Spring web flow or Spring 2.5 mvc

[Joy Vergis]

HI,
I am asked to design an web application using spring 2.5 framework. In this application multiple users login and do data entry activities simultaneously. I have to design a set of pages which navigate to add,modify the entries. I am dong this using Spring 2.5 mvc. now I am confused on Spring webflow and Spring MVC. i need help to understand the which would be best suited for case as above for multiple pages with multiple operations with multiple request.


regards,

[Bill Gorder]

You would have to provide more details. If you are looking at a stateful web application with controlled navigation with well defined flows then I would consider using Spring web flow. A flow is defined as below:

A flow encapsulates a sequence of steps that guide a user through the execution of some business task. It spans multiple HTTP requests, has state, deals with transactional data, is reusable, and may be dynamic and long-running in nature

Otherwise Spring MVC by itself is probably sufficient. Why use Spring 2.5 for new development? That is a bad idea if this is a new project you are designing, then use the latest Spring currently 3.1.2.RELEASE

FYI the information I provided is available as part of the project description on the Springsource website

[Dhananjay Inamdar]

Hi


I am agree with what Bill mentioned in his reply "If you are looking at a stateful web application with controlled navigation with well defined flows then I would consider using Spring web flow.".

I am currently working on the web application where we are using both Spring WebMVC and WebFlow.

At first we will look at Spring WebFlow usability: user has to go through certain steps to purchase our products, it is more or less like shopping cart of any web application to add products, review cart, payment details, terms and conditions and then checkout. So Spring WebFlow can be used for these types of application where there is certain flows/ steps user has to go like installation Wizard of any software.

Spring WebMVC is more requested oriented framework, which works on the FrontController design pattern. Here DispatcherServlet accept the request and figure out which controller to passon the request to, this time it will do handshake with WebFlow to execute a perticular flow.

You will find best tutorial which will explain both in here http://www.ervacon.com/products/swf/intro/index.html.

It is not mandatory to use Spring WebMVC, you can use Struts or any other framework with Spring WebFlow, but Web MVC is more prefereed as both from Spring and integrates very well.