Struts Portlet Framework

 

The Struts Portlet Framework (SPF) is built on top of the Struts framework contributed by Apache as part of the Jakarta project. Rational Developer provides tooling that supports Struts development for both Web applications and portlet applications. The primary goal of SPF is to enable Struts programmers to easily create portlets based on Struts conventions without requiring a great deal of knowledge about portlets.

SPF provides modified TLD files so that appropriate classes can be referenced within the portlet JSP files. The implementation of these classes resides in additional JAR files included in SPF. Depending on whether the application is running in a Portal or standard Web application environment, the classes determine whether to use portlet-based Struts code or standard Struts code.

Note: Struts tags should render in Page Designer the same way in both environments.

Due to a unique namespace requirement, ensure that Apache's JavaScript in your JSP files refer to forms in their own unique namespace. To simplify this process, an additional attribute, validate, is provided for <html:form> and <html:link>. Instead of using: onSubmit="validateActionForm()", you should set the attribute validate to "true".

For a full description of the Struts Portlet Framework and details about implementing the framework in the WebSphere Portal environment, see the WebSphere Portal Information Center.

 

Related concepts

Struts portlet applications
Creating Struts portlets and projects
Struts-based Web applications - overview

 

Related tasks

Creating Struts portlet projects
Creating well-architected Web applications using Struts

Related reference
Differences between Struts 1.1 and SPF tag library classes