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OpenSymphony SiteMesh 2.5


SiteMesh is a web-page layout system that can be used to abstract common look and feel from the functionality of a web-application and to assemble large webpages from smaller components. Pages and components can have meta-data extracted from them (such as body, title and meta-tags) which can be used by decorators (skins) that are applied.

SiteMesh won't tread on your toes or force you to work in a certain way (except for cleaner) - you install and carry on working as before. It seamlessly fits in with existing frameworks.

Forget the hype - just try it! You'll be impressed with how it can simplify things.

Obtaining


The latest version of SiteMesh can be obtained from:

2.4.x 2.5.x 2.6.x 2.7.x
Java 7+ Java 8+ Java 17+ (2.4.x base) Java 17+ (2.5.x base)
Servlet API 3.1-4.0.1 Servlet API 3.1-4.0.1 Jakarta Jakarta
2.4.x 2.5.x 2.6.x 2.7.x
Java Docs
Download 2.4.4 Download 2.5.0 Download 2.6.0-M1 Download 2.7.0-M1

Docs: https://sitemesh.github.io/sitemesh2/

See the latest snapshot in action by running:

../gradlew

or for Windows run:

../gradlew.bat

from the src directory.

To force refreshing a snapshot, run:

../gradlew --refresh-dependencies

Requirements


SiteMesh requires a Java Servlet container conforming to the Servlet 3.1 specification. Versions prior to 2.3 are not enough.

Currently known containers that support this and SiteMesh was tested with:

Installation


  • Copy sitemesh-@[email protected] to the WEB-INF/lib/ directory of your web-app.

  • OPTIONAL: Copy sitemesh.xml to the WEB-INF/ directory if you need to specify a custom decorator mapper configuration then the default configuration.

  • Add the following to WEB-INF/web.xml:

<filter>
    <filter-name>sitemesh</filter-name>
    <filter-class>com.opensymphony.sitemesh.webapp.SiteMeshFilter</filter-class>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>sitemesh</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
  • ORION USERS ONLY. For performance reasons, Orion does not auto-load tab library descriptors from Jars by default. To get passed this you will also have to copy sitemesh-decorator.tld and sitemesh-page.tld to WEB-INF/lib and add the following to WEB-INF/web.xml:
<taglib>
   <taglib-uri>http://www.opensymphony.com/sitemesh/decorator</taglib-uri>
   <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/lib/sitemesh-decorator.tld</taglib-location>
</taglib>

<taglib>
   <taglib-uri>http://www.opensymphony.com/sitemesh/page</taglib-uri>
   <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/lib/sitemesh-page.tld</taglib-location>
</taglib>

Getting started


Ok, let's assume you have some basic JSPs already on the site. These should contain vanilla HTML.

If you don't, here's a JSP to get you started (test.jsp).

<html>
    <head>
        <title>Hello world</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <p>Today is <%= new java.util.Date() %>.</p>
    </body>
</html>

Once you have some content (preferably more imaginative than the example above), a decorator should be created (decorator.jsp).

<%@ taglib uri="http://www.opensymphony.com/sitemesh/decorator" prefix="decorator" %>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>My Site - <decorator:title default="Welcome!" /></title>
        <decorator:head />
    </head>
    <body>
        <decorator:body />
    </body>
</html>

Now you need tell SiteMesh about that decorator and when to use it. Create the file WEB-INF/decorators.xml:

<decorators>
    <decorator name="mydecorator" page="/decorator.jsp">
        <pattern>/*</pattern>
    </decorator>
</decorators>

Access your original JSP (test.jsp) though your web-browser and it should look pretty normal. Now if you add some styling to your decorator it shall automatically be applied to all the other pages in your web-app.

You can define as many decorators as you want in decorators.xml. Example:

<decorators defaultdir="/decorators">

    <decorator name="default" page="default.jsp">
        <pattern>/*</pattern>
    </decorator>

    <decorator name="anotherdecorator" page="decorator2.jsp">
        <pattern>/subdir/*</pattern>
    </decorator>

    <decorator name="htmldecorator" page="html.jsp">
        <pattern>*.html</pattern>
        <pattern>*.htm</pattern>
    </decorator>

    <decorator name="none">
        <!-- These files will not get decorated. -->
        <pattern>/anotherdir/*</pattern>
    </decorator>

</decorators>

Further support


You get the idea. Play around. See the SiteMesh website for full documentation.

https://github.com/sitemesh/sitemesh2/issues

Credits


Thank these guys: