Templates

The real work of rendering widgets is performed by JSP templates. A widget may be rendered in several different forms called views. A widget might, for example, have a default view and a json view for rendering the widget as JSON data rather than HTML. The view that is actually used in any particular case is determined by the publication designer, who selects the view inContent Studio. Widgets with multiple views must therefore always include a view option that allows the designer to make this selection. The view field that represents this option should always be included in the General panel of the widget's content type definition. There should usually also be a panel to hold the parameters for each view (see Content Type).

The core widgets supplied with the Widget Framework currently all have only one default view. Despite this, there is always a view field in the widget's General panel, and a corresponding Default panel, to prepare for possible future expansion.

Templates are stored in a widget's src/main/webapp/template/widgets/widget-name/ folder. This folder contains a view subfolder that in turn contains one JSP file for each view supported by the widget. There may also be a helpers folder containing additional JSP files used by the main view JSPs.