velocity with spring - I want to have static template with dynami cocntent

Question

I'm wondering can Velocity make what I want :)

For example I have

<html>
   <meta> 
      <title>My title</title>
   </meta>
   <body>
   <div id="content">
   <!-- here is my dynamic content -->
   </div>       
   <div id="right">static content</div> 
  </body></html>

Now. I have 4 actions in my Spring based application

create, update, login, home

Every action have it own template. For create is a big form, for update small form, for login, login form, for home lates news.

There are very much diffrent each from other. Now I want to dynamicly swap content in my Can I create such template-container (i mean the header part and right div) with dynamic part ?

I don't want to get the actions response to variable and pass it to template. I want to have a simple template for example create.jsp or create.vm or create.html and I want that my app automaticly will take the template of the action and render it in my static template-container.

I hope it is clear

You have asked the same in another question two hours early this one: http://stackoverflow.com/q/9748481/980472 — jddsantaella, Mar 17 '12 at 20:57

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 17 '12 at 10:53

1

Why not use Tiles instead? It's designed for this scenario.

answered Mar 17 '12 at 10:53

TrueDub

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(+1) That is what tiles is for – Ralph Mar 17 '12 at 10:55
Not rly. I don`t like tiles because every action need to be described in xml. I mean if I have 20 actions with 20 diffrent templates I need to go to my tiles.xml and write that update extends defaultTemplate, and I need to put-attribute for id="content". It isn`t effective. Or maybe I`m wrong ? – Fixus Mar 17 '12 at 11:01
Tiles can extend other tiles, not just defaultTemplate, so you can build things up. Honestly, I think it'd be simpler to do using Tiles (or Facelets if you're using JSF, or even Sitemesh) rather than Velocity, but it's up to you. – TrueDub Mar 17 '12 at 12:53
@TrueDub I know that I can extend. But I need to do it manualy for every view. Its very inefective. Or am I wrong ? – Fixus Mar 17 '12 at 18:16
Take a look to Sitemesh. It needs less configuration so you can setup it and forget if you have 2 or 20 actions. You dont need to add new configuration for new actions if the template is the same. – jddsantaella Mar 17 '12 at 20:50

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 17 '12 at 15:06

I've used Tiles 2 with JSP in several projects and I like it. However, with Velocity I prefer macros for simple templating system.

main.vm:

#macro(main)
<html>
    <meta>
        <title>My title</title>
    </meta>
    <body>
        <div id="content">
            $bodyContent
        </div>
    </body>
</html>
#end

hello.vm:

#@main
Hello, World!
#end

Spring configuration:

<bean id="velocityConfigurer" 
    ...
    <property name="velocimacro.library" value="main.vm" />
</bean>

Maybe this is not so pretty, but it has the advantage that every view is the one who decides which layout applies, more like JSF does.

could show me an example of my problem but configured in tiles ? — Fixus, Mar 17 '12 at 18:16

velocity with spring - I want to have static template with dynami cocntent

2 Answers2