Dahling: A Shell repository from Kadavi

What you’ll build

You’ll build a web application using Groovy and Spring while also using Thymeleaf and jQuery.

What you’ll need

https://raw.github.com/spring-guides/getting-started-macros/master/prereq_editor_jdk_buildtools.adoc

https://raw.github.com/spring-guides/getting-started-macros/master/how_to_complete_this_guide.adoc

Install Spring Boot’s CLI

Spring Boot comes with a Command Line Interface. There are several ways to install it.

You can install it via gvm:

curl -s get.gvmtool.net | bash

With gvm installed, you then install the CLI:

gvm install springboot
spring --version

If you are using a Mac, you can also the CLI using Homebrew.

brew tap pivotal/tap
brew install springboot
spring --version

With either of these options, you are now in business to create a Spring application with minimal effort.

Creating a Spring application

Now create the simplest application possible.

app.groovy

link:app.groovy[role=include]

This Spring MVC controller defines a REST endpoint at /greeting. We’ll write the template for that later in this guide.

Adding a Javascript library

Let’s demonstrate this using a jQuery animation. We first need to grab a copy of jQuery. The simplest option would to add a Groovy @Grab annotation to the top of your application that automatically fetches it.

link:app.groovy[role=include]

Note	Feel free to read more about Spring Boot + webjars.

Writing a web front end

Let’s create a Thymeleaf template to support our Spring MVC endpoint.

mkdir templates

Now add the following template:

templates/greeting.html

link:templates/greeting.html[role=include]

Note	Because we used webjars, jQuery is found at `webjars/jquery/<version>/<library>`.

Running the application

Now launch the application.

spring run -cp . app.groovy

See the animation by visiting http://localhost:8080/greeting.

This almost empty application comes preloaded with a lot of features thanks to Spring Boot.

@Controller gives a signal that this is a Spring MVC application and Boot will launch an embedded Tomcat servlet container.
Several paths are autoloaded for serving assets(see webjars and static web content blog entries for more details). That’s why we placed our web template in the /templates folder.

From here you can add RESTful endpoints to the backend, work on your front end, and grow your application as needed.

Summary

Spring Boot CLI provides a rapid way to create a back end server app. It also supports plugging in your favorite Javascript resources and HTML templates. You also could have staged CSS assets. Bottom line: you don’t have to create a project file. Instead, you can dive quickly into building your application.

Kadavi/Dahling