Spring MVC Tiles 3 integration tutorial

Wednesday, July 16, 2014, 17:37
Spring Framework
44,770 views

One of the areas in which Spring MVC has advance compares to other frameworks is in the separation of view technologies. In this post, i will show how to integrate Apache Tiles 3 with Spring MVC. Apache Tiles is a free open-source template engine for java web frameworks. It’s based on Composite pattern and used to simplify the development of user interfaces.

Create a spring configuration XML file which add bean definition for TilesConfigurar and TilesView.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
	xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
	xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.2.xsd 
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context  
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.2.xsd 
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.2.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.2.xsd">
	
	<context:annotation-config />
	<context:component-scan base-package="org.techzoo.springtiles.controller" />

<mvc:annotation-driven />
	<mvc:default-servlet-handler />
	<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" />

<bean id="tilesConfigurer" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.TilesConfigurer">
		<property name="definitions">
			<list>
				<value>/WEB-INF/layouts/layouts.xml</value>
				<value>/WEB-INF/layouts/views.xml</value>
			</list>
		</property>
	</bean>

</beans>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"

xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"

xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"

xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"

xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans

http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.2.xsd

http://www.springframework.org/schema/context

http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.2.xsd

http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc

http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.2.xsd

http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx

http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.2.xsd">

<context:annotation-config />

<context:component-scan base-package="org.techzoo.springtiles.controller" />

<mvc:annotation-driven />

<mvc:default-servlet-handler />

<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" />

<list>

<value>/WEB-INF/layouts/layouts.xml</value>

<value>/WEB-INF/layouts/views.xml</value>

</list>

</property>

</bean>

</beans>

Now create a tiles definition xml file which contains tiles template definitions. I have created two xml files, one for tiles base template and another for tiles body definition but you can combine it in one.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE tiles-definitions PUBLIC

"-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Tiles Configuration 3.0//EN"

"http://tiles.apache.org/dtds/tiles-config_3_0.dtd">

<tiles-definitions>

<definition name="DefaultTemplate"

template="/WEB-INF/views/template/SiteTemplate.jsp">

<put-attribute name="title" value="Home" />

<put-attribute name="header" value="/WEB-INF/views/template/header.jsp" />

<put-attribute name="menu" value="/WEB-INF/views/template/menu.jsp" />

<put-attribute name="body" value="" />

<put-attribute name="footer" value="/WEB-INF/views/template/footer.jsp" />

</definition>

</tiles-definitions>

Create a template jsp which include the common pages (like header, footer, menu etc.). I have used Blueprint css framework to create a grid for layout.

<%@ taglib uri="http://tiles.apache.org/tags-tiles" prefix="tiles"%>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
	<title>Spring MVC - Tiles Integration tutorial</title>
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="resources/css/screen.css" 
      type="text/css" media="screen, projection"></link>
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="resources/css/print.css" 
      type="text/css" media="print"></link>
	
<style>
body{ margin-top:20px; margin-bottom:20px; background-color:#DFDFDF;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
	<div class="container" style="border: #C1C1C1 solid 1px; border-radius:10px;">
		
		<tiles:insertAttribute name="header" />
		
		<div class="span-5  border" style="height:400px;background-color:#FCFCFC;">
			<tiles:insertAttribute name="menu" />
		</div>
		
		<div class="span-19 last">
			<tiles:insertAttribute name="body" />
		</div>
		
		<tiles:insertAttribute name="footer" />
	</div>
</body>
</html>

<%@ taglib uri="http://tiles.apache.org/tags-tiles" prefix="tiles"%>

<head>

<title>Spring MVC - Tiles Integration tutorial</title>

type="text/css" media="screen, projection"></link>

type="text/css" media="print"></link>

<!--[if IE]>

type="text/css" media="screen, projection">

<![endif]-->

<style>

body{ margin-top:20px; margin-bottom:20px; background-color:#DFDFDF;}

</style>

</head>

<body>

<tiles:insertAttribute name="header" />

<tiles:insertAttribute name="menu" />

</div>

<tiles:insertAttribute name="body" />

</div>

<tiles:insertAttribute name="footer" />

</div>

</body>

</html>

Header.jsp

<img src="resources/images/techzoo-header.png"

width="950" style="padding-top:10px;" />

</div>

Footer.jsp

<hr />

<p>

<b>TechZoo - A Zoo of Technology</b>

</p>

</div>

menu.jsp

<%@ taglib prefix="spring" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags"%>

