The NetUI template tags provide a very simple templating mechanism. The basic concept is to create a template page that contains the layout and information you want on each page within a site or page flow. Then content pages are created which provide the content and represent the pages of the site. You directly access the content pages and they pull in their template to produce the final rendered document.
The following JSP page defines a simple template. This template provides the
overall layout of the site and places to drop content. There are two types of
content <netui-temp:includeSection> and <netui-temp:attribute>.
The <netui-temp:includeSection> tag is the primary placeholder for content. The
content page will provide sections of content that fit into the placeholders defined
in the template. In addition, the <netui-temp:attribute> tags
is a named attribute that represents some type of value. These may be found in
more than one place in the page.
template.jsp
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In the template above there is an <netui-temp:attribute> which
defines the named attribute title. This attribute is used in two
places, the first place is the within the HTML <title> in the header.
The second place this is used is the visual title on the page.
There are two section defined for this page. These sections will contain the primary
content of the page. The <netui-temp:includeSection> tag defines the
placement of the section and gives a name to it. A content page will define the contents
of each section. In the example there are two sections defined left and
right.
The content pages provide the content displayed within a template. The content pages also
act as the addressable artifacts. This means that index.jsp can be directly accessed and
the template will be applied when the content is rendered. Below is a typical content page.
This content page will define a set of links which are displayed in the left
section and some content that is displayed in the right section.
The template page may be located anywhere in the site. It does not have to be located in
the same location as the content page. The templatePage attribute specifies the
template page an may be either absolute to the webapp root or relative to content page.
index.jsp
${pageFlow.content}
All of the rendered content inside of a content page appears inside of tags. The
<netui-temp:template> tag defines the name of the template to apply
to the content. In this example the template.jsp is the template applied
to the content defined.
Next all of the attributes defined inside of the template are defined. The
<netui-temp:setAttribute> tag provides the value for a named attribute. The
name and value attributes must both be set.
Finally, the content of the two sections is provided. The body of the
<netui-temp:seciton> provides the content for the named section. You
must set the name attribute to match one of the sections defined in the
template.
This example uses a very simple page flow controller that simply provides
some read-only properties that are bound to by the content pages. Notice that
the begin action goes to the content page index.jsp.
Controller.jpf
This is some content that would be found in a database or content managment system of some" + "type. For this example it's just hardwired into the page flow."; protected void onCreate() { links = new Link[5]; links[0] = new Link("ESPN", "www.espn.com"); links[1] = new Link("Google", "www.google.com"); links[2] = new Link("CNN", "www.cnn.com"); links[3] = new Link("BEA", "www.bea.com"); links[4] = new Link("gmail", "www.google.com/gmail"); } public Link[] getLinks() { return links; } public String getContent() { return content; } public static class Link { private String name; private String href; public Link(String name, String link) { this.name = name; this.href = link; } public String getName() { return name; } public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; } public String getHref() { return href; } public void setHref(String href) { this.href = href; } } } ]]>