Use if/else within textfield?

Question

I have already found several ways to use if / else tags and also how to use it within a <tr> tag.

But is it possible to use it within a <s:textfield> tag ?

I want to disable several fields (textfields and datepicker) if a certain parameter is true. At the moment, I have the whole code twice. Once with disable="true"and once without. This makes the jsp extremely verbose.

I would be very happy if there were a better/shorter way.

What do you need, to hide them, to not put them in page, what ? — Andrea Ligios, Nov 17 '14 at 10:30
I want to disable the fields if a certain condition is true to make further edits impossible. — SomethingChocolate, Nov 17 '14 at 11:21

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:13

There are many solutions to this problem, each one fitting it better according to the number of tags, the cleanest/shortest code ratio desired, etc...

For example, you can

set a variable and use it in your textfields:

<s:set var="disabled" value="%{condition}"/>
<s:textfield ... disabled="%{#disabled}" />

use an action method that returns a boolean, as in @PredragMaric answer:

public boolean getConditionFromAction(){
    return (foo!=bar);
}

<s:textfield ... disabled="%{conditionFromAction}" />

create two JSP snippets and include them (overkill in case of just disabled, but helpful in other cases, like showing a complete different set of fields)
```
<s:if test="%{condition}">
    <s:include page="snippetA.jsp" />
</s:if>
<s:else>
    <s:include page="snippetB.jsp" />
</s:else>
```
(in which case, remember to put
```
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags" %>
```
in the snippets too).

disabling them with javascript on page loading (example with jQuery):

<script>
    $(function(){
        <s:if test="%{condition}">
            $("input[type='text']").attr('disabled','disabled');
        </s:if>
        <s:else>
            $("input[type='text']").removeAttr('disabled');
        </s:else>
    });
</script>

(better using a class selector ovbiously).

Regarding your latest comment:

I want to disable the fields if a certain condition is true to make further edits impossible.

remember that you MUST perform the controls server side, because every user is able to alter the HTML / DOM (with Firebug, or FF DevTools, Chrome DevTools etc...) or simply forging a request ad-hoc without even visiting your page, and enabling the fields you have disabled.

Client side validation is user friendly and appreciated as a first filter, server side one is mandatory.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 17 '14 at 10:38

2

Try with this expression inside <s:textfield>

disabled="%{myCondition}"

where myCondition should evaluate to true or false.

answered Nov 17 '14 at 10:38

Predrag Maric

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Thank you very much, this was exactly what I was looking for! In my case, I have an object that actually is `TRUE`or `FALSE`. Whould it theoretically be also possible to have a different statment as a condition? saying `disable=%{varialbe==0}"`? Would that work too? – SomethingChocolate Nov 17 '14 at 11:33

Use if/else within textfield?

2 Answers2