Programming Jakarta Struts

The Tiles Tag Library

This section introduces the JSP custom tags used by the Tiles framework. Table 14-1 lists the tags available to the framework. The tags are very similar to the ones provided in any template-based framework, but Tiles contains more functionality.

Table 14-1. Tags within the Tiles tag library

Tag name	Description
add	Add an element to the surrounding list.
definition	Create a tile component definition.
get	Get the content from request scope that was put there by a put tag.
getAsString	Render the value of the specified tile/component/template attribute to the current JspWriter.
importAttribute	Import a tile’s attribute into the specified context.
initComponentDefinitions	Initialize a tile definitions factory.
insert	Insert a tiles component.
put	Put an attribute into a tile context.
putList	Declare a list that will be passed as an attribute.
useAttribute	Use an attribute value inside a page.

The insert Tag

The insert tag is responsible for inserting content into a page. In a layout tile, the insert tag prescribes where the content will go using attribute values. In a regular, non-layout tile, the insert tag is used to retrieve a layout and allow content to be passed to the layout using put tags. Table 14-2 lists the attributes for the insert tag.

Table 14-2. Attributes for the insert tag

Attribute name	Description
attribute	The name of an attribute in the current tile/component context. The value of this attribute ...