Integration with FreeMarker

FreeMarker is a templating framework that can be used as a replacement for JavaServer Pages (JSP). Tiles can be used with FreeMarker through the use of Tiles FreeMarker package.

Configuration

To use FreeMarker together with Tiles

  • Add FreeMarker jars (tested with FreeMarker 2.3.15).
  • Add tiles-template-x.x.x.jar and tiles-freemarker-x.x.x.jar files to your application
  • To access ".ftl" files from HTTP requests, add this piece of configuration in web.xml (the parameters can be modified as needed).
    <servlet>
    <servlet-name>freemarker</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.apache.tiles.freemarker.servlet.TilesFreemarkerServlet</servlet-class>

    <!-- FreemarkerServlet settings: -->
    <init-param>
        <param-name>TemplatePath</param-name>
        <param-value>/</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>NoCache</param-name>
        <param-value>true</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>ContentType</param-name>
        <param-value>text/html</param-value>
    </init-param>

    <!-- FreeMarker settings: -->
    <init-param>
        <param-name>template_update_delay</param-name>
        <param-value>0</param-value> <!-- 0 is for development only! Use higher value otherwise. -->
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>default_encoding</param-name>
        <param-value>ISO-8859-1</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>number_format</param-name>
        <param-value>0.##########</param-value>
    </init-param>

    <load-on-startup>5</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
  • To access ".ftl" files as attributes, register FreeMarkerAttributeRenderer this way (only available in a servlet environment):
    @Override
protected void registerAttributeRenderers(
        BasicRendererFactory rendererFactory, TilesApplicationContext applicationContext,
        TilesRequestContextFactory contextFactory,
        TilesContainer container, AttributeEvaluator evaluator) {
    super.registerAttributeRenderers(rendererFactory, applicationContext, contextFactory,
            container, evaluator);
    FreeMarkerAttributeRenderer freemarkerRenderer = new FreeMarkerAttributeRenderer();
    freemarkerRenderer.setApplicationContext(applicationContext);
    freemarkerRenderer.setEvaluator(evaluator);
    freemarkerRenderer.setRequestContextFactory(contextFactory);
    freemarkerRenderer.setParameter("TemplatePath", "/");
    freemarkerRenderer.setParameter("NoCache", "true");
    freemarkerRenderer.setParameter("ContentType", "text/html");
    freemarkerRenderer.setParameter("template_update_delay", "0");
    freemarkerRenderer.setParameter("default_encoding", "ISO-8859-1");
    freemarkerRenderer.setParameter("number_format", "0.##########");
    freemarkerRenderer.commit();
    rendererFactory.registerRenderer("freemarker", freemarkerRenderer);
}

    This way you can specify an attribute that is rendered directly using this syntax:

    <put-attribute name="myAttribute" value="/pages/myPage.ftl" type="freemarker" />

Usage in FreeMarker templates

Tiles directives are available this way:

<@tiles.nameOfDirective>
  Other stuff...
</@tiles.nameOfDirective>

For details about directives see the Javadocs.