spring-boot-web-mvc-tiles3

Spring Boot Web MVC configured to prouce an executable WAR and demonstrating Tiles 3 configuration

Overview

No frills project that demonstrates configuring a spring-boot-starter-web project to build as an executable WAR file and demonstrate configuration of Spring Web MVC with Apache Tiles 3 framework.

I use Spring Source Tool Suite for develop and this generates a starter project that was used as the basis for this application. The notes that follow identify what I changed to get it working.

The Changes

The changes outlined below were noted as things were developed.

Start by creating an application based on spring-boot-starter-web (1.1.4.RELEASE)

Add dependencies to the POM to pull in Tomcat, Jasper and Apache Tiles

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
    <artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId>
    <artifactId>tiles-jsp</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.4</version>
</dependency>

Change the packaging to WAR in the POM
```
<packaging>war</packaging>
```

Add properties to redefine the application base in the POM

<main.basedir>${basedir}/../..</main.basedir>
<m2eclipse.wtp.contextRoot>/</m2eclipse.wtp.contextRoot>

Create Web application structure the Maven way (tree showing all files):

    D:.
    │   pom.xml
    │   README.txt
    ├───src
    │   ├───main
    │   │   ├───java
    │   │   │   └───com
    │   │   │       └───mvmlabs
    │   │   │           └───springboot
    │   │   │               │   Application.java
    │   │   │               │   ConfigurationForTiles.java
    │   │   │               └───web
    │   │   │                       GreetingController.java
    │   │   ├───resources
    │   │   │       application.properties
    │   │   └───webapp
    │   │       ├───static
    │   │       │       index.html
    │   │       └───WEB-INF
    │   │           └───tiles
    │   │               │   tiles.xml
    │   │               ├───layout
    │   │               │       basic.jsp
    │   │               └───view
    │   │                   │   footer.jsp
    │   │                   │   header.jsp
    │   │                   └───home
    │   │                           greeting.jsp
    │   │                           home.jsp
    │   └───test
    │       └───java
    │           └───com
    │               └───mvmlabs
    │                   └───springboot
    │                           ApplicationTests.java
    │                           TestConfigurtaion.java
    └───target

Configure tiles by adding a new configuration class - it will be pulled in by classpath scanning:

package com.mvmlabs.springboot;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.TilesConfigurer;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.TilesView;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.TilesViewResolver;

@Configuration
public class ConfigurationForTiles {

    @Bean
    public TilesConfigurer tilesConfigurer() {
        final TilesConfigurer configurer = new TilesConfigurer();
        configurer.setDefinitions(new String[] { "WEB-INF/tiles/tiles.xml" });
        configurer.setCheckRefresh(true);
        return configurer;
    }

    @Bean
    public TilesViewResolver tilesViewResolver() {
        final TilesViewResolver resolver = new TilesViewResolver();
        resolver.setViewClass(TilesView.class);
        return resolver;
    }
}

Create the tiles configuration file: WEB-INF/tiles/tiles.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<!DOCTYPE tiles-definitions PUBLIC
       "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Tiles Configuration 3.0//EN"
       "http://tiles.apache.org/dtds/tiles-config_3_0.dtd">
<tiles-definitions>

    <!-- Templates -->

    <definition name="layout.basic" template="/WEB-INF/tiles/layout/basic.jsp">
        <put-attribute name="title" value="Spring Web MVC with Tiles 3" />
        <put-attribute name="header" value="/WEB-INF/tiles/view/header.jsp" />
        <put-attribute name="body" value="" />
        <put-attribute name="footer" value="/WEB-INF/tiles/view//footer.jsp" />
    </definition>

    <!-- Pages -->  

    <definition name="site.homepage" extends="layout.basic">
        <put-attribute name="body" value="/WEB-INF/tiles/view/home/home.jsp" />
    </definition>

    <definition name="site.greeting" extends="layout.basic">
        <put-attribute name="body" value="/WEB-INF/tiles/view/home/greeting.jsp" />
    </definition>
</tiles-definitions>

Create the tiles themselves basic.jsp:

    <%@ taglib uri="http://tiles.apache.org/tags-tiles" prefix="tiles"%>
    <html>
        <head>
            <title><tiles:getAsString name="title" /></title>
        </head>
        <body>
            <tiles:insertAttribute name="header" />
            <tiles:insertAttribute name="body" />
            <tiles:insertAttribute name="footer" />
        </body>
    </html>

header.jsp:
```
<div>The Footer</div>
```
footer.jsp:
```
<div>The Header</div>
```

home.jsp:

<div>
    Main content would go here. Lets try.
</div>

greeting.jsp:
```
<div>
    Hello ${name}
</div>
```

Add a controller class (GreetingController.java) into a directory under that containing Application.java

package com.mvmlabs.springboot.web;

import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PathVariable;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;

@Controller
public class GreetingController {
    private Log log = LogFactory.getLog(this.getClass());

    @RequestMapping(value = "/home", method=RequestMethod.GET)
    public String home() {
        return "site.homepage";
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/greet", method=RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView greet(@RequestParam(value = "name", required=false, defaultValue="World!")final String name, final Model model) {
        log.info("Controller has been invoked with Request Parameter name = '" + name + "'.");
        return new ModelAndView("site.greeting", "name", name);
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/greet/{name}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView greetTwoWays(@PathVariable(value="name") final String name, final Model model) {
        log.info("Controller has been invoked with Path Variable name = '" + name + "'.");
        return new ModelAndView("site.greeting", "name", name);
    }
}

Fix the unit tests, add a new test configuration class to replace tiles configuration with one that reads the config from filesystem rather than trying to use a URL

    package com.mvmlabs.springboot;

    import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
    import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
    import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.TilesConfigurer;

    @Configuration
    public class TestConfigurtaion {

        @Bean
        public TilesConfigurer tilesConfigurer() {
            TilesConfigurer configurer = new TilesConfigurer();
            configurer.setDefinitions(new String[] { "file:src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/tiles/tiles.xml" });
            configurer.setCheckRefresh(true);
            return configurer;
        }
    }

Modify the application test to include the above test configuration after application has loaded its configuration, thus ensuring that the tiles configurer is switched out.

    package com.mvmlabs.springboot;

    import org.junit.Test;
    import org.junit.runner.RunWith;
    import org.springframework.test.context.web.WebAppConfiguration;
    import org.springframework.boot.test.SpringApplicationConfiguration;
    import org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner;

    import com.mvmlabs.springboot.Application;

    @RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
    @SpringApplicationConfiguration(classes = {Application.class, TestConfigurtaion.class})
    @WebAppConfiguration
    public class ApplicationTests {

        @Test
        public void contextLoads() {
        }
    }

Build the project using Maven
```
mvn clean package
```
Run it, the --debug flag is to display Springs Auto-Configuration Report
```
java -jar target\spring-boot-web-mvc-tiles3-1.0.war --debug
```
Confirm static content can be accessed:
```
http://localhost:8080/static/index.html
http://localhost:8080/index.html
```
Note: The first URL above demostrates Spring Boot mapping of static resources The second URL above demonstrates default index.html mapping provided by Spring Boot

Confirm that Spring MVC has been configured as expected

http://localhost:8080/home
http://localhost:8080/greet?name=Mark
http://localhost:8080/greet/Mark

All done here.