Simplify your AppFuse Managers
I figured out a way to remove any ActionForm references from my Managers yesterday. It was pretty simple, but I thought others might benefit from this knowledge. Basically, you just need to add a couple methods to your BaseManager.java file. Here is the latest one from CVS HEAD. Then you can pretty much eliminate any *Form references in your Manager by using the convert(Object) method. This method will convert POJOs <-> Forms and vise versa. You will likely have to do some tweaks on the package names if you're using anything < v1.4. Looking at this diff of the UserManager before and after this change will show you what's changed.
I started this task thinking I could remove the need for Forms in my classpath when compiling the service layer. However, I soon discovered that my Tests have Forms all over the place - since they replicate what my Actions will pass in. Oh well, at least my code is a bit cleaner now.
Of course, this code will become even simpler when I start using an MVC Framework that allows my POJOs to be my data handlers on the UI. These frameworks make me question if I even need Managers. Then again, it's nice to unit test what your DAOs are returning/receiving from the web layer.