Exadel has announced Exadel Struts Studio, a visual building tool for the Struts Framework. A key feature of Struts Studio is Web Flow, drag-and-drop framework that allows defining and visualizing the Struts configuration XML file, and is directly linked to the XML source (real-time roundtrip). It also supports automatic management of the relationships between Struts artifacts.

Checkout Exadel Struts Studio.

Press Release
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Tool for the Visual Building of Struts Applications

Exadel Struts Studio is a visual building tool for the Jakarta Struts Framework, the most used J2EE/Web MVC (Model-View-Controller) framework. Struts Studio is designed for the rapid development of Web applications. Our unique visual "drag-and-connect" approach to this task is essential for the rapid development and re-engineering of Web applications with minimal coding.


Struts Studio Key Features

* Supports both Struts 1.1 (latest version) and Struts 1.0
* Allows viewing and editing Struts configuration files using GUI forms and tree representations
* Allows viewing and editing Struts configuration files using Web Flow, a tool for the visual development of Web applications using a drag-and-connect metaphor
* Includes a built-in JSP editor with syntax highlighting, Java prompting, and two-way coordination with Web Flow
* Includes a "one-click" library of Struts-specific tags in the built-in JSP editor
* Allows using built-in or external third party tools to edit project components
* Allows editing in Web Flow before finishing JSP coding
* Integrates with Tomcat Servlet engines for easy preview and running of Struts applications
* Integrates with Ant for easy project control
* Allows the "adoption" of pre-existing Struts projects into Exadel Struts Studio with intelligent auto-placement of the components in Web Flow and without any modifications required for the existing code
* Includes a Code Wizard that automatically creates stub code for Action, FormBean, Forward, and Exception classes
* Includes standard skeleton templates for new projects
* Supports the XP-enabled development paradigm with an "Absolutely Developer Friendly" approach (even comments in the Struts configuration XML file preserved)
* Allows global undo/redo function

A Powerful GUI Framework for Struts

One-click insets

The most compelling feature of Struts Studio is Web Flow, a graphical framework for the visual development of web applications. It allows defining and visualizing the Struts configuration XML file, but it is not just based on code generation. The graphical representation is directly linked to the XML source. Changes in Web Flow become immediately visible in XML. Changes made in XML immediately appear in Web Flow. This helps to significantly reduce the amount of manual coding required, allowing developers to focus instead on implementing business logic. Additionally, Struts Studio features automatic management of the relationships between Struts artifacts. This frees developers from the laborious and error-prone task of maintaining referential integrity between Struts configuration files and JSP pages.

Round-Trip Struts Development

Exadel's engineering capability provides developers with full control over their source code. Web applications created with Struts Studio are 100% pure Struts applications and all existing Struts web applications are 100% readable by Exadel Struts Studio.

Overcoming the Complexity of Large-Scale Web Applications

Exadel Struts Studio enhances the ability of developers to manage large scale web applications. Through its full support of Jakarta Struts Framework v1.1, Struts Studio users are able to create multiple sub-applications, each with their own configuration file, in multiple Web Flows. This allows large-scale Web applications to be logically divided into smaller easier-to-manage modules.

looks interesting... what's your pricing strategy?

Current version of Struts Studio is free. For more information, please look to our Struts Studio forum.

Best regards,
Igor Shabalov
Exadel Inc.

thank you very much for distributing such a great tool for free !

For some reason, the download of the product is extremely slow. I know that my connection is fast enough (downloaded JDK before trying to download this product). Additionally, website does not give information about the version they are offering as download. Is it a free product? Is the download going to work for a few days? Does the demo version have limited functionality?

We sorry for inconveniences, yes we get “overloaded” by too many downloads. For the moment we have fixed the problem, please, come again and try Exadel Struts Studio.

Best regards,
Igor Shabalov
http://www.exadel.com
http://www.exadel.com/products_strutsstudio.htm

How much does it cost?

Does Struts Studio integrate with version control systems(eg: CVS, QVCS)?

This version is compatible with external source control systems. So, it will “reload” file “on the fly” when it was updated by version control. And, technically speaking, current Struts Studio does not have built-in version control. Bat, if you let me to open a bit of our secrets, next version will be based on Eclipse platform and, so, it will use version control plug-in from Eclipse.
However, personally I do not like version control from Eclipse. Nether from NetBeans or any other IDE I’ve seen before. We use CVS here (in Exadel Inc.) with WinCVS front-end and I never ever ever see better version control tool. I use it with 3-4 my favorite IDE tools, same interface, same great functionality.

