Spring MVC – Sitemesh 3 Integration
Sitemesh is a web page layout/decoration framework that makes it easy to create applications with consistent layout/look and feel. I have used Sitemesh 2 for years and absolutely love it. Sitemesh 3 is a complete rewrite of the framework and has huge performance benefits. A full list of the new features is listed here. In this blog I will share the steps needed for integrating Sitemesh 3 in a Spring MVC application.
1. We start by creating a Maven based web application using my Spring archetype. Here is the generated pom.xml file with dependencies:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd"> <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion> <groupId>com.inflinx.blog</groupId> <artifactId>sitemesh3</artifactId> <name>sitemesh3</name> <packaging>war</packaging> <version>1.0.0</version> <properties> <org.springframework-version>3.1.1.RELEASE</org.springframework-version> </properties> <dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>org.springframework</groupId> <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId> <version>${org.springframework-version}</version> <exclusions> <exclusion> <groupId>commons-logging</groupId> <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId> </exclusion> </exclusions> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.springframework</groupId> <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId> <version>${org.springframework-version}</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>cglib</groupId> <artifactId>cglib</artifactId> <version>2.2.2</version> <scope>compile</scope> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>javax.inject</groupId> <artifactId>javax.inject</artifactId> <version>1</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>javax.validation</groupId> <artifactId>validation-api</artifactId> <version>1.0.0.GA</version> <scope>compile</scope> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId> <artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId> <version>4.2.0.Final</version> <scope>compile</scope> <exclusions> <exclusion> <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId> <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId> </exclusion> </exclusions> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>jstl</groupId> <artifactId>jstl</artifactId> <version>1.2</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId> <artifactId>jcl-over-slf4j</artifactId> <version>1.5.8</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId> <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId> <version>1.5.8</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId> <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId> <version>1.5.8</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>log4j</groupId> <artifactId>log4j</artifactId> <version>1.2.14</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>commons-lang</groupId> <artifactId>commons-lang</artifactId> <version>2.6</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId> <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId> <version>2.0</version> <scope>provided</scope> </dependency> </dependencies> <build> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.mortbay.jetty</groupId> <artifactId>maven-jetty-plugin</artifactId> </plugin> <plugin> <artifactId>maven-eclipse-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.9</version> <configuration> <additionalProjectnatures> <projectnature>org.springframework.ide.eclipse.core.springnature</projectnature> </additionalProjectnatures> <additionalBuildcommands> <buildcommand>org.springframework.ide.eclipse.core.springbuilder</buildcommand> </additionalBuildcommands> <downloadSources>true</downloadSources> <downloadJavadocs>true</downloadJavadocs> </configuration> </plugin> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.3.2</version> <configuration> <source>1.6</source> <target>1.6</target> <compilerArgument>-Xlint:all</compilerArgument> <showWarnings>true</showWarnings> <showDeprecation>true</showDeprecation> </configuration> </plugin> </plugins> </build> </project>
2. To the web application we add the following Sitemesh 3 maven dependency:
<dependency> <groupId>org.sitemesh</groupId> <artifactId>sitemesh</artifactId> <version>3.0-alpha-2</version> </dependency>
3. We then create a Sitemesh decorator containing common layout/look and feel that all the pages should have. Create a main.jsp file under WEB-INF/decorator folder with the following contents:
<html> <head> <title><sitemesh:write property='title'/></title> <sitemesh:write property='head'/> </head> <body> <div style="color: red"> <sitemesh:write property='body'/> </div> </body> </html>
4. The next step is to let Sitemesh know about this decorator. This is done via sitemesh.xml file located under WEB-INF folder.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <sitemesh> <mapping path="/*" decorator="/WEB-INF/decorator/main.jsp"/> </sitemesh>
In the above configuration file, the mapping element tells Sitemesh to apply main.jsp decorator to all the pages. Other configuration options provided by Sitemesh 3 are listed here.
5. The final step in the integration is to add Sitemesh filter to web.xml.
<filter> <filter-name>sitemesh</filter-name> <filter-class>org.sitemesh.config.ConfigurableSiteMeshFilter</filter-class> </filter> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>sitemesh</filter-name> <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern> </filter-mapping>
When you run the application you should see the red font color applied due to main.jsp decorator:
This post was helpful. Thanks!
Thanks Balaji for the example. I am using PHP as the the view technology with spring MVC following this article http://blog.caucho.com/2009/04/14/using-php-as-a-spring-mvc-view-via-quercus/. It works fine. But no luck so far integrating sitemesh 3. Any idea?
Hi Balaji, a little correction in your article – sitemesh.xml has to be renamed to sitemesh3.xml although it is sitemesh3.xml in your code. Thanks for the article.
sitemesh3 doesn’t support POST, if you try create a form with method = “post”, it will return errors,