Spring MVC Tiles 3 Integration Tutorial
In this post, I will show how to integrate Apache Tiles 3 with Spring MVC.
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Join For Freeone of the areas in which spring mvc has advance compares to other frameworks is in the separation of view technologies. in this post, i will show how to integrate apache tiles 3 with spring mvc. apache tiles is a free open-source template engine for java web frameworks. it’s based on composite pattern and used to simplify the development of user interfaces.
create a spring configuration xml file which add bean definition for tilesconfigurar and tilesview.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/xmlschema-instance" xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xsi:schemalocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.2.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.2.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.2.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.2.xsd">
<context:annotation-config />
<context:component-scan base-package="org.techzoo.springtiles.controller" />
<mvc:annotation-driven />
<mvc:default-servlet-handler />
<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" />
<bean id="viewresolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.tilesviewresolver"/>
<bean id="tilesconfigurer" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.tilesconfigurer">
<property name="definitions">
<list>
<value>/web-inf/layouts/layouts.xml</value>
<value>/web-inf/layouts/views.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
</beans>now create a tiles definition xml file which contains tiles template definitions. i have created two xml files, one for tiles base template and another for tiles body definition but you can combine it in one.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!doctype tiles-definitions public
"-//apache software foundation//dtd tiles configuration 3.0//en"
"http://tiles.apache.org/dtds/tiles-config_3_0.dtd">
<tiles-definitions>
<definition name="defaulttemplate"
template="/web-inf/views/template/sitetemplate.jsp">
<put-attribute name="title" value="home" />
<put-attribute name="header" value="/web-inf/views/template/header.jsp" />
<put-attribute name="menu" value="/web-inf/views/template/menu.jsp" />
<put-attribute name="body" value="" />
<put-attribute name="footer" value="/web-inf/views/template/footer.jsp" />
</definition>
</tiles-definitions>create a template jsp which include the common pages (like header, footer, menu etc.). i have used blueprint css framework to create a grid for layout.
<%@ taglib uri="http://tiles.apache.org/tags-tiles" prefix="tiles"%>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>spring mvc - tiles integration tutorial</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="resources/css/screen.css"
type="text/css" media="screen, projection"></link>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="resources/css/print.css"
type="text/css" media="print"></link>
<!--[if ie]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="resources/css/ie.css"
type="text/css" media="screen, projection">
<![endif]-->
<style>
body{ margin-top:20px; margin-bottom:20px; background-color:#dfdfdf;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="container" style="border: #c1c1c1 solid 1px; border-radius:10px;">
<!-- header -->
<tiles:insertattribute name="header" />
<!-- menu page -->
<div class="span-5 border" style="height:400px;background-color:#fcfcfc;">
<tiles:insertattribute name="menu" />
</div>
<!-- body page -->
<div class="span-19 last">
<tiles:insertattribute name="body" />
</div>
<!-- footer page -->
<tiles:insertattribute name="footer" />
</div>
</body>
</html>header.jsp
<div class="span-24">
<img src="resources/images/techzoo-header.png"
width="950" style="padding-top:10px;" />
</div>footer.jsp
<%@ taglib prefix="spring" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags"%>
<ul style="list-style:none;line-height:28px;">
<li>
<spring:url value="/index" var="homeurl" htmlescape="true" />
<a href="${homeurl}">home</a>
</li>
<li>
<spring:url value="/viewpeson" var="personlisturl" htmlescape="true" />
<a href="${personlisturl}">person list</a>
</li>
</ul>
as you can see, in you main template jsp we have inserted body attribute but in tiles-def xml file that body attribute is blank. this is because spring controller will render this portion using its view rendering mechanism.
create a controller which has two action (index and viewpeson) . the return value of every controller will be mapped with each tiles definition which is associated with jsp to render as body in template.
ackage org.techzoo.springtiles.controller;
import java.util.hashmap;
import java.util.list;
import java.util.map;
import org.springframework.stereotype.controller;
import org.springframework.ui.model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.requestmapping;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.modelandview;
import org.techzoo.springtiles.vo.person;
@controller
public class springtilescontroller {
@requestmapping(value="index")
public string index() {
return "index";
}
@requestmapping(value="viewpeson")
public modelandview viewpersons(model model) {
map<string, list<person>> persons =
new hashmap<string, list<person>>();
persons.put("persons", person.createpersons());
return new modelandview("personlist", persons);
}
}a person vo class just to show a list of person in personlist.jsp.
ckage org.techzoo.springtiles.vo;
import java.util.arraylist;
import java.util.list;
public class person {
private string name, email;
private int age;
public person(string name, string email, int age) {
this.name = name;
this.email = email;
this.age = age;
}
//getter, setters methods
@override
public string tostring()
{
return string.format(
"person [name = %s, email = %s, age = %d]",
name, email, age);
}
public static list<person> createpersons() {
list<person> persons = new arraylist<person>();
persons.add(new person("tousif", "tousif@mail.com", 32));
persons.add(new person("asif", "asif@mail.com", 28));
persons.add(new person("ramiz", "ramiz@mail.com", 26));
persons.add(new person("rizwan", "rizwan@mail.com", 32));
persons.add(new person("amol", "amol@mail.com", 33));
persons.add(new person("ramdas", "ramdas@mail.com", 31));
return persons;
}
}your second tiles defination xml (views.xml) will looks similar to following. both the tile defination ‘index’ and ‘personlist’ is extending ‘defaulttemplate’.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!doctype tiles-definitions public
"-//apache software foundation//dtd tiles configuration 3.0//en"
"http://tiles.apache.org/dtds/tiles-config_3_0.dtd">
<tiles-definitions>
<definition name="index" extends="defaulttemplate">
<put-attribute name="body"
value="/web-inf/views/index.jsp" />
</definition>
<definition name="personlist" extends="defaulttemplate">
<put-attribute name="body"
value="/web-inf/views/personlist.jsp" />
</definition>
</tiles-definitions>index.jsp
<div style="margin:10px;">
<h3>springmvc - tiles3 integration tutorial</h3>
<p>by:- tousif khan</p>
</div>personlist.jsp
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c"%>
<div style="margin: 10px;">
<h4>list of persons</h4>
<table style="width: 600px" class="reference">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>sr. no.</th>
<th>name</th>
<th>age</th>
<th>email</th>
</tr>
<c:foreach var="person" items="${requestscope.persons}"
varstatus="loopcounter">
<tr>
<td><c:out value="${loopcounter.count}" /></td>
<td><c:out value="${person.name}" /></td>
<td><c:out value="${person.email}" /></td>
<td><c:out value="${person.age}" /></td>
</tr>
</c:foreach>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
output:
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