Best regards,
Igor Shabalov
Exadel Inc.

Once again, current version of Struts Studio is free. For more information about our future plans and price strategy, please look at Struts Studio forum.

Best regards,
Igor Shabalov
Exadel Inc.

Excellent!! 28.2 MB in 40 seconds. I went through the kick start tutorial. The product looks very good. It can be very helpful when you have many action, form beans and JSPs. I would like to see more information on using this with other tools (such as Websphere Studio Application Developer). The biggest problem I found with this product is that there is no way to create getters and setters automatically in formbean (or I am not aware of it). In my current project, I create form beans with sometimes 50 fields!!! I do not want to type 100 methods.

And by the way the Tic Tac Toe game that starts when you start the tool always lets you win if you click opposite corners on diagonal (regardless of the difficulty level)

You can try NOT to win on “easy” level, - that’s a challenge!
:-)

Best regards,
Igor Shabalov
Exadel Inc.

If you define form beans in struts-config AND define “set properties” for it – we will generate getters and setters for you. And, we are opened for your suggestions anyway, please feel free to put any comment or ideas for future releases on our forum.

Best regards,
Igor Shabalov
Exadel Inc.

Chintan,
 To generate getters and setters in WASD
1) Open your Java perspective
2) Show the Outline view, Perspective > Show View > Outline
3) Open/write class with field members
4) Right click the field memeber you want to generate methods for
5) Select 'Generate Getter and Setter' from menu.

Hope that helps,
Jeremy

I have been using WSAD ever since it came out. In fact my project is one of the first and largest project using WSAD. My problem was automatically creating getters and setters in struts studio (because you create form beans in studio). However, I have found out by now that there is a way you can ask struts studio to create getters and setter for you.

And by the way though WSAD creates getter and setter methods for you, you can create accessor methods for ONLY one field at a time i.e. you cannot select multiple fields in outline view and create accessors for all of them at once. So, if I have 50 fields, I right click 50 times to create accessors. I heared this has been fixedin the next version of WSAD.

Chintan, thank you for your suggestion.
Exadel Struts Studio was our short term project - one and half month from gathering requirements to the release. We just started to work on it. So, many additional Struts Studio features are still ahead. Actually, we are now gathering suggestions what features will be added to the next build release. Feel free to visit our Struts Studio forum at http://forum.exadel.com/viewforum.php?f=1

Regards,
Sergey Smirnov
Exadel Inc.

Another problem is that your page doesnt work with Opera browser at all.
I tried IE and it worked.

Why do you support only sucky M$ products ?
As a Java WEB app. developer I know very well that IE is extremely buggy.
(try to work with SSL and you'll see)

Maris Orbidans

It worked fine with Mozilla 1.3 except for downloading the JAR file, I was able to work around that problem.

> Another problem is that your page doesnt work with Opera browser at all.
> I tried IE and it worked.
>
> Why do you support only sucky M$ products ?
> As a Java WEB app. developer I know very well that IE is extremely buggy.
> (try to work with SSL and you'll see)
>
> Maris Orbidans

> I tried IE and it worked.
> Why do you support only sucky M$ products ?

Sorry, I missed the question.
You can change the default browser. Go to options editor and change the path for External Editors -> Internet Explorer. I know, the name of the param is not suitable. We will fix it in the next build.

When browser is changed, the application will start with a new browser and helps will be shown, also, in this new browser. I have Opera 6.01 installed. It works fine.

Is there some IDE integrations planned ? Actually user want only one tool to provide full developpement cycle. Why did you not use powerfull Eclipse framework ?

-emmanuel

installed it,
seems really interresting,
I'm going to test it

We are planning to have next version of Struts Studio based on Eclipse framework.

Max
Exadel, Inc

I would love to see the integration with Eclipse. Bye the way thanks for proving again that there are people out still believe in better technologies and open source standards. You guys have to come up with a reasonable price once the product is finalized and integrated with Eclipse. This should be a killer to BEA workshop and booster to open source developer to build a web application in fast and nice way.

> framework.

