RateMy framework What is it? A framework written in Java using Struts for obtaining a web application model. What's the big deal? No big deal. I'm just sharpening my java knowhow. It's just an exercise in making something robust. What does it do? It provides an easy way for a java web application developer to set up a ratemy site. The developer ideally would only need to change the jsp presentation layer. Can you provide an example? Not at this time. But hey, what's stopping you? 8-) Where are the docs? Coming soon. In the meantime you can browse the javadoc to get an idea. There is some explanations below. Why did you bring it here? Because I need your help/input/suggestions/remarks/moral support. How can I help you? There is a guide for using WinCVS to access the CVS repository. I've set it up myself here and it works like charm. One snag I encountered was that I had to log in manually first to make sure the host's RSA key was accepted as being 'trusted'. When everything is configured correctly you can check out the ratemybook module which contains everything you need to develop. What are the necessary skills? You should know your Java (duh) Knowledge about servlets and jsp pages is a must. Experience with the Struts framework. If you're interested in java web applications then you should not hesitate to master this fantastic framework. CVS. It's tough to learn but when once you have it you really won't regret it. Relax guy! We're here to have fun. :-) How about web design? Can't begin to imagine building a web site without an overall good presentation. I really need those skills too. Unfortunately you will have to learn a bit about JSP pages and the fact that the web application uses struts templates. Ok, so what do I need to set up? A Java SDK, you can download one from sun. A Servlet engine, tomcat is quite good. An SQL RDBMS. I use MySQL. A JDBC driver for the RDBMS (here is the one for MySQL). Ant or an IDE with an Ant module (I use netbeans). How do I install the example web application from the release? Download the web application archive and install it in your servlet's engine deployment directory. I personally use Tomcat as a servlet engine. Start up the engine to automatically deploy the web application. Then stop it. Run the sql script located in WEB-INF/create.sql of your deployed web application so that all the necessary tables are created. Start up the engine and browse to the web application (usually http://localhost:8080/ratemybook). What/where are the coding conventions? Good news if you use Netbeans or any other IDE for which a Jalopy version exists. It's a great tool for lazy programmers. :-) Please use my configuration (you can import it into the Jalopy module). Here's my email.