XView4Struts / News: Recent posts

XView4Struts is happy to announce that testing with the latest Struts Version 1.2.4 is complete. The results have demonstrated that XView4Struts is fully compatable with Version 1.2.4 and remains compatable with Version 1.1. No code changes were required to the XView4Struts core to bring it into compliance.

The latest Struts release removed many deprecated methods/classes and introduced several more. XView4Struts uses several of the new deprecated methods. A decision was made not to change or update the XView4Struts code so that compatability with versions 1.1 and 1.2 could be maintained simultaneously.... read more

Version 1.4.1 is a minor enhancement release. This enhancement will probably benifit all users of the XView4Struts extension.

One of the major features of XView4Struts is the ability to dynamically insert html fragments into the output html page. Until now, the developer had only one option that required the url of the page to be inserted to be specified as a formbean property. With this release, the developer may now specify the url of the page to be inserted as an id attribute of the <div type=url> form control element.... read more

XView4Struts Version 1.4 has been released for general distribution. Version 1.4 is an enhancement release. This version intorduces the concept of TagBeans.

TagBeans give the developer an additional layer of control over the presentation of form control elements. TagBean usage is optional so the developer now has the choice of implementing the original simple technique or to take full control over all of the attributes of a form control element. The TagBean exposes all HTML 4.0 atrributes plus one additional attribute called "visible". The "visible" attribute, if set, will hide a form control from the user by preventing it from being output to the user's browser. The goal of XView4Struts has always been to keep things simple. Keeping with this philosophy, the developer interacts with only the attributes of interest and only those attributes will be merged into the form control on the html page. ... read more

Version 1.4 is almost ready for release. The coding is complete, the documentation has been updated and is currently under going extensive testing.

Version 1.4 is an enhancement release with a few bug fixes. This version will be introducing the concept of TagBeans. TagBeans may also be thought of as Attribute Beans on steroids for all of the static type presentation html tags. (See the tutorial for a list of all tags included in this category.) TagBeans were introduced to give the developer dynamic control over all of a html tag's attributes. ... read more

XView4Struts has released Version 1.3. The goal of XView4Struts from the begining was to create an extension to the Struts framework that makes it easier and faster to produce the view layer of an application.

For the most part, XView4Struts has achieved this goal. In practice, it was found that using xsl to output data structures was not very friendly to complex structures. Therefore, it was decided to redesign the xsl functionality to make it much easier to use.... read more

The XView4Struts development team (m, m & I) is proud to announce the release of Version 1.0. XView4Struts is an extension to the Struts framework that eliminates the need to use tag libraries and JSPs in the view layer of your project. The view layer in XView4Struts is simply, pure HTML.

Taking this approach has several implications. Faster development and better division of work are inherent benefits because you dont need java developers who understand the tag libraries to write the view layer. Since the view layer is pure HTML then anyone that understands HTML can do this part of your development freeing the java developers to concentrate on business and framework logic. Organizations that build mock-up HTML presentations to seek client approval before writing the business logic will benefit because those HTML pages do not have to be converted to JSPs and may be incorporated directly into the XView4Struts project. Templates and reusable view components are extremely easy to implement. Maintenance is easier because the view has no logic and therefore offers a more pure MVC pattern and better separation of logic and responsibilities. ... read more

XView4Struts is an exciting new approach to developing websites using the Struts framework. XView4Struts eliminates the need to program JSP pages to create the view. With XView4Stuts the view is pure html.

Version 0.2 was released 9/21/2003. Check out the home page for more information; http://xview4struts.sourceforge.net

The first alpha release of XView4Struts will be available for download on 9/13/2003. This first release is a fully functional application of the author's design criteria.

Source, binaries, examples and a manual are provided as seperate downloads. The examples are provided as a complete war file to help the user get up and going in the shortest possible time.

XView4Struts is looking for testers, feedback and committers to help move this exciting new approach to delivering dynamic web content using the Jakarta Stuts framework towards a production quality application.