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Announcements - 2005

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18 Dec 2005 - New Struts Committer: Richard Feit

Please join us in welcoming Rich Feit as a new Struts committer. Rich is a Beehive committer and PMC member. In addition to being a Struts user for years (Beehive is built on Struts), he has been pivotal in designing and coding Struts Ti, both the initial annotationed Beehive version and the current WebWork merger effort. His experience in Struts migration tools in particular will be key to making Struts Action a success. We look forward to his continued contributions as a committer.

Welcome, Rich!

PMC vote: 7 +1, non-binding committer votes: 3 +1

14 Dec 2005 - Apache Struts to release Struts 1.3.0 as the "Action Framework"

[Note: As of version 1.3.5, the "Action Framework" label was dropped, and Struts is just Struts again.]

The Apache Struts flagship product, the leading web application framework for Java, is now known as the "Struts".

To make the framework easier to maintain, Apache Struts subdivided the original monolithic distribution into several subprojects. Each subproject has its own website, documentation, and release cycle, and may be downloaded separately. For consistency, the original core framework component also has its own name now: "Struts". The JARs and external dependencies for the extensions to Struts are being bundled into a convenient distribution known as the "Struts Action Framework Library".

The Struts 1.3.0 release will include several exciting new features, including:

The key change in this release is the "composable request processor". The request processor is the framework's "kernal". The request processor methods are now command objects in a flexible chain of commands. Rather than subclassing a monolithic object, developers can now just replace commands with their own implementations. Commands can also be inserted or removed, if needed, to extend or streamline the request processing gauntlet, to better meet the needs of different kinds of applications.

The Struts 1.3.0 release, and other milestones on the Apache Struts roadmap, were discussed at ApacheCon on Tuesday, December 13, 2005, in a talk, entitled "Struts 2006: An Embarrassment of Riches". Slides from the talk are available online .

14 Dec 2005 - Apache Struts and Open Symphony WebWork communities to merge

Apache Struts, the leading web application framework for Java, and Open Symphony WebWork, a leader in technical innovation, are working to merge their communities and codebases.

"A merger is an elegant approach to evolution of existing applications based on action-oriented frameworks," said Craig McClanahan, founder of the Struts project.

The merger seems like a win-win for the frameworks. "The technical benefit is that WebWork has already done most everything that is on the Struts Action roadmap," noted Ted Husted, a Struts committer. "This is a way that [Struts] shops can use incremental integration to take advantage of new technologies that are already part of WebWork, such as Spring."

"My hope is to take advantage of a larger community (Struts) to allow all of us to do a bit less individual effort." said Patrick Lightbody of WebWork. "I would expect moving to Struts lets us focus on our families and day jobs a bit more."

Apache projects help developers balance day jobs with volunteer work through the practice of collaborative developement. Decisions are made jointly by the core community, rather than by one or two key individuals. The projects are organized so that individual developers can focus on other matters for a time, and then return to the development community as schedules allow.

Over the past few months, Apache Struts has more than doubled its number of active committers. With the addition of two WebWork developers, there are about fifteen active volunteers. Right now, about half of the committers are working on the original Struts Action Framework and half are working on the new Struts Shale Framework, which utilizes JavaServer Faces. Several volunteers are now working with both frameworks.

The merger and other milestones on the Apache Struts roadmap were discussed in a talk at ApacheCon on Tuesday, December 13, 2005, entitled "Struts 2006: An Embarrassment of Riches". The talk will be presented by Lightbody, Husted, and Don Brown, another Struts Committer. The Struts Shale framework is being discussed at a second talk, presented by McClanahan, entitled "Shale: The Next Struts??" Slides from the talk are available online .

14 Dec 2005 - Apache Struts offers "Shale" for JSF

[Note: Shale is now a top-level ASF project.]

To give JavaServer Faces developers a head start on building scalable web applications for the enterprise, Apache Struts now offers the Shale Framework. Like the original "Struts", Shale provides developers with a front controller, and several other components, to provide the "invisible underpinnings that hold an application together".

"When JavaServer Faces arrived," explains the Struts website, "our development community chose to 'make new friends but keep the old'. Some of us want (or need) to stick with the original request-based framework. Others are ready to switch to an component-based framework that builds on JavaServer Faces. We offer both frameworks because we have volunteers to create and maintain both frameworks."

Shale is based on the recently standardized JavaServer Faces APIs, and focuses on adding value, rather than redundantly implementing features that JSF already provides. Shale will run on any compliant JSF implementation, including the one being developed by the Apache MyFaces project. It also includes many features that Struts users appreciate, such as supporting client side validation and the Tiles framework.

Struts Shale was discussed by Craig McClanahan in a talk at ApacheCon on Tuesday, December 13, 2005, entitled "Shale: The Next Struts??". Slides from the talk are available online .

14 Dec 2005 - Apache Struts to release "standalone" Tiles

Apache Struts introduced Tiles as a integral component of its Struts 1.1 release in June 2003. Since then, several other projects have been using Tiles, even though it was embedded in the Struts JAR. Soon, it will be much easier to use Tiles with products like Jakarta Velocity, Apache MyFaces, and Struts Shale.

Tiles is a templating framework that can be used to create a common look and feel for a web site or application and to create reusable view components. A key aspect of Tiles is that it can be configured from a XML configuration file. A Tile definition can "extend" another definition, giving the component an object-oriented feel. Tile developers can create a base Tile (or screen layout), and then indicate only how other Tiles differ from the base. Changes made to a base Tile "cascade" to Tiles that extend that base. Significant changes can be made to the layout of a website just by changing a single Tile definition.

25 Nov 2005 - Struts 1.2.8 (General Availability)

The Struts team is pleased to announce the release of Struts 1.2.8 for General Availability. This release is primarily to fix a Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability identified in Struts by www.hacktics.com and supersedes the earlier 1.2.7 version as the latest official release of Struts from The Apache Software Foundation.

