Struts Action 1.3.4 Release

Info

1. Struts Release Guidelines 2. Signing Releases
   3. Apache Mirroring Guidelines

Release Manager

The release manager is Wendy Smoak

How to Help

Everyone in the Struts community, users, developers, and committers, is encouraged to test a release, report any issues, and post to dev@ any comments on the overall quality of the release.

To help everyone get started with Struts Action 1.3.4 (when it is available), here are the simplest installation instructions that can possibly work:

• Download the Struts 1.3.4 distribution from http://svn.apache.org/dist/struts/action/v1.3.4/ (when it is available.) (Until then, try a snapshot.)
• Extract the distribution to a likely location (/opt/struts-action-1.3.4)
• Install Java and set JAVA_HOME
• Install Maven 2 and set MAVEN_HOME
• Install Apache Tomcat
• http://wiki.apache.org/struts/StrutsMaintenanceMaven
• Change to the new folder (e.g., /opt/struts-action-1.3.4/src)
• $ mvn
• Wait about five minutes for Maven to download and build everything ** If you see any error messages, please do a quick search of the mail archives and/or post them on the Dev list, and if they appear to be newly introduced issues, a Jira tickets will need to be created so we can track and resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Oh, and THANK YOU for your help.
  

Outstanding Issues

http://issues.apache.org/struts/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?reset=true&mode=hide&sorter/order=DESC&sorter/field=priority&resolution=-1&pid=10121&fixfor=21720

Resolved Issues

http://issues.apache.org/struts/secure/ReleaseNote.jspa?version=21720&styleName=Text&projectId=10121&Create=Create

TO DO

Preparation Checklist

The Commons Preparation Guide is a helpful preparation backgrounder, but Commons uses the "beta/release-candidate/final" process.

Likewise, the HTTPD Release Guidelines is a helpful "overall process" backgrounder, but HTTPD does not use a test-build stage.

External Dependency versions for this release:

Note: This release of Struts Action depends on Struts Build 1.0.0 for the Checkstyle config file.

Testing Checklist

Testing Summary

Note: Cactus tests are not working and have been moved to the sandbox.

Test Build Checklist (A)

See also Commons Step-by-Step Guide

Vote (A)

Voting thread is here

If release vote fails, including for a lack of quorum, remove from dist folder.

Point Release Checklist (B)

Vote (B)

Voting continues until a GA or "withdraw" vote passes, or there is a subsequent release.

General Availability Checklist (C)

Proposed Release Announcement

Subject: \[ANNOUNCE\] Struts Action Framework v1.3.4 \[Alpha|Beta|\]

The Apache Struts team is pleased to announce the release of Struts Action Framework 1.3.4 \[Alpha|Beta|for General Availability\].

Struts Action is available in both a full distribution, and a library distribution containing only the framework and dependencies.

http://struts.apache.org/download.cgi

Major changes since Struts Action 1.2 include

• Composable Request Processor
• Arbitrary configuration properties
• Opt-In Cancel Handling
• Enhanced Global Exception Handlers
• Extends attribute
• "isCommitted" Exception Handling
• Postback Actions
• Wildcard ActionConfig properties
  

Composable Request Processor: For Action 1.3, we turned the request processor methods into Commands that are part of a flexible Chain of Commands.

Arbitrary configuration properties: Most every Struts configuration element now accepts a map of key/value pairs. Arbitrary configuration properties let us externalize more of our configurations, encouraging reuse.

Opt-In Cancel Handling: In Struts Action 1.3, the Cancel token is only honored if the new property "cancellable" is set for the Action Mapping. If the Cancel token is present, but cancellable is not set, then an InvalidCancelException is thrown. The InvalidCancelExeption may be caught by a Declarative Exception Handler, like any other Exception.

Enhanced Global Exception Handlers: We now support use of global exception handlers in cases when no ActionConfig has yet been identified, as in with "preprocessing" commands in a custom request processing chain.

Extends attribute: In the Struts configuration file, we can now use the extends attribute to adopt default settings from another element, as we already can in the Tiles configuration files.

"isCommitted" Exception Handling: When using Tiles, sometimes the response is already committed when an exception occurs. Now, the ExceptionHandler tests response.isCommitted , and, if true, includes the configured view path, rather than forwarding to it.

Postback Forms: The action attribute of the Form taglib is now optional. If omitted, the original URI of the original request is used.

Wildcard ActionConfig properties: Wildcards can now be used in the properties of an ActionConfig.

The 1.3.x series of Struts Action Framework has a minumum requirement of the following specification versions:

• Java Servlet 2.3 and JavaServer Pages (JSP) 1.2
• Java 2 Standard Platform Edition (J2SE) 1.4
  

The release notes are available online at:

http://struts.apache.org/struts-action/userGuide/release-notes.html

Notes on upgrading from prior versions can be found on the community-maintained wiki:

http://wiki.apache.org/struts/StrutsUpgradeNotes12to13