Storing template outside webapp

[Andrew Headrick]

Hi Gang,

I know this is a bit more of a general Java problem than one specific to Spring, so I thought I would give this forum a try. Here is the problem.

Our company has designed a CMS (of sorts ) which will allow clients to upload and design their own view templates for a specific template class. Our system validates the templates against command beans, validators and formatting rules belonging to that template class.

So far the templates have been placed under the webapp directory, which is normal. This however requires us to bundle the templates with the application war, which is what we don't want to do.

Is there a way to load a template from outside the webapp without using symbolic links? This location could be on the system, database, NFS etc. Note, that the actual templating language doesn't matter as we can use JSTL, FreeMarker or Velocity.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Andrew

[Andrew Headrick]

I did some more research, and it seems all I need to do to is configure the security manager to allow code access from outside the webapp.

Any comments, pros, cons, a better way?

Thanks,
Andy