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Struts 2
Getting Started
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Added by ehauser, last edited by Ted Husted on Aug 25, 2006 (view change)

The "Step by Step" tutorial will help you get up and running with the framework by walking through installing the framework and creating a simple application.

| Be forewarned that the framework is geared toward professional developers. To create non-trivial applications, a working knowledge of several key technologies is required. Java Filters, JSP, and Tag Libraries JavaBeans HTML and HTTP Web Containers (such as Tomcat) XML

For more about supporting technologies, see the Key Technologies Primer.

In the "Getting Started" lesson, we download the framework and get started on an application of our own.

## Download the Distribution

A distribution can be downloaded from the Apache Struts website. The full distribution contains the `struts2-core.jar` file and related dependencies, example applications, a copy of the documentation in HTML format, and the complete source code.

| If you'd like to compile it yourself, please refer to Building the Framework from Source.

## Your First Application

To get started on your own application, you can utilize the blank template, run the Maven archetype, or just setup your own web infrastructure from scratch.

### Using the Blank Application

The blank web application in the distribution's `apps` directory is meant as a template. Make a copy of the "blank.war", deploy it to your container, and use the exploded copy as the basis for your application.

### Run the Maven Archetype

If you use Maven as a build system, you can also use the Maven Archetype to create a new application.

    mvn archetype:create -DgroupId=tutorial \
                           -DartifactId=tutorial \
                           -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.struts \
                           -DarchetypeArtifactId=struts2-archetype-starter \
                           -DarchetypeVersion=1.0-SNAPSHOT \
                           -DremoteRepositories=http://people.apache.org/maven-snapshot-repository

This will create a app template. For more information see Quickstart Using Maven 2

| As of 17 Aug 2006, the archetype is not generating the appropriate configuration files. See WW-1412.

### Setting up from scratch

If for some reason the blank template or archetype doesn't work for you, it's not so hard to setup a Struts 2 application from scratch. If you are interested, see Simple Setup.

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Simple Setup (Struts 2)