IMHO, that's a big mistake. Everyone who uses Java already has Swing. Many developers work with NetBeans, JEdit, JBuilder, TogetherJ, IDEA, etc and, most likely, they will not bother to install Eclipse/Swt just to run your product.

this sounds a lot like weblogic workshop 8.1's pageflow
refer to:

http://edocs.bea.com/workshop/docs81/doc/en/workshop/guide/netui/tutorial/tutJPFYourFirstPageFlowApplication.html

and

http://dev2dev.bea.com/articles/Dew.jsp

you can download the beta from
http://commerce.bea.com/showproduct.jsp?family=WLW&major=8.1&minor=-1

looks like the future is struts!

This is really good news! So far I think that it has taken quite a long time for Java tools to mature. So this is definately a step in the right direction. Hopefully priceing of Exadel's tool will be more realistic than the offerings from big IDE vendors! Good work guys! :-)

Cheers,

Smythe...

FYI

Since Weblogic 8.1 , the workshop uses Struts for handling their pageflow. They don't use their proprietary format 'webflow' anymore.

I don't think this is entirely true. While the marketing message may be struts, the proprietary .jpf files in WorkShop are not. WorkShop does not use struts tags, has it's own form bean implementation and only uses the struts config to delegate to its own page flow controller. I would steer clear of this if you want to do real struts development and have fullcontrol over the standards struts files and have access to form actions and form bean code.

Dave

Ok, thanks.

Excuse me for my wrong information. I am currently developing on weblogic portal 4 and weblogic portal 7.1, but I saw an introduction to weblogic 8.1, by a BEA employee, last week. He told me they switched from their proprietary 'webflow' to Struts for that. Probably this is only 'part of' the truth.

I have been told by a trusted BEA source that they are trying to have 2 way conversion between BEA's pageflows and native struts applications by the time 8.1 is released.

At the moment a pageflow application is compiled "down" into a struts application.

cheers,
Markus

Fot those who use WebSphere Studio V5, the introduction of a struts tool is old school. WASD 5 has an integrated struts developer thats does (on first sight) the same things. But the advantage here that is has been build on the Eclipse platform and is nicely integrated into the complete studio environment.

That's the problem with tool now a days. You got 10 tool providers, making their specific tools. Ten tools not working together.

What we developers need are real IDE, IDE's that provide support from User Interface to Business Logic to Data Model. In my opinion, the WebSPhere Studio 5 is for the moment the only tool provding this. There's even a weblogic plugin available.

The only problem is when you try developing for JBoss. For as far as I know there is no JBoss plugin.

Grtz

made a first little app with it,
I have one word to say:
BRAVO!
great tool

This product looks very interesting. I have a couple of questions:

Does the Struts Studio provide support for JSTL tags as well as the Struts Logic & Iteration tags?

How does the Struts Studio represent an ActionMapping that forwards to a Tile definition rather than a JSP ?

I am looking forward to giving this product a bit of exercise on my next project :)

>
> Does the Struts Studio provide support for JSTL tags as well as the Struts Logic & Iteration tags?
>
> How does the Struts Studio represent an ActionMapping that forwards to a Tile definition rather than a JSP ?
>
> I am looking forward to giving this product a bit of exercise on my next project :)

We don't have any specific support for particular Struts Taglibs. The Struts Studio palette is fully customizable. You can add any tag set you want.

 
> How does the Struts Studio represent an ActionMapping that forwards to a Tile definition rather than a JSP ?

We don't parse Tiles structure. Tiles are represented as gray colored pages on the diagram. When you create a new Forward manually type the tile name in path field and the tile will appear on the diagram.

Max
Exadel, Inc.

Does this thing work on Linux/Unix?

The installer starts, but then the progress bar hangs on 0% for a long time.

Jason McKerr

>
> The installer starts, but then the progress bar hangs on 0% for a long time.

According to the readme "Pentium 4 based kernels" - whatever that is - doesn't work either. What kind of program is this, really? Portable it isn't, thats for sure ...

--
jonmartin dot solaas at mail dot link dot no
http://solaas.minidns.net

Can we have some confirmation on this please. This would pretty much rule out its use for me.

> > The installer starts, but then the progress bar hangs on 0% for a long time.
>
At this time we have only release for Windows. The Unix version testing is in a progress. We will announce Unix version as soon as testing will be complete.

> According to the readme "Pentium 4 based kernels" - whatever that is - doesn't work either. What kind of program is this, really? Portable it isn't, thats for sure ...

