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Migrating from displaytag 1.0

Displaytag 1.1 is intended, except for a few areas, a drop-in replacement for displaytag 1.0. This document will only list breaking changes or recommendation for the migration of an existing application.

Warning: always remove all the java/class files generated by your application server for your jsps when dropping the new displaytag jar

Java version / application server requirements

Displaytag 1.1 requires a 1.4 level jre and a servlet container with jsp 1.2 support. Displaytag 1.0 had jre 1.3 and jsp 1.1 support, so be sure to check your environment.

Updated dependencies

Some of the core dependencies have been updated from displaytag 1.0. Be sure to update jars in WEB-INF/lib, together with the displaytag jars, or you will start seeing errors while using the library. The dependencies document lists all the required jars. Also note that displaytag 1.1 is built using maven 2 so you can fully take advantage of its dependency management mechanism.

Deprecated features removed

This is a list of functionalities deprecated in displaytag 1.0 which have been removed in following versions.

  • The org.apache.taglibs.display package (used in version 0.8.x) has been removed. Only use classes in the org.displaytag and children package.
  • Deprecated presentational html attributes in table and column tag have been removed. Use the style or class attributes to add formatting using css.
  • The deprecated styleClass and headerStyleClass attributes have been removed, use the class and headerClass attributes.
  • The deprecated DisplayPropertiesLoaderServlet has been removed. The recommended way to load custom properties is adding a displaytag.properties file to your classpath.

API changes

  • The org.displaytag.decorator.ColumnDecorator has been deprecated. Old decorators will continue to work, but it's suggested to change them to use the new org.displaytag.decorator.DisplaytagColumnDecorator interface in order to fully take advantage of new features in 1.1. (tip: also check the new format attribute, which could save you some time in writing column decorators)
  • The org.displaytag.decorator.TableDecorator base class has been extended and, while it remains source compatible with the 1.0 release, it's recommended that you recompile your table decorators to avoid binary compatibility problems.