implementing a "window manager" for HTML in a JSP custom tag

Question

I have a problem: I need to build a custom tag, which can take its child tags (each of which will render as an HTML widget of some sort) and render them into the page in some intelligent manner.

It's a fairly open ended question, so I have thought of many different ways to solve it. What I need is some input on how:

• others have done it
• ideas

My ideas:

• using something like 960 grid system CSS for the layout, and specify each widget's location using JSP custom tag attributes. If none specified, do a flow layout
• use an HTML table, and stick each widget into a cell using flow layout (this can be problematic since some widgets aren't square, they are 3x1, or 1x3 etc.

Answer 1

"How others have done it" - they have probably used a portal?

Maybe something at the Apache Portals page could help you.