You can deploy web applications and static content in Tomcat without dropping files into the webapps directory. This is useful if you want the content to reside outside of the Tomcat directory tree. You do this by putting a Context fragment in the host's configuration directory (e.g. ${TOMCAT_HOME}/conf/Catalina/localhost). That is, use an XML file that looks like this:
<Context path="/mycontent" docBase="c:\somewhere\mycontent"/>
The docBase can be a WAR file.
