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Topic: selecting Tiles or SiteMesh for an Struts web application application?(advice

 
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Hi
thank you for getting your time reading my post.
I am developing an Struts based web application ,
My pages have 6 additional part + content +footer some of parts (horizental menu and header) are Flash based and content could have flash too.
which one is better for me ?
Sitemesh or Tiles . I need internationalization and RTL + LTR support

can you pleas help me choosing one of them ?
 
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don't know much about sitemess...uh mesh, but since it doesn't come bundled and recommended with struts, chances are you are in for some figurings and unpleasant surprises.

struts has 'native' support for tiles. however, you will need to pull some trick with the struts-html library for the LTR/RTL (like extend and override to support LTR/RTL) since html:text does not support the 'dir' attribute. tiles though can be used to insert form variations (say 1 form for LTR and another for RTL). however, it won't be pretty since you can't use the struts-html library and will have to deal with manual handling of forms and validations. struts does provide a great way to handle languages re: internationalization of text and messages.

please do let me know if sitemesh works well with struts in your research.
[ May 02, 2005: Message edited by: alan do ]
 
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I admit to limited exposure to both Tiles and Sitemesh. In the last project I was involved with, we used Sitemesh. The project layouts were simple so we had a chance to create proof of concept codes for both, then eventually settled for sitemesh. For reference, we used the on-line documentation of OpenSymphony and a book owned by one of our colleagues titled Professional JSP Site Design published 2001.

For Tiles to be used, it should be integrated at the start of development. Sitemesh is based on filters so it can be integrated at a later stage of the project. This is good because, you can immediately focus on doing the business logic of the app and worry about doing other aspects later e.g. page decoration/layout etc..

Maybe others could also tell us their assessment in evaluating the two.
 
alan do
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good to know aldre...here's another thought ramina...how about looking into JSF? perhaps the JSF forum can give you some insight on whether or not it will address your requirements. struts along with struts-faces should work quite well with JSF.
 
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Hi
I fell in same situation before .first i start the job with tiles (there are several books and tutorial for it.)but then i switched to Sitemesh , as i found it easier to use.
One decoration and all of your pages will get the common sections.

hope it helps
 
alan do
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One decoration and all of your pages will get the common sections.


if i understand you correctly, you weren't using tiles properly. if you have a master tile, one change of the master tile (eg. in a common section), the entire site changes.
 
Masoud Kalali
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I know that we can extends tiles definition , and just chnge one of its
ares (probably our body).
but as you certailnly know , you need difinitions for al of your forwards

Am i correct?

Thank you
 
alan do
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how does needing a definition for each forward change the fact that changing a part of the master tile changes the entire layout (by the way, you don't...forward can be a tile, jsp, or another action)? does sitemesh read your mind and know which page to forward the user to when you decide to change your forwarding?

maybe i am not understanding the advantage of sitemesh you are presenting. please do explain (and other reasons why sitemesh is of an advantage) since you have experiences in both. i'd love to learn more. thanks.
 
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Check out Matt Raible's blog entry on Tiles vs. SiteMesh
 
Consider Paul's rocket mass heater.
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