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Templates are loaded first by searching the application and then by searching the classpath. If a template needs to be overridden, an edited copy can be placed in the application, so that is found first.

Unless you have some advanced or unusual requirements, template loading is very straight forward. The simple description is this:

Templates, by default, are always FreeMarker templates and are loaded the same way other FreeMarker templates (such as your results) are: by first searching the web application and then the classpath.

Template and Themes

Templates are loaded based on the template directory and theme name (see Selecting Themes) and the template directory. The template directory is defined by the webwork struts.ui.templateDir property in webwork struts.properties (defaults to template). This means, by default, if If a tag is using the ajax xhtml theme, the following two locations will be searched (in this order):

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For performance reasons, you may want to prefer the first location, although the second one is more flexible. See Performance Tuning for a discussion on this topic.

Overriding Templates

Because most of the templates you will need are included in the WebWork jar (the classpath), you may find a few situations where you need to override a particular template to provide behavior that is unique to your application. For example, you might wish to change how select tags render. Rather than creating a brand new template and changing every tag to use that template, you can override the built in select.ftl template by copying the file from in the jar over to a new The default templates provided in the struts-core.jar should suit the needs of many applications. However, if a template needs to be modified, it's easy to plug in a new version. Extract the template you need to change from the struts-core.jar, make the modifications, and save the updated copy to /template/$theme/$template.ftl. If you are using the xhmtl theme and need to change how the select tags render, edit that template and save it to /template/xhtml/select.ftl directory.

It is easier and better to edit and override an existing template than provide a new one of your own.

Altering Template Loading

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Behaviour

It is possible Sometimes it may be important to load templates template from elsewhere other than the classpath and web app. For example, you might wish to load templates from other locations, like the file system or a URL. This is useful for not only HTML Tags, but also for any result your write. You can do this by consulting Loading templates from alternate locations can be useful not only for tags, but for custom results. For details, see the FreeMarker documentation and consult the section on extending the FreeMarkerManager.

Alternative Template Engines

WebWork The framework provides for template rendering engines other than FreeMarker. We almost never recommend using anything other than FreeMarker templates, if only because WebWork provides templates already written in FreeMarker and not in JSP or Velocity. However, some users, especially advanced users of older versions of WebWork (pre-2.2) may find it necessary to use a different template engine.

(Though, there is rarely a need to use another system!)

The framework WebWork supports three template engines, which can be controlled by the webwork struts.ui.templateSuffix in webworkstruts.properties:.

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If you choose to use vm or jspThe only set of templates and themes provided in the distribution is for FreeMarker. In order to use another template engine, you must implement provide your own templates and themes entirely, which is a large amount of worktemplate and theme for that engine.