It is another story. We have registered a problem when swing hanged up during Struts Studio exit. It rarely happened in the following environment "Windows XP + Pentium 4 + jdk1.4.*". The same problem never happened on any other combination.
That was the reason we mentioned about unstable environment.

P.S. Aaron Robinson, sorry for delay. I had not registration on theServerSide. I mostly answered on forum.exadel.com. From now, I will check this thread often.

I'm on a P3/RH 7.2/jdk1.3.1_06 and it hangs on install for me as well. Please let us know when you have a unix/linux version running. Looks intersting.

The linux version will be announced as soon as testing phase is completed.

The current version should not work under linux. In anyway, thank you for trying. No miracle again :-)

I guess if you will start using XDoclet it might eliminate desire to look at many GUI tools...

This probably has nothing to do with the cause of the problem you are facing with Pentium 4, but I do recall a problem specific to Pentium 4 with regard to the Oracle Universal Installer where it was trying to use a just in time compiler VM and this caused problems with Pentium 4s. You'll find more info on the Oracle site. Are you using a JIT?

There solution was to move away from using a JIT.

I rememeber that there was a problem with Oracle, because it used an old version of JRE which didnt work under P4. I am working on P4 and I have never had any other Java runtime related problems. And Struts studio works too.

Maris

>
Exadel released version for Linux. The new version for Windows is also available for free download.
http://www.exadel.com/strutsStudio/

If you already have Tomcat 4.1 installed, will the installation cause a problem?

No, installation will not cause problems if you already have an existing version of Tomcat. Struts Studio does come with Tomcat server (listens to port 8888). Tomcat server will start only for Tic Tac Toe example, otherwise it will not start automatically.

You can use your installation of Tomcat server within Struts Studio. Simply go to 'Tools/Options/tomcat server' and change 'root dir' pointing to your installation. You can run/stop your Tomcat server by using Tool bar buttons.

Max
Exadel, Inc.

I was shocked when I read the license file and you will be too!

h. Audit. Exadel may, at any time with seven (7) days prior written notice, request and
gain access to your premises subject to your security procedures, for the limited purpose
of conducting an audit to determine and verify that you are in compliance with these
terms and conditions. You will promptly grant such access and cooperate with Exadel in
the audit. The Audit will be conducted in a manner not intended to unreasonably disrupt
your business and will be restricted in scope, manner and duration to that reasonably
necessary to achieve its purpose. You will be liable for promptly remedying
discrepancies revealed during the audit, including reimbursement to Exadel for the costs
of the Audit and any underpayments.

Dear Michael Mattox, We received your message regarding our rights to audit. This language is standard language meant to protect Exadel’s rights, particularly in situations where the company receives reliable information about violations. Many software agreements have this language. We will cooperate with reasonable requests concerning access and Exadel will keep all information confidential. Please contact me if you have any further questions about the rights to audit to lwalter at exadel dot com.

Lynne Walter, CFO, Exadel Inc.

I'm not granting access like that to any vendor. This is one of the main reasons we support open source software. This type of clause may be standard but that doesn't mean we agree to it, and that doesn't make it right. As posted in this thread, the product is currently free and you have plans for it to remain that way. So why the need for such an intrusive license agreement?

Michael

Ok, Michael. I am a technical guy, so my answer is not official.
Visit www.goolge.com and type "any time with seven (7) days" there. You will discover that it is one of the common license texts. Usually, licenses are located behind the dynamic part of sites, but even between found, indexed by Google, licenses you can find a license of product that distributed for free.

Current version of Struts Studio is going to be free, but it does not mean that it is open source. Exadel Inc. obtains the technology that allows developing web-centric application 3 to 4 times faster vs. standard (Struts) way. Our entire products, commercial and distributed for free, based on this technology.

Michael, license agreements are not subject for emotion, but subject for law. You always can get additional information directly from vendor. Our contacts are available for you.

I did find a couple other products using a similar license agreement, my guess is it comes from a template or Quicken Lawyer or something like that. Your response seems to be that other companies do it so it's OK. What I'm saying is it's NOT OK with me and lots of other users. Many users on the Struts mailing list have been discussing this and how they will not even download your software because of the license agreement. If you want to keep such a rediculous license agreement it's your right to do so. But I'm sure it will impact your sales. This is just another example of why many companies are going open source.

Michael

Paragraph 1.h has been removed from our license. See official memo:
http://forum.exadel.com/viewtopic.php?t=62

Features of this tool should be merged into Eclise/WSAD ide.