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Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 17:55:07 -0500
From: Paul Benedict <pbenedict@apache.org>
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To: Struts Developers List <dev@struts.apache.org>
Subject: Re: [user-question] Forward back to the page you came from
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Sender: Paul Benedict <paulus.benedictus@gmail.com>

I have actions like this:

<action path="loadPerson" /> forwards to edit
<action path="editPerson" /> displays page
<action path="savePerson" /> forwards to previous page

If you think about what these mappings are, they are really actions 
(functions) of a person page. You go to a page to view a person and then 
you use the page to save a person.

loadPerson and savePerson are what I call business actions. Because they 
perform some heavy operation and then forward off to some view. My 
editPerson is an action specifically for viewing data; it takes data 
already loaded and saves it. Which of these would be "pages"? only 
editPerson, imo, since it's purpose is to render data.

You should read Michael's article on it. It's excellent
http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2005/08/04/jspcomponents.html?page=1

Paul

Thomas Hamacher wrote:
> Paul,
> 
> thank you very much for your answer... but let me ask you for a few more 
> details:
> I understood that I need a separation between simple pages and the pages, that 
> do some business logic and that I should do that through an additional 
> property in the ActionMappings of the struts-config.
> But where would I receive this ActionMapping and where should I save it?
> Furthermore is there a way to save an ActionMapping in a page? How to do that?
> 
> I would be very thankful if you could give me some more information about your 
> idea. It sounds very interesting but I don�t really know what to do yet..
> 
> Thanks a lot
> 
> Thomas
> 
> Am Donnerstag, 31. August 2006 02:51 schrieb Paul Benedict:
>> About a month ago I recommend this same thing. The problem really is
>> that Struts has no concept of a page, so it's impossible to tell the
>> difference between actions that perform business logic and actions that
>> just front rendering of a page.
>>
>> You really need a page-based framework to make this happened. My
>> personal recommendation was to include a "page" property on each action
>> mapping which you consider a page. Then in the controller, the last URI
>> can be tracked if this attribute is present in the action mapping. I
>> really recommend this approach to you.
>>
>> It's such a custom solution though that I couldn't recommend it to be
>> included into the Struts Framework. If Struts ever does involve into a
>> page-based controller, then there is leverage to do such a thing... but
>> at the present time you can totally emulate what you need by what I said
>> above.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> Thomas Hamacher wrote:
>>> Dear everyone,
>>>
>>> after spending a lot of time with googling and multiple tries with
>>> different approaches and also my questions to the struts-user-mailinglist
>>> didn�t come to a solution, I would like to as you guys if there is a way
>>> or not. So I�m sorry, if I use the developers-list for a stupid
>>> user-question, but I don�t know any place else I might find a solution to
>>> this problem:
>>>
>>> My question is: Does the struts-framework provide a possibility to
>>> forward back to the page you came from?
>>>
>>> I can�t believe, that I�m the only one, who has this problem and I don�t
>>> think there is no struts-conform solution. Let me give you the following
>>> scenarios so that you know what I�m talking about.
>>> - I wanna show a login-box on every page. If the user logs into the
>>> webpage, the login-action executes and afterwards the user is redirected
>>> to the page he has been before, but the userMenu is displayed instead the
>>> login-box. If the authorization fails, he�ll be redirected to the same
>>> page, showing im an error-message
>>> - On top of every page is a possibility to change the language through
>>> clicking on a button with a language-flag. After changing the locale, the
>>> user will be redirected back to the page he came from, but using a
>>> different language.
>>>
>>> These are only 2 examples to get an idea, what I�m talking about. I tried
>>> the following:
>>>
>>> - using the referrer from the request. But this could not be a solution,
>>> as it is not struts-conform and there are many possibilities, that the
>>> referrer might not be availabe
>>> - using the ActionMapping-Object�s input-Value. This doesn�t work
>>> together with tiles, as the input-value is only part of the tile, but I
>>> need the information of the "parent"-tile. Furtermore this doesn�t work
>>> if the last action was a ForwardAction. Other attributes in the
>>> mapping-object only refer to the next page, but not the current page.
>>> - saving the last ActionForward in the session. This does only work, if
>>> the user uses one browser-window and does never use the back-button,
>>> because otherwise he�ll be redirected to an unexpected page.
>>> - saving the tiles-definition in a hidden field on the jsp-page. This
>>> would prevent the problem with the unexpected page, but does only work,
>>> if a form will be submitted, that has a hidden-field with this value. Or
>>> is there a way to put a parameter into the request without submitting a
>>> form and without adding it to the URI.
>>> - Adding a forward to every ActionMapping and extend the BaseAction to
>>> forward to a specified forward. This won�t work, because of tiles as
>>> well. Unfortunately you never know, which pages include this tile, so you
>>> can�t use a static forward.
>>>
>>> So I�d expect a solution somewhere near the RequestProcessor, but
>>> especially with the ComposableRequestProcessor, this goes very deep into
>>> the struts-architecture. I�m open to do this, but I don�t know the place
>>> where to look at.
>>> Is there a way I haven�t looked at or does anyone have an idea how to
>>> solve this, as you probably know the struts-processes a lot better than I
>>> do. Or is there a special reason, that this could not be implemented into
>>> the struts-framework because of technically restrictions?
>>>
>>> I�d greately appriciate any help to this topic. Sorry for asking this
>>> question in the developers-list again, but I don�t know any other place
>>> to ask for a solution, as I could not get any information to solve this
>>> problem.
>>>
>>> I hope, someone knows a solution to this or might share some ideas.
>>>
>>> Many thanks
>>>
>>> Thomas
>>>
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