Explain Struts1.x in a nutshell?

Struts is consisted of technologies like Java Servlets, JavaBeans, ResourceBundles, and XML, as well as various Jakarta Commons packages, like BeanUtils and Chain of Responsibility. It helps one create an extensible development environment for one's application, based on published standards and proven design patterns.

Struts Flow

Whenever a request comes from web browser then application's controller handles this request.When request is received then Controller invokes an Action class.This Action class object then communicates with Model class(which actually is a set of JavaBeans representation) to examine or update the application's state..The Struts ActionForm class helps in data exchange between Model and View layers.
A web application uses 'web.xml', a deployment descriptor to initialize resources like servlets and taglibs. Similarly, Struts uses a configuration file( struts-config.xml) to initialize its own resources. These resources include ActionForms to collect input from users, ActionMappings to direct input to server-side Actions, and ActionForwards to select output pages.Moreover,one can specify validations for the ActionForms in an XML descriptor, using the Struts Validator. A standard extension, Tiles, helps you build pages from smaller fragments.

Struts may not be a useful option for each type of web development application.If the application is huge and complex then Struts fits the bill in best way but if you are developing a web application which requires very little of web pages and business logic then MVC-1 based approach will be best rather MVC-2 based like Struts.