jsp:include will dynamically detect any changes made to the included file. So in general, it is better to use jsp:include than the include directive.

There is another advantage. If the included file contains UTF-8 characters that are other than ASCII, then using jsp:include will ensure these characters displaying correctly. However, if the included file is a JSP file, you'll need to put this at the beginning:

<%@ page language="java" %>
<%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" %>

By default, a JSP file won't be considered as an XHTML stream by the web browser. This will make things such as XForms not being rendered since the browser XForms plugins/addons render Xforms only for XHTML pages. To make a JSP file as XHTML, put this at the beginning of the JSP file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<% response.setContentType("application/xhtml+xml"); %>

Note that the XML declaration has to be in the first line for a valid XHTML. Of course, after doing this, you need to make all your tags valid XML in your JSP as well.

To use JSTL fmt:message tags with a message bundle, there are two ways.

First, if there is only one properties file, use, the following code in web.xml file.

  <context-param>
    <param-name>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl.fmt.localizationContextparam-name>
    class.path.to.your.resources.bundle</param-value>
  context-param>

Use in the JSP.

Second, if there are multiple properties files, and there are different locales, use

<fmt:setBundle basename="class.path.to.your.resources.bundle"/>

before

Or you can write

<fmt:bundle basename="class.path.to.your.resource.bundle">
  <fmt:message key="your.message.key"/>
fmt:bundle>