1

I need to do the following:

  1. User logs in.
  2. Redirected to welcome screen.
  3. Looks at the welcome screen while lots of records are loaded.
  4. Redirected to the working screen.

I am looking for a way to do in Action class something like this:

public class LinkAction extends ActionSupport implements SessionAware {
        @Autowired
        private ServiceDelegate myService;

    public String welcome()
        {
            new Runnable() {
                @Override
                public void run() {
                    myService.getLoadsOfData();

                    //redirect to the next action

                }
            }.run();
            // this is where the user 
            // goes to look at the welcome screen        
            return "welcome";
        }
    }

May be it's a wrong approach, please tell if so, I am new at Struts.

Kirill Kazoolin
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  • What problem do you try to solve with this? Where do you want to redirect? – Aleksandr M Feb 02 '15 at 10:20
  • It's a classical problem of long initialization. After login the first working screen is loaded, but it takes time, in the meanwhile the system is between screens - nothing is shown in the browser. Not user friendly. – Kirill Kazoolin Feb 02 '15 at 10:23
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    Why not to solve it in a classical way? -> Show some cute puppies running around while fetching content with ajax. – Aleksandr M Feb 02 '15 at 10:31

2 Answers2

1

The right way is the one already suggested by AleksandrM in comments: open the page, show an indicator while you call an ajax action (let's say with jQuery, for convenience), then render the result and remove the indicator. It's easier than you think:

public class MainAction extends ActionSupport {    
    public String execute() {
        return SUCCESS;
    }
}

public class AjaxAction extends ActionSupport {    
    @Autowired
    private ServiceDelegate myService;

    private Stuff myStuff; // with getter

    public String execute() {
        myStuff = myService.loadLongStuff();
        return SUCCESS;
    }
}

Your AJAX action can either return JSON data, a JSP snippet or a Stream of binary data. Choose the way you prefer. For example, if you map SUCCESS of AjaxAction to a JSP snippet, your JSP snippet will be:

ajaxSnippet.jsp

<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/WEB-INF/struts-tags.tld" %>
Stuff: <s:property value="myStuff" />

Then in your main.jsp, show the indicator in the div you will overwrite with the AJAX call's result:

main.jsp

<body>
    <div id="main">          
        <img src="/images/mesmerizingProgressBar.gif" />
    </div>    

    <script>
        $(function(){ // onDocumentReady...
            $.ajax({ // call ajax action...
                type : 'GET',
                url : '/ajaxAction.action', 
                success : function(data,textStatus,jqXHR){
                    // then render your result in "main" div, 
                    // overwriting the loading GIF
                    $("#main").html(data); 
                },
                error : function(jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown){
                    $("#main").html("Error ! " + textStatus); 
                }
            });
        });
    </script>
</body>
Andrea Ligios
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0

Thank you for the AJAX idea.

However, the answer I was looking for was in fact Struts interceptor "execAndWait". I decided to use it over AJAX because I am dealing with existing application and all the Struts plumbing is in place. This is the Struts guide on this

Kirill Kazoolin
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