Chapter 15. Advanced topics

In the previous chapter, we discussed migration strategies for converting a Struts 1 website to Struts 2. We now discuss advanced topics that either didn’t exist in Struts 1 or were cumbersome to implement. This is the feel-good chapter of the book, designed to assist both developers writing web pages and the infrastructure team tracking web hits and sizing machinery to handle the traffic. We show techniques to help keep users informed about why they’re waiting and how much longer it’s going to take. We also add a dash of Tiles pizzazz so you can change the look and feel of your entire site with a couple of keystrokes. Lastly, we look at ways to optimize your action mappings that take advantage of OGNL and the ValueStack. Once you’ve completed this chapter, chances are you’ll even look better!

15.1. Advanced action usage

By now you probably feel like you’ve seen every permutation of action mapping. It’s true there are many ways to do things in Struts, and it was probably best that we waited until now to show these advanced features. Actions and their declarative mappings are at the heart of Struts 2, and it only makes sense that we should have freedom when it comes to wiring them together. Strap on your safety belt and let’s look at the wild ways that we can optimize our action declarations.

15.2. Dynamic method invocation

15.3. Using tokens to prevent duplicate form submits

15.4. Displaying wait pages automatically

15.5. A single action for CRUD operations

15.6. Tiles and Struts 2

15.7. Summary