Getting started with Spider

The easiest way to get started is to download the sample application and play with it while reading CalculatorSampleApplication. This application is well-suited to use as a starting point since it includes only the minimum necessary and can be expanded as needed.

For an existing project only spiderweb-1.0.jar, the library itself, need be downloaded. Note that it has a few library dependencies (which are already included with the sample application):

commons-lang (for HTML escaping)
JavaBeans Activation Framework (JAF) (for MIME type mapping)
log4j + commons-logging
junit
antlr + stringtemplate
jetty (only for starting a local instance)

Here is an overview of the steps required to get started with Spider:

Create a subclass of SpiderServlet. This class should be referenced in the web.xml file. For a project called Foo this class will typically be located in a package called foo.web, although this is not a requirement.

Create a class that inherits RenderTaskBase. See doc on RenderTask. By convention this class should be located in a package called st relative to where the servlet class is, e.g. foo.web.st. The task class name must end with Task, e.g. FooBarTask.

Create a .st file which holds the StringTemplate source. See doc on StRenderable. This file should be a resource file located in the same package as the task class and its name should be the same as that of the class excluding the Task prefix, and unlike the class name the first character should be lower case. E.g. if the task class name is FooBarTask the .st file should be named fooBar.st.

Additionally a test case should be created for each subclass of RenderTaskBase; see doc on RenderTaskTestCase. By convention the test classes should be placed in a package called st.test relative to where the servlet class is, and the name of the test class for each task should be the same as that of the task plus the postfix Test. E.g. FooBarTaskTest in package foo.web.st.test.

The URI fooBar will point to FooBarTask.