Can anyone recommend a simple Java web-app framework?

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I'm trying to get started on what I'm hoping will be a relatively quick web application in Java, yet most of the frameworks I've tried (Apache Wicket, Liftweb) require so much set-up, configuration, and trying to wrap my head around Maven while getting the whole thing to play nice with Eclipse, that I spent the whole weekend just trying to get to the point where I write my first line of code!

Can anyone recommend a simple Java webapp framework that doesn't involve Maven, hideously complicated directory structures, or countless XML files that must be manually edited?

33 Answers

(Updated for Spring 3.0)

I go with Spring MVC as well.

You need to download Spring from here

To configure your web-app to use Spring add the following servlet to your web.xml

<web-app>
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>spring-dispatcher</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    </servlet>

    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>spring-dispatcher</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

You then need to create your Spring config file /WEB-INF/spring-dispatcher-servlet.xml

Your first version of this file can be as simple as:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
   xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc" xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc     http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">

   <context:component-scan base-package="com.acme.foo" />    
   <mvc:annotation-driven />

</beans>

Spring will then automatically detect classes annotated with @Controller

A simple controller is then:

package com.acme.foo;

import java.util.logging.Logger;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.ModelMap;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ModelAttribute;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/person")
public class PersonController {

    Logger logger = Logger.getAnonymousLogger();

    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public String setupForm(ModelMap model) {
        model.addAttribute("person", new Person());
        return "details.jsp";
    }

    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
    public String processForm(@ModelAttribute("person") Person person) {
        logger.info(person.getId());
        logger.info(person.getName());
        logger.info(person.getSurname());
        return "success.jsp";
   }
}

And the details.jsp

<%@ taglib uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form" prefix="form"%>
<form:form commandName="person">
<table>
    <tr>
        <td>Id:</td>
        <td><form:input path="id" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>Name:</td>
        <td><form:input path="name" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>Surname:</td>
        <td><form:input path="surname" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td colspan="2"><input type="submit" value="Save Changes" /></td>
    </tr>
</table>
</form:form>

This is just the tip of the iceberg with regards to what Spring can do...

Hope this helps.

I am really grooving to Stripes. Total setup includes some cut-and-paste XML into your app's web.xml, and then you're off. No configuration is required, since Stripes is a convention-over-configuration framework. Overriding the default behavior is accomplished via Java 1.5 annotations. Documentation is great. I spent about 1-2 hours reading the tutorial and setting up my first app.

I can't do an in-depth comparison to Struts or Spring-MVC yet, since I haven't built a full-scale in it yet (as I have in Struts), but it looks like it would scale to that level of architecture quite well.

Your're searching for http://grails.org/

You code it with groovy, a dynamic language based upon Java and runs smoothly together with Java code, classes and libraries. The syntax is neither hard to learn nor far away from Java. Give it a try, it's some minutes to get a web site up and running. Just follow http://grails.org/Installation and http://grails.org/Quick+Start

Greetz, GHad

Check out WaveMaker for building a quick, simple webapp. They have a browser based drag-and-drop designer for Dojo/JavaScript widgets, and the backend is 100% Java.

Stripes : pretty good. a book on this has come out from pragmatic programmers : http://www.pragprog.com/titles/fdstr/stripes. No XML. Requires java 1.5 or later.

tapestry : have tried an old version 3.x. I'm told that the current version 5.x is in Beta and pretty good.

Stripes should be the better in terms of taking care of maven, no xml and wrapping your head around fast.

BR,
~A

Grails is written for Groovy, not Java. AppFuse merely reduces the setup time required to get any number of Webapp frameworks started, rather than promoting any one of them.

I'd suggest Spring MVC. After following the well-written tutorials, you'll have a simple, easy model auto-wired (with no XML configuration!) into any view technology you like.

Want to add a "delete" action to your list of customers? Just add a method named "delete" to your customer controller, and it's autowired to the URL /customers/delete.

Need to bind your request parameters onto an object? Just add an instance of the target object to your method, and Spring MVC will use reflection to bind your parameters, making writing your logic as easy as if the client passed a strongly-typed object to begin with.

Sick of all the forced MVC division of labor? Just have your method return void, and write your response directly to the servlet's Writer, if that's your thing.

I like Spring MVC, using 2.5 features there is very little XML involved.

The Stripes Framework is an excellent framework. The only configuration involved is pasting a few lines in your web.xml.

It's a very straight forward request based Java web framework.

Apache Wicket, Liftweb) require so much set-up, configuration

I disagree, I use Wicket for all my projects and never looked back! it doesn't take much to set up, not even an hour to set up a full environment to work with Wicket..

I like writing plain old servlets+winstone servlet container. From there I bolt on templating (velocity, XSLT, etc) and DB access (hibernate, torque, etc) libraries as I need them rather than going in for an actual framework.

Try Apache Click

It is like Wicket, but much more productive and easy to learn.

I really don't see what is the big deal with getting maven + eclipse to work, as long as you don't have to change the pom.xml too much :)

Most frameworks that user maven have maven archetypes that can generate stub project.

So basically the steps should be:

  1. Install maven
  2. Add M2_REPO class path variable to eclipse
  3. Generate project with the archetype
  4. Import project to eclipse

As for Wicket, there is no reason why you couldn't use it without maven. The nice thing about maven is that it takes care of all the dependencies so you don't have to. On the other hand, if the only thing you want to do is to prototype couple of pages than Wicket can be overkill. But, should your application grow, eventually, the benefits of Wicket would keep showing with each added form, link or page :)

The correct answer IMO depends on two things: 1. What is the purpose of the web application you want to write? You only told us that you want to write it fast, but not what you are actually trying to do. Eg. does it need a database? Is it some sort of business app (hint: maybe search for "scaffolding")? ..or a game? ..or are you just experimenting with sthg? 2. What frameworks are you most familiar with right now? What often takes most time is reading docs and figuring out how things (really) work. If you want it done quickly, stick to things you already know well.

After many painful experiences with Struts, Tapestry 3/4, JSF, JBoss Seam, GWT I will stick with Wicket for now. Wicket Bench for Eclipse is handy but not 100% complete, still useful though. MyEclipse plugin for deploying to Tomcat is ace. No Maven just deploy once, changes are automatically copied to Tomcat. Magic.

My suggestion: Wicket 1.4, MyEclipse, Subclipse, Wicket Bench, Tomcat 6. It will take an hour or so to setup but most of that will be downloading tomcat and the Eclipse plugins.

Hint: Don't use the Wicket Bench libs, manually install Wicket 1.4 libs into project.

This site took me about 2 hours to write http://ratearear.co.uk - don't go there from work!! And this one is about 3 days work http://tnwdb.com

Good luck. Tim

Grails is the way to go if you like to do the CRUD easily and create a quick prototype application, plays nice with Eclipse as well. Follow the 'Build your first Grails application' tutorial here http://grails.org/Tutorials and you can be up and running your own application in less than an hour.

I haven't used it by AppFuse is designed to facilitate the nasty setup that comes with Java Web Development.

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