Simple "workaround" for exporting with the displaytag using Tiles
I figured out an easy "workaround" to the fact that the displaytag's export feature (to XML, CSV, and Excel) doesn't work when using Tiles. The happens because the response has already been committed by Tiles (when including previous JSPs) and the displaytag is unable to set the contentType. Here's my workaround:
In struts-config.xml, create a local forward that goes directly to the JSP:
<forward name="exportList" path="/WEB-INF/pages/userList.jsp"/>
Then in your Action, add a little logic to see if you should forward to the definition or to the list:
// if exportType is a parameter, forward directly to JSP
if (request.getParameter("exportType") != null) {
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("export detected, forwarding directly to list jsp");
}
return mapping.findForward("exportList");
} else {
// return a forward to the user list definition
return mapping.findForward("list");
}
Tested with displaytag 0.8.5 on Windows XP and Tomcat 4.1.27. Enjoy!
Update: This workaround will not work with displaytag 1.0b1. There is another solution using a Filter, so we'll try to incorporate that into the 1.0 release.
Posted by Nic Werner on November 21, 2003 at 07:32 PM MST #