Just Use Them!¶

There's nothing particularly special about the tools in VelocityTools 2. No special interfaces, most don't ''need'' any configuration or API access, and those that do are now relatively easy to handle (compared to VelocityTools 1.x). So, if you need a tool, just create an instance, do any configuration you want or need and go. Nothing else to it.

ToolManager¶

However, if you want to externalize your configuration or have your tools created and configured for you on demand and you are not working in a servlet environment, then we have created a simple ToolManager that you can use. It's relatively simple. Just create a ToolManager (can be created with or without default tools available), configure it (if you want to), ask it to create a context for you, and use the context as you would any other. Of course, there's more to it, but this should get you started:

ToolManager manager = new ToolManager();
manager.configure("/path/to/my/configuration.xml");
Context context = manager.createContext();
myVelocityEngine.evaluate(context, myOutputWriter, "This is a $text.test", "Test template");

Of course, if you are going to be working in a servlet environment and don't want to create and configure tools yourself, then you should being using VelocityView either directly or through the servlets or JSP tag provided for you.