Coldbeans Software has announced a new release of Coldtags Tag Library. Version 1.10 provides 110+ custom JSP tags for common programming tasks faced by JSP developers.

The new version adds over 15 new components including new visual controls such as tab panel, spin taglib etc. as well as a new set of tags similar to web controls in .NET framework.

Check it out www.servletsuite.com/jsp.htm

What's new:

- more than 15 new components including visual controls such as tab panel, spin etc.

- more .NET similar components. Now former ASP.NET users may use patterns they are
familiar with such as PostBack, Span etc.

- massive updates in existing elements: new options, parameters and functionality. List of updated tags includes such popular tags as Calendar (user defined skins have been supported), Cache, XSL too

- live example of tag usage (our own BluePrint) ? JMX console for JBoss server implemented as a set of taglibs. Check out it here: www.servletsuite.com/jmx/jconsole.htm


At this moment Coldtags suite is probably the largest collection of custom JSP tags over the Net and continues to grow.

Hmm, it does not look bad, but there seems to be very little integration between the tags and the environment. For example, one would imagine that a calendar or country tag would be subject to some internationalization behaviour and things like this....Also, there is no programming model and no common denomitator ammong the tags as far as I can see. This is unlike more "modern" approaches like the proposed Java Server Faces standard (or our own framework available for preview at http://www.iternum.com/i3test. Also, I am very wary of tags that actually are control statements (if, for etc.), because they introduce a new programming language on top of one that is perfectly capable of doing the tasks at hand.

Regards, Karl

that is right and that is why we for example use this stuff.
You are free to choose any model (or no model at all).
We do not need yet another framework.

Whether or not you need a programming model depends on how you are writing your web applications. For those people adopting a model-2 approach, some of the tags aren't that useful because they break the architecture. However, for others taking a straight model-1 approach, such tags are ultimately time-savers.

I do agree with Karl though, inventing another programming language with programming-type constructs is generally a bad idea since it can reduce the readability and maintainbility of the pages. Higher level, more coarse-grained tags generally are much more useful.

Simon
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Author of Professional JSP Tag Libraries

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