Re: Desired Features in FreeMarker

On 2008.01.17., at 19:32, mraible wrote:

> 1. When doing the JSP-based prototype with Struts 2, I was able to  
> use JSP
> 2.0 tag files to develop a <foo:body> tag that allows content to be  
> added
> around the body of the page. Does FreeMarker offer something  
> similar, or is
> it something like SiteMesh the only solution?

Would macros with [#nested] directive help? I.e.

[#macro body]
mybodyprologue
[#nested]
mybodyepilogue
[/#macro]

[@body]
foo
[/@]

would emit:
mybodyprologue
foo
mybodyepilogue


> 2. Is it possible to add static imports/methods to a context so
> "url(foo).q(bar)" can be used instead of referring to the object that
> contains the methods - "urlBuilder.url(foo).q(bar)"?

Well, methods are first-class objects, so a

[#assign url = urlBuilder.url/]

will give you this. You can get to this from Java code too and set it  
as shared variables in a Configuration if you want them to be  
automatically available to templates. As for exposing static methods  
in your templates, see "Accessing static methods" in <http://www.freemarker.org/docs/pgui_misc_beanwrapper.html 
 >

> 3. Is it possible to change how HTML is parsed so you can override or
> customize the [a href=""/] tag? The current compiler does this and  
> it allows
> more fine-grained control over template processing without requiring  
> new
> macros to be called.

FreeMarker doesn't parse HTML. I'm not sure I understand this question.

> Thanks for any information you can provide.

You're welcome -- I hope the above were helpful pointers. If not,  
we'll happily help you further.

Attila.

> Matt

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