Raible Designs

Sunday June 13, 2004

Mailstore seems to be based on AppFuse An interesting post titled "Project and Build Structure" showed up on javablogs.com today. As I began reading the project structure layout, I thought, "that looks good." It wasn't until I viewed the build.xml file that I realized that Seyed had copied AppFuse and modified it to his needs. This is fine and the license allows you to do this. However, Seyed's post seem to indicate that he is coming up with all of this stuff on his own. It seems, to me, that Seyed is (so far) in violation of AppFuse's license. Of course, if he'd merely give credit to AppFuse, he'd be free and clear! ;-) Posted in Java at Jun 13 2004, 06:06:40 PM MDT 3 Comments

AppFuse Logo Contest - win an iPod I need a logo for AppFuse. I don't care if it has the name "AppFuse" in it or if it's just an icon sort-of-thing. I'm primarily looking to replace the default icon on java.net - but good project logos are always cool. Hopefully it will imply what AppFuse is (a jumpstart kit for java webapps), but I'm more keen on a good-looking design that anything. I'll buy the winner an iPod mini. If you have a logo you'd like to submit, please upload it to my wiki using the "Attach File..." link at the bottom of the page.

Update: Wow - there's already 8 entries in 24 hours! Sweet! I think I'll end the contest next Thursday, (the 24th) and announce a winner on Friday evening. Posted in Java at Jun 13 2004, 03:00:45 PM MDT 7 Comments

Quick 'n Easy SiteMesh Tutorial SiteMesh is a kick-ass tool. It's much easier to use and configure than Tiles, although I don't know if its as powerful. Tiles has Controllers that you can assign to a definition and it supports easy i18n. I've been using Tiles for over 3 years and I've only used SiteMesh for a few months. However, SiteMesh already seems to suite all my needs. I'm guessing that most people use Tiles over SiteMesh because they haven't given SiteMesh the 10 minute test.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. Rick Reumann has put together a nice tutorial titled Use SiteMesh instead of Tiles.

I think you will quickly see the benefits after going through this brief example. In summary, the main reason I like SiteMesh more than Tiles is that SiteMesh is much easier to configure and use (less typing and easier to understand).

Good stuff - thanks Rick! As part of the WebWork integration into AppFuse, I was planning on using SiteMesh. I'm already using it in Spring Live sample app and it's pretty slick. I haven't had to touch it since I integrate it. Compare this with Tiles where you have to add a new definition (or JSP) everytime you want a new page. If nothing else, I think Tiles needs to learn from SiteMesh and add a Filter that can be used to decorate pages. Posted in Java at Jun 13 2004, 02:15:50 PM MDT 9 Comments