Struts noob needs guidance.

[John Bowen <jo...@sabertoothgames.com>]

  Hi,

  I'm a brand new Struts cultist.  I'm clear on the hows and whys of the
Actions and Forms, but what I haven't quite lightbulbed yet is the best way
to implement multiple step user processes, especially when some of the steps
require data entry and others are basically read-only data.

  Example: Users can search for events near their house.

  Step 1: User enters search criteria.  A textbook struts example, use a
FindEventForm and FindEventAction.

  Step 2: Displaying the resulting criteria.  Right now FindEventAction
places the resulting DB-queried ArrayList [non-ActionForm] Bean into
request.setAttribute which is pulled out by the JSP using the appropriate
struts tags.  Is this the best way to go?  Or should I be wrapping/passing
the DB-queried resultset as the mapped ActionForm with empty Validate() and
Reset() methods?

  Step 3: Users can click on one of the results to show details of that
event.  Again, I'm going from Step 2 without input fields and doing
something else without user-driven input.  Do I create yet another
ActionForm wrapper around the data I'm passing or just null the ActionForm
and slip in my own request.setAttribute beans as needed?

  I love the centralized request processing, I'm just a bit confused on how
I'm *supposed* to be passing simple form-less data back and forth.

  Thanks for any guidance.
  - John