tags very difficult

[Bhumika Thakkar]

I'm having a hard time understanding tags. Anyone has easy notes for that?

Thanks,
Bhumika.

[Amol Fuke]

Bhumika,
I hope by tags means Tag libraries.

There is good book on tag libraries by Wrox publication.

[Kejal Shah]

Hi Bhumika,
Refer HFSJ n you'll be fine. I had to refer it twice to get a hang. Tryin out some code will help you better understand

HTH
Kejal

[S.L.Narayanan]

Hi

HFSJ is the best thing if u want to understand it easily. If u want to know them completely from top to bottom go for some Wrox series. I think some hands-on will help u understanding Tags.

[Kumar J]

hi,
Quite true.
Hfsj would be good.
Go through chapters 7th and 8th on jsp and EL 3-4 times.preferrably make your own notes.Once you get the hang of it.the shift to tags becomes easy.
Bcoz what you can't do in those things u can in tags.

A simples tag can be a jsp file renamed as .tag or .tagx file....wow quite easy...right...

[Bhumika Thakkar]

oh those are tag files or simple tags? I thought simpletags need doTag method. i'm reading it over and over again.. somehow just goes above my head.

Thanks, you people are very helpful. I'm glad I found this site.

Bhumika

[Steven Hoodless]

Bhumika,

I was stuck at the same point. I was all set for the exam and had my attributes, patterns, JSP, EL etc sorted but this tag business would not fit in my poor little brain.

I think that if you are following the HF book you can get confused by the numerous types of tags, tld's etc. I believe its helpful to take the time to separate them in your mind and then chapters 9 & 10 start to make a lot more sense.

Basically in Chapter 10 we are introduced to 3 types of tags.

1. Tag Files.

Like includes but better, based on JSP, use attribute and tag directives.

2. Simple Tags.

Java class, TLD to describe attributes. Extends SimpleTagSupport.

3. Classic Tags.

Java class, TLD to describe attributes. Extends TagSupport.

This is roughly how I have separate them in my mind. Once you see them like this you can see that the example at the end of Chapter 9 is an example of deploying a type 2 - Simple Tag.

Hopefully things will now start to fall into place.

Steven