareAndExecuteFilter
        </filter-class>
    </filter>
    <filter-mapping>
        <filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
        <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
    </filter-mapping>
</web-app>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<!DOCTYPE tiles-definitions PUBLIC
   "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Tiles Configuration 2.0//EN"
   "http://tiles.apache.org/dtds/tiles-config_2_0.dtd">

<tiles-definitions>

   <definition name="mainTemplate" template="/mainTemplate.jsp">
      <put-attribute name="title"  value="User Registration Form"/>
      <put-attribute name="header" value="/header.jsp"/>
      <put-attribute name="menu"   value="/menu.jsp"/>
      <put-attribute name="body"   value="/body.jsp"/>
      <put-attribute name="footer"   value="/footer.jsp"/>
   </definition>

   <definition name="alia" extends="mainTemplate">
      <put-attribute name="title"  value="Alia Bhatt"/>
      <put-attribute name="body"   value="/alia.jsp"/>      
   </definition>

   <definition name="madhuri" extends="mainTemplate">
      <put-attribute name="title"  value="Madhuri Dixit"/>
      <put-attribute name="body"   value="/madhuri.jsp"/>      
   </definition>
   
   <definition name="success" extends="mainTemplate">
      <put-attribute name="title"  value="User Added Successfully"/>
      <put-attribute name="body"   value="/success.jsp"/>      
   </definition>
  
</tiles-definitions>

<%@ taglib uri="http://tiles.apache.org/tags-tiles" prefix="tiles"%>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title><tiles:insertAttribute name="title" ignore="true"></tiles:insertAttribute>
</title>
</head>

<body>
  <table border="1">
   <tr>
    <td colspan="2"><tiles:insertAttribute name="header"></tiles:insertAttribute><br/></td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td><tiles:insertAttribute name="menu" /></td>
    <td><tiles:insertAttribute name="body" /></td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td colspan="2"><tiles:insertAttribute name="footer" /></td>
   </tr>
  </table>
</body>
</html>

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
 pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags"%>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
b{color:navy; background-color: orange;}  
</style>
<title>Struts2-Spring-Tiles integration | dineshonjava.com</title>
</head>
<body>

 <h2>Add User</h2><b>
    <s:form  action="addUsermenu">
    <s:textfield name="userName" key="user.name" />
    <s:textfield name="userAge" key="user.age" value=""/>
    <s:radio name="userGender" key="user.gender" list="{'Male','Female'}" />
    <s:select name="userJob"  key="user.job" list="%{#{'Software':'Software','Hardware':'Hardware','Networking':'Networking','Marketing':'Marketing'}}"/>  
    <s:checkboxlist name="userHobbies" key="user.hobby" list="{'Cricket','Football','Drawing','Cooking','Driving','Movie'}" />  
    <s:submit key="submit" align="center"/>
 </s:form>
 </b>
</body>
</html>

<table>
  <tr>
   <td><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigLfv3kjqhAdKY-8AAmcqRrreOQVs_ihYfGPS9vbgZVbMRT1fRyRjYhexAcRvK1ANZU2ZiD_eeRFfbCD5i9HnuppsdJqmsqW7pnL7hG5faTi9ZE-_IyaiDTAjDhisYrnchAsSKLDqwZ2g/s1600/new-logo.png" /></td>
    <td><h1><span style="background-color: #FFFFcc">Struts2-Tiles-Spring integration</span></h1></td>
  </tr>
</table>

<center><p><h2>Copyright &copy; 2013 dineshonjava.com</h2></p> </center>

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
 pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags"%>
 <a href="<s:url action="usermenu"/>"> <h2>Add User</h2></a><br>
 <a href="<s:url action="aliamenu"/>"><h2>Alia Bhatt</h2></a><br>
    <a href="<s:url action="madhurimenu"/>"><h2>Madhuri Dixit</h2></a><br>

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
 pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags"%>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

<html>
<head>
<title>Struts2-Spring-Tiles integration | dineshonjava.com</title>
</head>
<body>

 <h2>List of User</h2>
    <ul>
   <li>User Name : <s:property value="userName" /></li>
   <li>User Age : <s:property value="userAge" /></li>
   <li>User Gender : <s:property value="userGender" /></li>
   <li>User Jobs : <s:property value="userJob" /></li>
   <li>User Hobbies : <s:property value="userHobbies" /></li>
 </ul> 
</body>
</html>

<img src="http://www.topnews.in/files/Madhuri-Dixit_10.jpg" height="430" width="500" alt="Madhuri Dixit"/>

<img src="http://cdntopics.onepakistan.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Alia-Bhatt1.jpg" alt="Alia Bhatt"/>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
 xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
 xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
 xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.0.xsd">

 <context:component-scan base-package="com.dineshonjava.struts2.bean" />
 <bean id="user" class="com.dineshonjava.struts2.action.UserAction">
   </bean>
   <bean id="userBean" class="com.dineshonjava.struts2.bean.UserBean">
   </bean>
</beans>

package com.dineshonjava.struts2.action;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;

import com.dineshonjava.struts2.bean.UserBean;
import com.opensymphony.xwork2.ActionSupport;
import com.opensymphony.xwork2.ModelDriven;

/**
 * @author Dinesh Rajput
 *
 */
public class UserAction extends ActionSupport implements ModelDriven<UserBean>{

 private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
 
 @Autowired
 private UserBean userBean;

 public String execute()
 {
  return "user";
 }
 
 public String addUser()
 {
  return "addUser";
 }
 
 @Override
 public UserBean getModel() {
  return userBean;
 }
 public String alia() { 
  return "alia";
 }
 public String madhuri() { 
  return "madhuri"; 
 }
 public String user() { 
  return "user"; 
 }
}

package com.dineshonjava.struts2.bean;

/**
 * @author Dinesh Rajput
 *
 */
public class UserBean {
 private String userName;
 private int userAge;
 private String userGender;
 private String userJob;
 private String []userHobbies;
 public String getUserName() {
  return userName;
 }
 public void setUserName(String userName) {
  this.userName = userName;
 }
 public int getUserAge() {
  return userAge;
 }
 public void setUserAge(int userAge) {
  this.userAge = userAge;
 }
 public String getUserGender() {
  return userGender;
 }
 public void setUserGender(String userGender) {
  this.userGender = userGender;
 }
 public String getUserJob() {
  return userJob;
 }
 public void setUserJob(String userJob) {
  this.userJob = userJob;
 }
 public String[] getUserHobbies() {
  return userHobbies;
 }
 public void setUserHobbies(String[] userHobbies) {
  this.userHobbies = userHobbies;
 }
 
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE struts PUBLIC
    "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 2.0//EN"
    "http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-2.0.dtd">
 
<struts>
    <constant name="struts.enable.DynamicMethodInvocation" value="false" />
    <constant name="struts.devMode" value="true" />
    <constant name="struts.custom.i18n.resources" value="myapp" />
 
 <package name="user" extends="struts-default" namespace="/">
        <result-types>
         <result-type name="tiles" class="org.apache.struts2.views.tiles.TilesResult" />
       </result-types>
        <action name="user" class="user" method="execute">
            <result name="user" type="tiles">mainTemplate</result>
        </action>
        <action name="*menu" class="user" method="{1}">
            <result name="user" type="tiles">mainTemplate</result>
            <result name="madhuri" type="tiles">madhuri</result>
            <result name="alia" type="tiles">alia</result>
            <result name="addUser" type="tiles">success</result>
        </action>
    </package>
 </struts>

user.name=User Name
user.age=User Age
user.gender=Gender
user.job=Job Type
user.hobby=Hobbies
submit=Add User