Struts Studio, M7, etc...

["Damm, Gary" <ga...@qualcomm.com>]

Any opinions on these tools?  I code my Struts applications (4
successful projects) in Eclipse.  I see these tools as a potential
timesaver now that I understand the framework.  Anyone using them that
wants to give feedback?

Re: Struts Studio, M7, etc...

[Christian Bollmeyer <ja...@christianbollmeyer.de>]

Am Dienstag, 21. Oktober 2003 07:27 schrieb Sergey Smirnov:
> > .....
> > In this area, Struts Studio has to compete
> > with several full-featured IDEs (including Eclipse, probably)
> > being around, and unfortunately, it's not fit for serving as a
> > replacement yet.
>
> Since version 5.0, Exadel Struts Studio is based on Eclipse platform.
> So, if you have the Eclipse as your primary java IDE, you do not need
> to have separate Struts IDE to work with specific Struts artifacts.
> Struts Studio is available as a plugin for Eclipse, or as a stand
> alone IDE based on Eclipse.

This definitely is interesting news - how comes I didn't stumble over
this somewhere before? As I see, Struts Studio 5.0 was released
on October, 6th when I was on vacation in the Netherlands, but
anyhow, I didn't see much press about it still. Combining it with
Eclipse is a very clever choice IMHO, as it would fill a definite
gap there. Considering the standalone IDE (my version is 4.6
CE, still): I like it in spite of its limitations (but what to expect 
from a Community release anyway?), and I definitely like its
clear GUI design, apart from the visual appoach in general.
IIRC I even used Struts Studio as an example to show non-
believers from the Microsoft fraction that modern Java/Swing
applications are neither slow nor ugly-looking in comparison.

Leaves for one thing, not only targeted at Exadel, but Struts-
supporting IDE developers in general:  in practice, Struts
and Tiles are a nearly perfect match, especially when it
comes to complex page designs. In Struts 1.1, you can
seamlessly specify Tiles definitions (tiles-defs.xml) as
targets for your Actions in struts-config.xml. This is just
*great*, period. There is another approach to Tiles in
combination with Struts: inserting Tiles definitions in JSP
pages. This also works, but you lose one of the major
benefits of Tiles, and that is: abstract layout definition
and definition layout inheritance, in a single, central
XML file. Now it may be that Cedric Dumoulin has a
website where most parts don't work as expected ;),
but  the framework he created saves so much time
and solves so many everyday problems that it should
be weighted up in gold. This is especially true when
combined with Struts: Action targets may also be Tiles
definitions. In practice, we make heavy use of
tiles-defs.xml and layout inheritance. 

But I was to talk about tool support. Now: as I said,
Struts 1.1 can use Tiles definitons coming from 
tiles-defs.xml as a replacement for JSP pages.
Actually, 99% of our pages referred to in
struts-config.xml are nowadays based on Tiles
refernces. Unfortunately, most visual tools don't
honor this or mistake Tiles references for JSP pages.
IIRC, Struts Studio did, but in 4.6 at least: it properly
recognized a reference to a Tiles definition, but
when right-clicking on the icon, it didn't open
tiles-defs.xml though there was a menu item
stating otherwise. Do 4.7 or 5.0 do so? For me,
it would just suffice if the IDE properly recognized
that the Action's target was not a JSP, but a Tiles
definition instead, showing the reference in the
visual editor as if it had been made to a JSP,
and when clicking on a Tiles reference there,
it clearly would suffice to just open tiles-defs.xml
in dumb mode. 

Goodness. I could say so much more on all these
matters, but it's already late around here now,
and I'll have to answer another guy's most
urgent question on another list, too. Summing
it up: I personally like Struts Studio and other
good IDEs, too, and if anything I may attribute
helps or makes things better in the end, I'm
right here. But for now, I really have to write
another mail before I may finally go to bed.

-- Chris.  


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Re: Struts Studio, M7, etc...

[Sergey Smirnov <si...@exadel.com>]

> .....
> In this area, Struts Studio has to compete
> with several full-featured IDEs (including Eclipse, probably)
> being around, and unfortunately, it's not fit for serving as a
> replacement yet.

Since version 5.0, Exadel Struts Studio is based on Eclipse platform. So, if
you have the Eclipse as your primary java IDE, you do not need to have
separate Struts IDE to work with specific Struts artifacts.
Struts Studio is available as a plugin for Eclipse, or as a stand alone IDE
based on Eclipse.




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Re: Struts Studio, M7, etc...

[Christian Bollmeyer <ja...@christianbollmeyer.de>]

Am Samstag, 18. Oktober 2003 02:13 schrieb Damm, Gary:

> Any opinions on these tools?  I code my Struts applications (4
> successful projects) in Eclipse.  I see these tools as a potential
> timesaver now that I understand the framework.  Anyone using them
> that wants to give feedback?

Well, I don't have any experience with M7 and only limited experience
with Struts Studio (I evaluated the Community edition some time ago
and can't say anything about the main product). First of all, the over-
all concept of visualizing the page flow based on struts-config.xml
is a great idea, though it takes some time to get accustomed to
it. Note that this approach is generally limited to what you actually 
enter in struts-config.xml, so if you say something like 
'return mapping.getInputForward(); somewhere, it won't show
up in the model later. Apart from that, this concept has some
major advantages, as the visual model gives you an instant
oversight about how your Struts application is meant to generally
behave, which is a definite plus for complex applications in
particular. Exadel is on the right way here, IMHO, for there's
a clear need to visualize how things work on an abstract
scale in a way even computer-illicits like Management people
can understand (and never underestimate the impact of
having a diagram at hand people may not even understand,
but happily agree upon it things are much too complicated for
them and their money is well-spent on you caring for all those
details :-), and you can't do the same with UML activity
diagrams or the like on this implementation-near level. Still,
as usual, diagrams don't spare you from actually coding the
details, but even then the diagram helps you, as you can
directly jump to the implementation class and code what
is necessary. From what I can say, Exadel clearly did a
great job with Struts Studio. Still, it's also lacking in some
areas, and the most import one IMHO is when it actually
comes to coding. In this area, Struts Studio has to compete
with several full-featured IDEs (including Eclipse, probably)
being around, and unfortunately, it's not fit for serving as a
replacement yet. I well may be spoiled, but NetBeans,
S1 Studio, Oracle JDev or JBuilder are just better at this,
and probably Eclipse may be so as well. This not only
includes instant access to documentation wherever
needed, and in practice, I find a JSP/Servlet debugger
most helpful when things don't behave as expected
(even though Niklaus Wirth demanded that debuggers
should be forbidden by law, for everything should
be strictly based on proper use of mathematic
principles and logic, 1991). This I still miss in
Eclipse as well, and just starting and stopping
Tomcat by some toolbar buttons, provided by an
unofficial plugin AFAIK, doesn't really help me. But
that's just my personal opinion.

-- Chris.


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