JSP Templating methodology

[Clifford Adams]

I'm curious about different jsp templating implementations. I've decided that I don't want to go with a system like velocity or sitemesh. I want to do it using simple c:import's. There seems to be two schools of thought on this: do it like SSI's or do it like Smarty (the PHP templating system)

SSI:
Each page has the same structure and imports the common parts from other files.

Smarty:
You define what makes this page unique, then apply a template to it. dynamic stuff would be passed to the c:import via params.


I'm leaning towards the smarty approach for it's centralization. Any template changes only need to be made in 1 place.

Opinions?

[Bear Bibeault]

3) Use JSP custom actions

[Clifford Adams]

Care to expound a little?

What is the value in writing a custom tag library over using jstl?

[Bear Bibeault]

Using that technique, my pages tend to look like:

<whatever:body>
  ... page-specific content goes here ...
</whatever:body>

The <whatever:body> action is implemented via a JSP tag file that emits all the template stuff and embeds the page-specific content in the appropriate location.

[Clifford Adams]

ahhh. I had completely forgotten about tag files.

//off to do some reading

[Stefan Evans]

You might take a look at struts:tiles.
Why re-invent the wheel?

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Stefan Evans:
Why re-invent the wheel?

To me, adopting tiles just to do simple templating is bit like using



when all you need is a wheel.

[Clifford Adams]

I've looked at tiles, but it doesn't do anything c:import can't

the tag files look nice and flexible.

thanks.