Creating Struts Modules

By: Henry in Struts Tutorials on 2007-09-22

The objective of this tutorial is to teach how to create Struts application modules and break monolithic struts module into pieces

1. If you already have a Struts application, then this tutorial will show you how to add a new module to your existing application.

2. The index page belongs to the default module. From the index page, we will provide a link to go
to module2. Module 2 will consist of a two dummy pages that can call each other and also have a
link to return to default module.


  
    Change the web.xml to define a new module named xyz as
follows:


<init-param>

<param-name>config/xyz</param-name>

<param-value>/WEB-INF/struts-config-xyz.xml</param-value>

</init-param>



    
    Copy over the struts-config.xml to create a new struts-config-xyz.xml

    
    Create a empty XYZ Message Resources

    
    Clean up the struts-config-xyz.xml to retain only empty
blocks for form-beans, action

mappings etc. Add the message resource bundle definition to struts-config-xyz.xml.

    
    Add SwitchAction to struts-config.xml & struts-config-xyz.xml
as follows:


<action path="/switch"
type="org.apache.struts.actions.SwitchAction"/>



    
    Create a folder called xyz under the src/web directory.
Create two jsps: xyz-page1.jsp & xyzpage2.jsp (Copy over index.jsp & change contents)

    
    Add bean:message for titles and define them in
XYZMessageResources

    
    In xyz-page1.jsp, add link to navigate to xyz-page2.jsp
(Forward Action via html:link)

    
    In xyz-page2.jsp, add link to navigate to xyz-page1.jsp
(Forward Action via html:link)

    
    In index.jsp, a link is added to go to xyz-page1.jsp in xyz
module as follows:


<html:link forward="gotoXYZModule">Go
to XYZ Module</html:link>



    
    In xyz-page1.jsp, add a link to go to index.jsp in default
module


<html:link forward="gotoDefaultModule">Go
to Default Module</html:link>



    
    Add global forward in struts-config.xml to go to
xyz-page1.jsp


<forward name="gotoXYZModule"

path="/switch.do?page=/page1.do&amp;prefix=/xyz"
/>



    
    Add global forward in struts-config-xyz.xml to go to
index.jsp


<forward name="gotoDefaultModule"

path="/switch.do?page=/showCustomerSearchForm.do&amp;prefix="/>