<li>

<spring:url value="/index" var="homeUrl" htmlEscape="true" />

</li>

<li>

<spring:url value="/viewPeson" var="personListUrl" htmlEscape="true" />

<a href="${personListUrl}">Person List</a>

</li>

</ul>

As you can see, In you main template jsp we have inserted body attribute but in tiles-def xml file that body attribute is blank. This is because spring controller will render this portion using its view rendering mechanism.

Create a Controller which has two action (index and viewPeson) . The return value of every controller will be mapped with each tiles definition which is associated with jsp to render as body in template.

package org.techzoo.springtiles.controller;

import java.util.HashMap;

import java.util.List;

import java.util.Map;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;

import org.springframework.ui.Model;

import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;

import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;

import org.techzoo.springtiles.vo.Person;

@Controller

public class SpringTilesController {

@RequestMapping(value="index")

public String index() {

return "index";

}

@RequestMapping(value="viewPeson")

public ModelAndView viewPersons(Model model) {

Map<String, List<Person>> persons =

new HashMap<String, List<Person>>();

persons.put("persons", Person.createPersons());

return new ModelAndView("personList", persons);

}

A Person VO class just to show a list of person in personList.jsp.

package org.techzoo.springtiles.vo;

import java.util.ArrayList;

import java.util.List;

public class Person {

private String name, email;

private int age;

public Person(String name, String email, int age) {

this.name = name;

this.email = email;

this.age = age;

}

//getter, setters methods

@Override

public String toString()

{

return String.format(

"Person [name = %s, email = %s, age = %d]",

name, email, age);

}

public static List<Person> createPersons() {

List<Person> persons = new ArrayList<Person>();

persons.add(new Person("Tousif", "tousif@mail.com", 32));

persons.add(new Person("Asif", "asif@mail.com", 28));

persons.add(new Person("Ramiz", "ramiz@mail.com", 26));

persons.add(new Person("Rizwan", "rizwan@mail.com", 32));

persons.add(new Person("Amol", "amol@mail.com", 33));

persons.add(new Person("Ramdas", "ramdas@mail.com", 31));

return persons;

}

Your second tiles defination xml (views.xml) will looks similar to following. Both the tile defination ‘index’ and ‘personList’ is extending ‘DefaultTemplate’.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE tiles-definitions PUBLIC

"-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Tiles Configuration 3.0//EN"

"http://tiles.apache.org/dtds/tiles-config_3_0.dtd">

<tiles-definitions>

<put-attribute name="body"

value="/WEB-INF/views/index.jsp" />

</definition>

<put-attribute name="body"

value="/WEB-INF/views/personList.jsp" />

</definition>

</tiles-definitions>

index.jsp

<h3>SpringMVC - Tiles3 Integration tutorial</h3>

<p>By:- Tousif Khan</p>

</div>

personList.jsp

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c"%>

<h4>List of Persons</h4>

<tbody>

<tr>

<th>Email</th>

</tr>

<c:forEach var="person" items="${requestScope.persons}"

varStatus="loopCounter">

<tr>

</tr>

</c:forEach>

</tbody>

</table>

</div>

Output:

Download Source (without jars, size 63 kb)

Download WAR file (size 4.63 Mb)

About the Author

Tousif Khan has written 69 posts.

I Love Coding, Analyzing, Designing and doing it the right way. I am obsessed about learn anything new daily and sharing what I have learn each Day. This Blog is journey of my Zeal, going through step by step to the mountain of desire to become prefect. Google Wanna Hire me ?

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