Question

I want to build reusable JSP components for an application that I am building. There are multiple ways to go around this. The ones that I know of include building JSPFragments and then stitching the page the together. But that is not an elegant way of doing it.

I am also trying to get mt head around JSP tag libraries to be able to build reusable components for JSP. I read in multiple places that tag libraries are falling out of favour fast. There are other frameworks like JSF and Freemarker templates by which I can build re-usable components. What do I use to build these components. Is there a preferred and contemporary approach I can follow?

Answer 1

I am not sure if this solve your problem. But anyway, I started to use FreeMarker, which is a really good template engine. It follows strict the MVC principal. These feature might help you to decide whether FreeMarker is good for your needs:

• Including strategy. This is what I use to include header and footer template files in my view.
• Macros. Maybe you want but write your own directives. Unfortunately I have no experience with that.
• Using jsp taglibs with FreeMarker is also possible.

Note that FreeMarker is just a template engine. You can not include java code into html like with jsp.