Building Struts User Interface


Concept

Struts is a set of technologies for developing M - V- C user interfaces for Web-based applications, especiially those supported by Servlet engines.

The basic approach is to use Java Server Pages (JSPs) as the view component; individual servlets function asd the controller component and handle the actions associated with each view/JSP element; and a set of Form Beans that carry the data from the view to the action elements. The model component is outside of the basic framework, but is generally represented as a Bean, and its methods are called by the controller elements to accomplish the business function of the system.

One critical element of the architecture that is not visible to the developer is a controller servlet that receives input from the various forms generated by the JSPs and passes control and relevant data to the appropriate action element.

One of the most attractive aspects of the Struts approach is that virtually all of the infrastructure and much of the code are generated automatically by WebSphere Studio. Thus, developing a conceptual understanding of what the tools are doing is critical. A checklist is provided, below, that lists the major steps in developing a basic Struts user interface.

Architecture

Checklist

A checklist is provided for creating a Struts M-V-C user interface.

References


back