Hi elahe,
I wouldn't do it the way you are proposing. The method signature for your getShortDescription doesn't need that first string. The class containing this method already contains the string you are sending in. This is easy to see when you try to call it. You have item.getShortDescription, and then send it item.description. 'item' already *has* that description string.
Now in your velocity
servlet, you'd populate the values of an instance of this Tool1 class from a database, or with hard-coded values, and place it into the velocity context...
And now in your velocity template, you can use any of the methods of Tool1 on your 'item' object.
If I've misunderstood, and you were meaning Tool1 class to be a utility class of some sort, to be re-used wherever... I think for this exact case, you are re-inventing the wheel. The substring method on java.lang.String does everything your 'getShortDescription' method does.. why wrap it?