A good introduction to the JSR-168 Portlet standard:
Understanding Portals and Portlets by Kenneth Ramirez
Monthly Archives: November 2004
Spring Framework 1.1.2
Spring Framework 1.1.2 has just been released. As before it will be available to Maven users in the ibiblio central repository in a few hours.
Unfortunately this release has a bug and is not compatible with Java 1.3.
Check the announcement:
ANNOUNCEMENT: We are pleased to announce that Spring Framework 1.1.2 has just been released. This is a bugfix and minor enhancement release.
Among the new features in this release are:
- added support for multi-dimensional collections to BeanWrapperImpl (e.g. “map[myKey][0]” or “map[myKey][0].name”)
- added “getType(name)” method to BeanFactory interface, checking the type of object that “getBean” would return
- added “getBeansOfType(type)” convenience method to ListableBeanFactory interface, without explicit filters
- added PropertyPathFactoryBean, allowing to evaluate the property path of a target bean and expose the result
- allow “bean*” rather than “bean+” in XML bean definitions, i.e. no bean definitions in a file (just imports)
- AbstractApplicationContext automatically registers a context-aware ResourceArrayPropertyEditor for Resource arrays
- added GenericApplicationContext class, allowing for arbitrary definition formats (via a single internal BeanFactory)
- improved ResourceBundleMessageSource and ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource implementations
- added “setText(plainText, htmlText)” method to MimeMessageHelper, for alternative texts in the same mail
- added “objectResult(collection,type)” and “intResult”/”longResult(collection)” convenience methods to DataAccessUtils
- added support for pre-bound Sessions (e.g. OpenSessionInViewFilter/Interceptor) with JTA and TransactionManagerLookup
- added “load(entity, id)” method to HibernateOperations and HibernateTemplate
- added “initialize” and “closeIterator” methods to HibernateOperations/Template, following “Hibernate.initialize/close”
- added “queryCacheRegion” property to HibernateTemplate, specifying the cache region used for queries
- added ServletContextResourcePatternResolver, to find matching resources within a web app even in an unexpanded WAR
- added “defaultStatusCode” property to SimpleMappingExceptionResolver, specifying the HTTP status code for error views
- UrlBasedViewResolver supports a “redirect:” prefix now, for convenient redirects through special view names
- added “springMessage”/”springMessageText” macros for Velocity and “message”/”messageText” macros for FreeMarker
As always, have a look at the changelog for details.
Downloads are available through the SourceForge project page [2004-11-14]
Note that this Spring distribution comes with an updated HSQLDB version, namely 1.7.2.7. Unfortunately, the HSQLDB 1.7.2 branch is incompatible with 1.7.1 in some areas. While all Spring sample apps have been adapted accordingly, please be aware that if you do decide to update your own applications with the new hsqldb.jar, you must also update your server instance (i.e. both need to run version 1.7.2), and any existing db data files may need to be upgraded. Furthermore, be aware that JBoss <= 3.2.5 shipped with HSQLDB 1.7.1 in the server classpath, while 3.2.6+ include HSQLDB 1.7.2.
Struts 2.0 “Shale”
Struts 2.0 “Shale” is now a proposal. There are plans to include new features: IoC (Spring), authentication and authorization (here it’s my vote for Acegi Security System), and Java Server Faces JSF for presentation.
Read more at
Tomcat in high volume sites
Looking for the convenience of using Tomcat in a high volume, mission critical site I’ve found some references that may be useful to other people:
Clustering and Load Balancing in Tomcat 5. Part 1
Clustering and Load Balancing in Tomcat 5. Part 2
The book Professional Apache Tomcat 5 (Programmer to Programmer) seems interesting too, with chapters “Server Load Testing” and “Clustering”.
The only benchmark I’d found is Jakarta Tomcat Performance Benchmark at TSS but it’s from march 2003, very outdated. When trying to convince a boss to use Tomcat it’d be interesting real world success stories and benchmarks.