Raible Designs

Adding a form element on the fly.

I used this code on my project yesterday and thought I'd share.

<script language="text/javascript">
    function addActionToForm() {
        // get the form to add the input element to
        var form = document.getElementById("noteForm");
        
        // Add a action input element
        var action = document.createElement("input");
        action.setAttribute("type", "hidden");
        action.setAttribute("name", "action");
        action.setAttribute("id", "action");
        action.setAttribute("value", "Save");
        
        form.appendChild(action);
        form.submit();
    }
</script>

This works great for me when I want to simulate a button named "action" being clicked, but I want to submit the form with JavaScript.

Hmmm, doesn't seem to work in IE5/Mac. Any tips?

XDoclet and Struts Validator

From the struts-dev list and Erik Hatcher:

My XDoclet Struts Validator validation.xml (for Struts 1.1) has been posted to the XDoclet tracker.
I'm hoping it will be added to the codebase and put into the upcoming new release of XDoclet (although I'm using XDoclet from CVS builds). Read the HTML file attachment on the issue page above for an example of how it works. If you're hand-coding validation.xml and using ValidatorForm extensions then this is for you!

I can't wait to use XDoclet in my next project! On my current project, I've already written most of the ValidationForms I need. I used the Generator package to do this, but I hope to either (1) refactor my current project to use Castor/XDoclet like Roller, or (2) use it on my next project.

I ordered an Ant book this evening in hopes of learning a lot more about Ant. I think I know a lot, but there's always room for more knowledge.

Struts Console version 2.1

is now available.

http://www.jamesholmes.com/struts/

Struts Console is FREE software. This release adds support for the IntelliJ IDEA IDE, one of the favorites of many developers.

Changes with Struts Console v2.1

• Fixed bug where the "initial" attribute of the <form-property> element was getting set to blank when it wasn't specified.
• Added plugin support for IntelliJ IDEA.

I don't use the Struts Console, but it does look like a nice product. I DO like IDEA, so it's nice to see the compatibility. I have installed it with Forte4J (now Sun ONE Studio 4) and it seemed to install and work pretty well. On my current project, I don't modify the struts-config.xml enough to really use a visual editor. I usually just use Homesite or XML Spy - of course, it helps that I know the struts-config DTD.

Struts 1.1 Beta 2

is released! Your 1.0.x application should work just fine with this latest release - if they don't, post a question to the Struts User List. One reason to upgrade (in my opinion) is that my favorite features, Validator and Tiles, are now part of the core package. And they are now easily configured as "plug-ins" in your struts-config.xml file. Here is how I configure them in my application:

<!-- ========== Plug Ins Configuration ================================== -->
<!-- Validator Plug-In Configuration -->
<plug-in className="org.apache.struts.validator.ValidatorPlugIn">
    <set-property property="pathnames" value="/WEB-INF/validator-rules.xml,/WEB-INF/validation.xml"/>
</plug-in>

<!-- Tiles Plug-In Configuration -->
<plug-in className="org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesPlugin">
    <set-property property="definitions-config" value="/WEB-INF/tiles-config.xml" />
    <set-property property="definitions-debug" value="0" />
    <set-property property="definitions-parser-details" value="1" />
    <set-property property="definitions-parser-validate"
value="true" />
</plug-in>

There is also DynaBeans which make it easy to configure a FormBean in your struts-config.xml file without creating a concrete .java file. Here's an example:

<form-bean name="messageForm" type="org.apache.struts.action.DynaActionForm">
    <form-property name="toName" type="java.lang.String"/>
    <form-property name="toEmail" type="java.lang.String"/>
    <form-property name="subject" type="java.lang.String"/>
    <form-property name="content" type="java.lang.String"/>
</form-bean>


Centering tables with CSS on IE5/Mac

I've been using <table align="center"> in my pages for a few months now because I couldn't get my tables to center align with style="margin: 0px auto". Until today, I found this tip with a simple search on Google.

As demonstrated in this simple example page, IE5/Mac centers tables using the correct margin styles if they are written in long-form as margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;. The shorthand forms such as margin:0 auto; do not work. Fortunately this bug is easily worked around by using the long-form syntax.

Good to know, life just got a little easier.

Roller Login Enhancement

I added an enhancement to roller today. Basically, it's a trick I learned with form-based authentication. Rather than having 2 different pages (one for the login, and one for the login failure), you use one page and specify a paramter, such as /login.jsp?error=true for the <form-error-page> value. This makes it easy to add a error message at the top with something like this:

<div class="error">
<logic:present parameter="error">
     <bean:message key="error.password.mismatch"/>
</logic:present>
</div>