For more information on the XSS Vulnerability and solutions please see the following pages: http://wiki.apache.org/struts/StrutsXssVulnerability and http://www.hacktics.com/AdvStrutsNov05.html

The binary, source and library distributions are available from the Struts download page: http://struts.apache.org/download.cgi

The Release Notes are available on the Struts web site at: http://struts.apache.org/1.2.8/userGuide/release-notes.html

Please check the wiki for the latest information on upgrading: http://wiki.apache.org/struts/StrutsUpgrade

23 Oct 2005 - New Struts Committer: Laurie Harper

Please join us in welcoming Laurie Harper as a new Struts committer. Over the last few months, he has made hundreds of helpful posts to our lists. Laurie is the author of the very cool Struts Sidebar , and he has contributed several patches to Struts Classic, including fixes to our unit tests (a thankless job).

Welcome, Laurie! .. We're looking forward to many more green bars!

PMC vote: 7 +1 (binding), 1 +1 (non-binding)

23 Oct 2005 - New Struts Committer: Sean Schofield

Please join us in welcoming Sean Schofield as a Struts committer. Sean is an Apache MyFaces committer who also been been working on Struts Shale.

Welcome, Sean! .. Now you can apply your own patches!

PMC vote: 5 +1, 1 +0

23 Oct 2005 - New Struts Committer: Greg Reddin

Please join us in welcoming Greg Reddin as a Struts committer. Greg has been an active Struts contributor for a long time now, and has been helping us move Tiles towards a standalone subproject.

Welcome, Greg! .. We look forward to rapid progress on Standalone Tiles!

PMC vote: 6 +1

21 Aug 2005 - New Struts Committer: Gary vanMatre

Please join us in welcoming Gary vanMatre as a new Struts committer. Gary has been quite busy proposing code for the "Clay" plug-in on Shale, and has also been supportive on the dev and user mailing lists (for both Struts and MyFaces). We look forward to his energy being available to the entire Struts project as well.

Welcome, Gary! .. And now you can process some of your own outstanding code diffs :-).

PMC vote: 5 +1

15 Jul 2005 - New Struts Committer: Wendy Smoak

Please join me in welcoming Wendy Smoak as a new Struts committer. Wendy has been a tremendous asset to the Struts community for several years now, providing unflagging support to the user base as well as invaluable input and feedback to the development team. We look forward to her continued contributions as a committer.

Welcome, Wendy!

PMC vote: 7 +1, 2 +0.

26 May 2005 - Struts 1.2.7 (General Availability)

The Struts team is pleased to announce the release of Struts 1.2.7 for General Availability. This release includes new functionality, as well as numerous fixes for bugs which were reported against the previous release, and supersedes the earlier 1.2.4 version as the latest official release of Struts from The Apache Software Foundation.

The binary, source and library distributions are available from the Struts download page . The Release Notes are available on the Struts web site.

31 March 2005 - New Struts PMC Chair

Martin Cooper has been appointed Struts PMC Chair by the ASF Board at their February 2005 meeting.

Craig McClanahan stepped down as the Struts PMC Chair in February 2005. In Craig's words "I will continue to be active, but it's time for someone else to take the administrative responsibilities.".

The Struts PMC nominated Martin Cooper as their preferred choice for the Struts PMC Chair to the ASF Board which was approved unanimously. Minutes of the ASF Board meeting should be available here in due course.

25 Feb 2005 - New Struts Committer: Hubert Rabago

We are pleased to announce that Hubert Rabago has accepted an invitation to join the Struts development community as a committer. We were impressed by Hubert's sustained participation in both the user and dev mailing lists, where he has demonstrated knowledge and respect for the community. He has clearly put considerable energy into how Struts works, both from a code perspective as well as a community perspective.

So, we've begun the formalities to get his account set up and such, and we look forward to the day when we can tell him to commit his own darn patches.

17 Feb 2005 - New Struts subproject: Struts Flow

The Apache Struts team is pleased to announce the adoption of its latest subproject, Struts Flow, a continuations-based approach to complex web workflows. Struts Flow orginated at the struts.sf.net project and has been formally adopted now as a Struts subproject. Struts Flow is a port of Apache Cocoon's Control Flow to Struts to allow complex workflow, like multi-form wizards, to be easily implemented using continuations-capable Javascript and eventually Java.

Today, Struts is comprised of nine subprojects: Core, Taglib, Tiles, El, Faces, Scripting, Applications, Shale, and (now) Flow. Struts Flow is different from Struts Scripting/BSF as where scripting brings any BSF-supported scripting language to Struts Actions, Struts Flow works on redefining the traditional Model 2 state-driven workflow into simplified scripots whos eexecute spans multiple requests. Currently, the Rhino engine, a Javascript implementation, is used to provide continuations support, but with the maturation of Commans Javaflow - a Java-based continuations implementation, Java will soon be supported as well.

For more information, visit the Struts Flow website .

23 Jan 2005 - New Struts subproject: Shale

The Apache Struts team is pleased to announce the adoption of its latest subproject, Struts Shale, a JSF-based framework. The Shale codebase was initiated by Craig McClanahan in the Struts sandbox, and development traffic regarding Shale has steadily increased. As the product is heading towards an initial release, the Struts PMC felt it time to formally adopt Struts Shale as a subproject.

Today, Struts is comprised of eight subprojects: Core, Taglib, Tiles, El, Faces, Scripting, Applications, and (now) Shale. An initiative is underway to extract the Struts Tiles code into a standalone product. Several Struts developers plan to apply to the ASF to incubate Tiles as a toplevel project .

For more about the Struts Shale subproject, see the Kickstart FAQ .

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