Struts 2: the modern web application framework

• Web applications: a quick study
• Frameworks for web applications
• The Struts 2 framework

Saying hello to Struts 2

• Declarative architecture
• A quick hello
• HelloWorld using annotations

Working with Struts 2 actions

• Introducing Struts 2 actions
• Packaging your actions
• Implementing actions
• Transferring data onto objects
• File uploading: a case study

Adding workflow with interceptors

• Why intercept requests
• Interceptors in action
• Surveying the built-in Struts 2 interceptors
• Declaring interceptors
• Building your own interceptor

Data transfer: OGNL and type conversion

• Data transfer and type conversion: common tasks of the web application domain
• OGNL and Struts 2
• Built-in type converters
• Customizing type conversion

Building a view: tags

• Getting started
• An overview of Struts tags
• Data tags
• Control tags
• Miscellaneous tags
• Using JSTL and other native tags
• A brief primer for the OGNL expression language

UI component tags

• Why we need UI component tags
• Tags, templates, and themes
• UI Component tag reference

Results in detail

• Life after the action
• Commonly used result types
• JSP alternatives
• Global results

Integrating with Spring and Hibernate/JPA

• Why use Spring with Struts 2
• Adding Spring to Struts 2
• Why use the Java Persistence API with Struts 2

Exploring the validation framework

• Getting familiar with the validation framework
• Wiring your actions for validation
• Writing a custom validator
• Validation framework advanced topics

Understanding internationalization

• The Struts 2 framework and Java i18n
• A Struts 2 i18n demo
• Struts 2 i18n: the details
• Overriding the framework's default locale determination

Extending Struts 2 with plug-ins

• Plug-in overview
• Common plug-ins
• Internal component system
• Writing a breadcrumb plug-in

Best practices

• Setting up your environment
• Unit-testing your actions
• Maximizing reuse
• Advanced UI tag usage

Migration from Struts Classic

• Translating Struts Classic knowledge
• Converting by piecemeal

Advanced topics

• Advanced action usage
• Dynamic method invocation
• Using tokens to prevent duplicate form submits
• Displaying wait pages automatically
• A single action for CRUD operations
• Tiles and Struts 2