src/content/tools/3.0/view-tag.mdtext

Title: Apache Velocity Tools - VelocityViewTag Library

## Overview

This page is still unfinished. For details on configuring the VelocityViewTag, you can follow most of the instructions for the [VelocityViewServlet](view-servlet.html) and of course on the [configuration pages](configuration.html). [Help finishing this is welcome!](index.html#Contribution)
{.note}

This is a JSP tag that allows you to use Velocity and VelocityTools from within a JSP page or tag.  There are many ways to use this tag. This simplest is to have it process an external template using the current page context.  Assuming you have a template called "foo.vm" that can be found by your resource loader(s) that looks like this:

    :::velocity
    Hello $!bodyContent World!

This tag can process that template by doing:

    :::jsp
    <%@taglib prefix="velocity" uri="http://velocity.apache.org/velocity-view" %>
    
    <velocity:view template="foo.vm"/>

VTL in the body of the tag:

    :::jsp
    <%@taglib prefix="velocity" uri="http://velocity.apache.org/velocity-view" %>
    
    <velocity:view>
    #if( $date.E eq 'Friday' )
     Happy
    #else
     Sad
    #end
    </velocity:view>

or combine both by first processing the body of the tag, then inserting the results of that into the context for the separate template as $bodyContent:

    :::jsp
    <%@taglib prefix="velocity" uri="http://velocity.apache.org/velocity-view" %>
    
    <velocity:view template="foo.vm">
    #if( $date.E eq 'Friday' )
     Happy
    #else
     Sad
    #end
    </velocity:view>

You can also store the results of any of the options above into a variable of any name and scope (default scope is "page"):

    :::jsp
    <%@taglib prefix="velocity" uri="http://velocity.apache.org/velocity-view" %>
    
    <velocity:view var="foo" scope="request" template="foo.vm">
    #if( $date.E eq 'Friday' )
     Happy
    #else
     Sad
    #end
    </velocity:view>

For more details, see the [Javadoc](apidocs/org/apache/velocity/tools/view/jsp/VelocityViewTag.html) or the [TLD](http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/velocity/tools/trunk/src/main/resources/META-INF/velocity-view.tld).