Configure a welcome page in Struts

Every website need a welcome or default page as an entry point. Here’s 3 ways to configure a welcome page in Struts.

1. index.jsp

The simplest way is create a “index.jsp” page and put it same level with the WEB-INF folder, project root folder.

Access the project root

http://localhost:8080/StrutsExample/

It will default to index.jsp internally.

http://localhost:8080/StrutsExample/index.jsp

2. web.xml welcome file

Declare a welcome-file in web.xml file.

  <welcome-file-list>
	<welcome-file>
		/pages/Welcome.jsp
	</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>

Access the project root

http://localhost:8080/StrutsExample/

It will redirect to welcome.jsp file internally.

http://localhost:8080/StrutsExample/pages/Welcome.jsp

web.xml

<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC
 "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN"
 "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd" >

<web-app>
  <display-name>Maven Struts Examples</display-name>
  
  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>
        org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet
    </servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>config</param-name>
        <param-value>
         /WEB-INF/struts-config.xml
        </param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
  </servlet>
    
  <servlet-mapping>
       <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
       <url-pattern>*.do</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>

  <welcome-file-list>
	<welcome-file>
		/pages/Welcome.jsp
	</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>
  
</web-app>

3. JSP Forward

Create a “index.jsp” file as stated in method 1, and define a JSP forward tag to redirect it to another Struts action.

index.jsp

Declare a /Welcome web path, with a ForwardAction type to forward it to another JSP file.

struts-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE struts-config PUBLIC 
"-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 1.3//EN" 
"http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/dtds/struts-config_1_3.dtd">

<struts-config>

	<action-mappings>
		
		<action
			path="/Welcome"
			type="org.apache.struts.actions.ForwardAction"
			parameter="/pages/Welcome.jsp"/>
		
	</action-mappings>

</struts-config>