Jakarta Struts Cookbook

14.1. Reusing a Common Page Layout with Tiles

Problem

You want to define a common layout for your application and use that layout throughout your application without having to cut and paste HTML everywhere.

Solution

Use Tiles with your Struts application.

Discussion

Tiles has been distributed with Struts since the Struts 1.1 release. Prior to that, it was available as a separate add-on known as Components. Tiles allows you to create page component definitions that can be reused throughout your application.

The first step in using Tiles is to understand your needs. What are the common elements and what are the elements that change on every page? Is the layout the same across your application? If not, would your application be more usable if it did have a common layout?

To understand how to apply Tiles, this recipe walks you through its application for a simple web site. Say you want to apply a common page layout, such as the one in Figure 14-1, to every page of your application.

Figure 14-1. Typical page layout with header, sidebars, and footer

Moving from left to right and top to bottom, you pull the page apart into its component pieces described in Table 14-1.

Table 14-1. Components of a page layout

Component name	Description	Page position
Title	Text, specific to the body content, displayed in the browser title as well as the header	Browser title bar and within the header
Header