Jakarta Struts Cookbook

7.6. Creating a Wizard-Style Page Flow

Problem

You want users to have a wizard-style page flow experience.

Solution

Implement a subclass of LookupDispatchAction that supports operations for the navigational functions—previous, next, and finish—and template methods for the business logic. For each discrete step of the workflow, extend this subclass, placing the business logic for each step in the provided template methods. (See Example 7-4.)

Example 7-4. LookupDispatchAction for wizards

package com.oreilly.strutsckbk.ch07; import java.util.HashMap; import java.util.Map; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse; import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm; import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForward; import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping; import org.apache.struts.actions.LookupDispatchAction; public class WizardLookupDispatchAction extends LookupDispatchAction { public WizardLookupDispatchAction( ) { keyMethodMap = new HashMap( ); keyMethodMap.put("button.previous", "doPrevious"); keyMethodMap.put("button.next", "doNext"); keyMethodMap.put("button.finish", "doFinish"); } public ActionForward doPrevious( ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception { processPrevious(mapping, form, request, response); return mapping.findForward("previous"); } protected void processPrevious( ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse ...