Programming Jakarta Struts, Second Edition

Struts HTML Tags

The Struts HTML tag library contains tags used to create HTML input forms, as well as other tags generally useful in the creation of HTML-based user interfaces. For example, instead of using a regular HTML text-input field, you can use the text tag from this library.

These tags are designed to work very closely with the other components of the Struts framework, including ActionForms. You always should attempt to use one of these tags first, rather than using standard HTML. These tags’ special knowledge of the rest of the Struts components makes it worthwhile to use them.

Most of the tags within this library must be nested inside of a Struts form tag. There are a few tags included in this library that address issues not necessarily related to forms or form widgets. Those tags also will be discussed briefly in this section. Although not every HTML tag will be discussed, Table 8-1 provides a complete list of the tags that are available in the HTML tag library.

Table 8-1. Custom tags within the Struts HTML tag library

Tag name	Description
base	Renders an HTML base element
button	Renders a button input field
cancel	Renders a cancel button
checkbox	Renders a checkbox input field
errors	Conditionally renders a set of accumulated error messages
file	Renders a file select input field
form	Defines an HTML form element
frame	Renders an HTML frame element
hidden	Renders a hidden field
html	Renders an HTML html element
image	Renders an input tag of type ...