Apache Tapestry - Overview

Apache Tapestry is an open source web framework written in Java. It is a component based web framework. Tapestry components are Java Classes. They are neither inherited from a framework specific base class nor implementation of an interface and they are just plain POJOs (Plain old Java Objects).

Apache Tapestry - Architecture

Tapestry tries to use the available features of Java as much as possible. For example, all Tapestry pages are simply POJOs. It does not enforce any custom interfaces or base class to write the application. Instead, it uses Annotation (a light weight option to extend the functionality of a Java class) to provide features.

Apache Tapestry - Installation

In this chapter, we will discuss how to install Tapestry on our machine.

Prerequisite

Tapestry's only dependency is Core Java. Tapestry is developed independently without using any third party library / framework. Even the IoC library used by tapestry is developed from the scratch. Web application written in tapestry can be built and deployed from console itself.

Apache Tapestry - Quick Start

After Tapestry installation, let us create a new initial project using Maven as shown below −

$ mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeCatalog=http://tapestry.apache.org

You could see the response as shown below −

Apache Tapestry - Project Layout

Here is the layout of the source code created by Maven Quickstart CLI. Also, this is the suggested layout of a standard Tapestry Application.

Convention Over Configuration

Apache Tapestry follows Convention over Configuration in every aspect of programming. Every feature of the framework does have a sensible default convention.

Apache Tapestry - Annotation

Annotation is a very important feature exploited by Tapestry to simplify the Web Application Development. Tapestry provides a lot of custom Annotations. It has Annotation for Classes, Methods and Member Fields. As discussed in the previous section, Annotation may also be used to override default convention of a feature.

Apache Tapestry - Pages and Components

Tapestry Application is simply a collection of Tapestry Pages. They work together to form a well-defined Web Application. Each Page will have a corresponding XML Template and Zero, one or more Components.

Apache Tapestry - Templates

Let us consider the Tapestry XML Template in this section. XML Template is a well-formed XML document. The presentation (User Interface) layer of a Page is XML Template. An XML Template have normal HTML markup in addition to the items given below −

Apache Tapestry - Components

As discussed earlier, Components and Pages are the same except that the Page is the root component and includes one or more child components. Components always resides inside a page and do almost all the dynamic functionality of the page.

Apache Tapestry - Built-In Components

This chapter explains about the built-in components that Tapestry has with suitable examples. Tapestry supports more than 65 built-in components. You can also create custom components. Let us cover some of the notable components in detail.

Forms & Validation Components

The Form Component is used to create a form in the tapestry page for user input. A form can contain text fields, date fields, checkbox fields, select options, submit button and more.
This chapter explains about some of the notable form components in detail.

Apache Tapestry - Ajax Component

AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. It is a technique for creating better, faster and more interactive web applications with the help of XML, JSON, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. AJAX allows you to send and receive data asynchronously without reloading the web page, so it is fast.

Apache Tapestry - Hibernate

In this chapter, we will discuss about the integration of BeanEditForm and Grid component with Hibernate. Hibernate is integrated into the tapestry through the hibernate module. To enable hibernate module, add tapestry-hibernate dependency and optionally hsqldb in the pom.xml file. Now, configure hibernate through the hibernate.cfg.xml file placed at the root of the resource folder.

Apache Tapestry - Storage

Every web application should have some way to store certain user data like user object, user preferences, etc. For example, in a shopping cart application, the user's selected items / products should be saved in a temporary bucket (cart) until the user prefers to buy the products.

Apache Tapestry - Advanced Features

In this chapter, we will discuss a few advanced features of Apache Tapestry in detail.

Inversion of Control

Tapestry provides built-in Inversion of Control library. Tapestry is deeply integrated into IoC and uses IoC for all its features. Tapestry IoC configuration is based on Java itself instead of XML like many other IoC containers.

Apache Tapestry - Quick Guide

Apache Tapestry - Overview

Apache Tapestry is an open source web framework written in Java. It is a component based web framework. Tapestry components are Java Classes. They are neither inherited from a framework specific base class nor implementation of an interface and they are just plain POJOs (Plain old Java Objects).

Apache Tapestry - Useful Resources

The following resources contain additional information on Apache Tapestry. Please use them to get more in-depth knowledge on this.

Discuss Apache Tapestry

Apache Tapestry is an open source, component based web framework written in Java. Tapestry was developed by “Howard Lewis Ship” and later open sourced and included into the Apache Foundation.