Most java developers have at least heard of Freemarker. FreeMarker is a “template engine”; a generic tool to generate text output (anything from HTML to autogenerated source code) based on templates. It’s a Java package, a class library for Java programmers. It’s not an application for end-users in itself, but something that programmers can embed into their products. It is the “generic” nature of Freemarker that trips up java web developers....
For Ivy: <dependency org="com.tomczarniecki" name="spring-stringtemplate" rev="1.5.1" /> For Maven (yeech): <dependency> <groupId>com.tomczarniecki</groupId> <artifactId>spring-stringtemplate</artifactId> <version>1.5.1</version> </dependency> Thank you Sonatype....
Here is how I set up the Apache Ivy dependency manager so that it can fetch springframework JARs from the SpringSource Enterprise Bundle Repository. Listing: ivysettings-custom.xml <ivysettings> <resolvers> <url name="com.springsource.repository.bundles.release"> <ivy pattern="http://repository.springsource.com/ivy/bundles/release/[organisation]/[module]/[revision]/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]" /> <artifact pattern="http://repository.springsource.com/ivy/bundles/release/[organisation]/[module]/[revision]/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]" /> </url> <url name="com.springsource.repository.bundles.external"> <ivy pattern="http://repository.springsource.com/ivy/bundles/external/[organisation]/[module]/[revision]/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]" /> <artifact pattern="http://repository.springsource.com/ivy/bundles/external/[organisation]/[module]/[revision]/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]" /> </url> <chain name="spring"> <resolver ref="com.springsource.repository.bundles.release"/> <resolver ref="com.springsource.repository.bundles.external"/> </chain> <ibiblio name="jboss" root="http://repository.jboss.org/maven2/" m2compatible="true"/> <chain name="main" dual="true"> <resolver ref="shared" /> <resolver ref="public" /> <resolver ref="spring" /> <resolver ref="jboss" /> </chain> <chain name="default" returnFirst="true"> <resolver ref="local" /> <resolver ref="main" /> </chain> </resolvers> </ivysettings> Listing: ivysettings....
StringTemplate is a great templating engine. It's powerful, simple and quite opinionated. I've come really appreciate its simple purpose: render data. No assignment, no arbitrary method invocation. It is not Turing-complete and it would make a lousy rules engine. SiteMesh is a web-page layout and decoration framework that is my current "golden hammer" when I need to provide a consistent layout across a java web-application. It seems to fit with the way that I think about web pages a whole lot more than something like Tiles - I really prefer decoration over composition as a means of layout control....