Grails Layouts & Sitemesh

Chicago, October 19 - 22, 2010
Grails Layouts & Sitemesh
Colin Harrington – Object Partners
Sitemesh :: sitemesh.org

SpringOne 2GX 2010. All rights reserved. Do not distribute without permission.
whoami
Colin Harrington
Senior Consultant
colin.harrington@gmail.com
colin.harrington@objectpartners.com

When & What
Grails 1.3.5
Groovy 1.7.5
Spring 3.0.3
Servlet 2.5
Sitemesh 2.4 (new to Grails 1.1+)

GSP
GSP = Groovy Server Pages
GroovyPage
(org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.pages.GroovyPage)
Part of the
GroovyPagesGrailsPlugin

Rich View layer
GSP
Taglibs
Page Directives
Expressions
Views
Templates
...

Grails Layouts
Templating only goes so far...
view + layout
DRY

Sitemesh
'It is a HTML templating framework based on the
"Decoration" model'
”It is a web-page layout and decoration framework
and web application integration framework to aid in
creating large sites consisting of many pages for
which a consistent look/feel, navigation and layout
scheme is required”
~ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java:_View_Technologies_and_Frameworks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiteMesh

Sitemesh
Orignally Developed in 1999 by Joe Walnes.
Now part of the OpenSymphony Project
Implemented in Java
Can decorate any html so
Compatible with {php, asp, perl, python ...}
http://www.opensymphony.com/sitemesh/

Mesh!
← Layout
Views →
Rendered
Result →

Demo

web.xml
...
<filter>
<filtername>sitemesh</filtername>
<filterclass>...GrailsPageFilter</filterclass>
</filter>
...
(org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.sitemesh.GrailsPageFilter)

sitemesh.xml
<sitemesh>
  <pageparsers>
    <parser contenttype="text/html"
      class="...GrailsHTMLPageParser"/>
    <parser
      contenttype="text/html;charset=ISO88591"
    <parser contenttype="text/html;charset=UTF8"
  </pageparsers>
  ...
</sitemesh>
(org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.sitemesh.GrailsHTMLPageParser)

sitemesh.xml
<sitemesh>
    ...
    <decoratormappers>
        <mapper
class="...GrailsLayoutDecoratorMapper" />
    </decoratormappers>
</sitemesh>
(org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.sitemesh.GrailsLayoutDecoratorMapper)

Triggering layouts
In order of precedence:

meta.layout

static 'layout' property on the controller

controller/action conventions:

/layouts/${controller}/${action}.gsp

/layouts/${controller}.gsp

configured grails.sitemesh.default.layout

/layouts/application.gsp

meta.layout
<html>
<head>
<meta name="layout" content="main"/>
...
</head>
<body>...</body>
</html>
This triggers grailsapp/views/layouts/main.gsp

static layout
Static property on the controller
class BookController {
static layout = 'customLayout'
def list = { … }
}
This will trigger
grailsapp/views/layouts/customLayout.gsp for all
of the controller actions in the BookController
(meta.layout has first precedence)

${controller}/${action} convention
Controller & Controller Action Convention
def list = { … }
}
grailsapp/views/layouts/book/list.gsp
If not → it looks for:
grailsapp/views/layouts/book.gsp
Otherwise it gives up and doesn't decorate the Page

${controller}/${action} convention
Controller & Controller-Action Convention
def list = { … }
}
grailsapp/views/layouts/book/list.gsp
If not → it looks for:
grailsapp/views/layouts/book.gsp

grails.sitemesh.default.layout
// grailsapp/conf/Config.groovy
grails.sitemesh.default.layout='myLayoutName'

application.gsp
When all else fails:
grailsapp/views/layouts/application.gsp

Basic layout tags
{layoutTitle, layoutHead, layoutBody}
<html>
<head>
    <title><g:layoutTitle default="my page" /></title>
    <g:layoutHead />
</head>
<body>
     <div class="menu"></div>
     <div class="body">
         <g:layoutBody />
     </div>
</body>
</html>

Page properties
View:
<html>
<head>
<meta name="layout" content="myLayout" />
</head>
<body onload="alert('hello');">
Page to be decorated
</body>
</html>
Layout (myLayout.gsp):
<html>
<head><g:layoutHead /></head>
<body onload="${pageProperty(name:'body.onload')}">
<g:layoutBody />
</body>
</html>

<g:pageProperty/>
<g:pageProperty name="page.mainNav"/>
<g:pageProperty name="page.mainNav"
default="home"/>

<g:ifPageProperty/>
<g:ifPageProperty name=”showTheContent”>
This content is only displayed if the page
property is present
</g:ifPageProperty>

<parameter/>
<parameter name=”myParameter”
value=”foo”>
Accessible as a page property
${pageProperty(name:
'page.myParameter')}

<content/>
View:
<body>
...
<content tag="sidebar">
Page specific Sidebar...
</content>
...
</body>
Layout:
<div id="sidebar">
<g:pageProperty name="page.sidebar" default=""/>
</div>

<g:applyLayout/>
<g:applyLayout name="fieldsetWrapper">
This goes into the layoutBody of
'fieldsetWrapper' layout
</g:applyLayout>

Q&A

Thank you!

Grails Layouts & Sitemesh

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