Part V: Struts Extensions

Editing Validator Configuration Files with Struts Console

As you can imagine, trying to remember every tag's list of attributes as well as its proper order inside the configuration file can be cumbersome. If you make a mistake in typing any of the tag's or attribute's names, your Struts application will not be configured properly. To simplify the creation and modification of Validator configuration files, you can use a GUI tool called Struts Console. Struts Console is a stand-alone Java Swing application that provides a graphical editor for Validator configuration files. Additionally, Struts Console can be used as a plugin with several major Java IDEs, providing a seamless Struts development experience.

Struts Console is free software and can be downloaded from http://www.jamesholmes.com/struts/. This Web site has all the information for configuring Struts Console to work with your favorite Java IDE. In addition, this book's appendix provides a Struts Console quick reference. Figure 20-1 shows Struts Console running as a stand-alone application.

Figure 20-1: Struts Console running as a stand-alone application