Tutorials : Simplify List Screen Creation with AJAX :

Simplify List Screen Creation with AJAX

by Alexander Prohorenko and Olexiy Prohorenko

Working on Web applications often requires code for list screens—sometimes very plain, other times with numerous options, things like filtering the results, searching, various sorts, etc. Many developers have their own frameworks for doing this, others are using open-source frameworks like Displaytag or Valuelist. Still, a lot of developers code their list screens by hand, which eats a lot of time and lacks functionality in some cases.

Having tried various methods and frameworks, I've found that Displaytag is suitable for most projects. As the authors say, the Displaytag library is an "open source suite of custom tags that provide high-level, Web presentation patterns which will work in an MVC model. The library provides a significant amount of functionality while still being easy to use."

Though very Displaytag is very useful, it does lack some flexibility. Filling this hole is a framework called dt-Source, which has been written for use directly with Displaytag. Quoting the site: "This is a tag library providing a connection between Displaytag taglib and data sources, allowing the loading of partial lists from different sources, like Hibernate, JDBC, etc. During project growth, it allows new functionality and features like filters, searches, etc. that are completely customizable with CSS."

And last, but not least, there's AjaxTags. Quoting the site: "The AJAX Tag Library is a set of JSP tags that simplify the use of AJAX technology in JavaServer Pages. AJAX is primarily rooted in JavaScript. However, many server-side developers do not have an extensive knowledge of client-side programming in the browser. It's much easier in some cases for J2EE developers, especially, to simply add a JSP tag to the page to gain the function desired. This tag library fills that need by not forcing J2EE developers to write the necessary JavaScript to implement an AJAX-capable Web form and this tag library has a special functionality added to be used with Displaytag."

Goals

In this article, you will take a simple application and use AJAX (by way of the three previously mentioned tools) to easily build list screens with exceptional functionality. Hopefully, you'll learn how to simplify your code and save time during future projects.

Requirements

You don't need any special knowledge to understand and run everything discussed in this article, though you do need to have some hands-on experience with developing Java Web applications and the Spring Framework.

You will need these frameworks to build the code:

Keep in mind that you will need to have the library itself and all its required dependencies—most of them are included.

You can use any builder and any Web container.

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