The SSK (SiteMesh Starter Kit) is a development package to quickly get started with SiteMesh and see a working demonstrations of the first 2 example tutorials.
Download, unzip, launch and import cafe.war to see SiteMesh in action.
Download
Using the SiteMesh Starter Kit on Windows
The SiteMesh Starter Kit was put together to be as unobtrusive as possible. As such there is no installation.
In this example, we create an apps folder on the C: drive and unzip using 7-Zip.
For the rest of this tutorial we will assume you are using the folder C:\apps\ssk.
Start the IDE (Integrated Development Environment)
Starting, C:\apps\ssk\sts-2.8.0.RELEASE\STS.exe will launch your development environment.
You will be asked to select a workspace location. This will be where your web application files will be kept. The default is fine,
Import cafe WAR File
Import cafe.war which contains the first two tutorials,
Click File, Import... which will result in an import dialog box,
Expand the Web folder by clicking on the selection arrow and select WAR file.
Click Next.
Browse to the cafe.war file and select it,
Click Finish.
During import you will be asked to open the Java EE perspective,
Click Yes.
Optional - Clean Up View
By default the IDE hides the real directory structure.
Click Window, Show View, Navigator.
In the Navigator Window, expand the cafe folder to see the sample sitemesh application in your workspace,
Launch the Default Example
Following through the tutorials the last step is to start the application server and browse to menu.jsp.
To do this with the SSK, right click on the file menu.jsp and choose Run on Server,
You will then be prompted to select a Server. The defaults are fine. Click the Finish button,
There will be a Spring Insight and depending on your Windows setup a Windows Firewall dialog as shown,
Select No to Spring Insight and if prompted Allow Access to the Windows Firewall dialog.
If everything succeeds you will see the following screen,
Tutorials
At this point SiteMesh is setup and working. Go straight to Start Using SiteMesh in 10 Minutes to start being productive.
After that, read up on Setup Mesh in 5 Minutes for configuration into your own web application.