IN28MINUTES

Spring Boot - Integrating with Bootstrap & jQuery using Web Jars

Dec 8, 2017
5 minute read
350,000 Learners are learning everyday with our Best Selling Courses : Spring Boot Microservices, Spring, Spring Boot, Web Services, Hibernate, Full Stack React, Full Stack Angular, Python, Spring Interview Guide, Java Interview, Java Functional Programming, AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, PCF, AWS Fargate and Azure

This guide will help you create a simple web application with Spring Boot. We will add the dependencies for Bootstrap and jQuery webjars. We will create a simple jsp view using jQuery and Bootstrap.

You will learn

  • How to bootstrap a simple project with Spring Initializr?
  • How to initialize a basic web application for Spring Boot?
  • How to add a JSP for web application?
  • How to add webjars for jQuery and Bootstrap?
  • How to create a simple view using jQuery and Bootstrap?

Free Courses - Learn in 10 Steps

Tools you will need

  • Maven 3.0+ is your build tool
  • Your favorite IDE. We use Eclipse.
  • JDK 1.8+

Overview of the Web application

We will build a static todo page (un-formatted) rendered using a jsp.

Files

Following screenshot shows eclipse project with all the files we would create.

Image

A brief overview of all files

  • SpringBootWebApplicationBootstrapJqueryApplication.java - Spring Boot Application class. This initialized the Spring Boot application with auto configuration.
  • WelcomeController.java - A Controller with a method to redirect to the view - jsp.
  • welcome.jsp - The view - uses Jquery and Bootstrap.
  • pom.xml - We will add the webjar dependencies for Bootstrap and jQuery to pom.xml.
  • application.properties - This is typically used to configure frameworks in Spring Boot. In this example, we would configure our view resolver in application.properties.

Complete project on Github : https://github.com/in28minutes/spring-boot-examples/tree/master/spring-boot-web-application-bootstrap-jquery

Bootstrapping web application with Spring Initializr

Creating a Web application with Spring Initializr is a cake walk.

Spring Initializr http://start.spring.io/ is great tool to bootstrap your Spring Boot projects.

Image

As shown in the image above, following steps have to be done

  • Launch Spring Initializr and choose the following
    • Choose com.in28minutes.springboot.web.application as Group
    • Choose spring-boot-web-application-bootstrap-jquery as Artifact
    • Choose following dependencies
      • Web
      • Actuator
      • DevTools
  • Click Generate Project.
  • Import the project into Eclipse.
  • If you want to understand all the files that are part of this project, you can go here.

Project Dependencies

Spring Boot Starter Web provides all the dependencies and the auto configuration need to develop web applications. It is the first dependency we would use.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>

We want to use JSP as the view. Default embedded servlet container for Spring Boot Starter Web is tomcat. To enable support for JSP’s, we would need to add a dependency on tomcat-embed-jasper.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
    <artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

Configuring a View Resolver

We would have our jsp’s in /WEB-INF/jsp/. We would need to configure the view resolver with the prefix and suffix.

spring.mvc.view.prefix=/WEB-INF/jsp/
spring.mvc.view.suffix=.jsp

Controller

Lets add in a simple controller redirecting to the view.

/src/main/java/com/in28minutes/springboot/tutorial/basics/application/configuration/WelcomeController.java

@Controller
public class WelcomeController {    
    @RequestMapping("/welcome")
    public String loginMessage(){
        return "welcome";
    }
}

The url to this controlle method will be http://localhost:8080/welcome

Adding a view

Let’s create a simple with a basic HTML structure. We will create a basic table which we would want to format a little later.

/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/jsp/welcome.jsp

<html>
<head>
    <title>Welcome</title>
</head>
<body>
    <div class="container">
        <table class="table table-striped">
            <caption>Your todos are</caption>
            <thead>
                <tr>
                    <th>Description</th>
                    <th>Target Date</th>
                    <th>Is it Done?</th>
                    <th>Edit</th>
                    <th>Delete</th>
                </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
                    <tr>
                        <td>Todo 1</td>
                        <td>10/12/2017</td>
                        <td>No</td>
                        <td><a class="btn btn-warning" href="/edit-todo">Edit Todo</a></td>
                        <td><a class="btn btn-warning" href="/delete-todo">Delete Todo</a></td>
                    </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
        <div>
            <a class="btn btn-default" href="/add-todo">Add a Todo</a>
            
        </div>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

Webjars for jQuery and Bootstrap

Let’s now add in the webjars to our pom.xml

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
    <artifactId>bootstrap</artifactId>
    <version>3.3.6</version>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
    <artifactId>bootstrap-datepicker</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.1</version>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
    <artifactId>jquery</artifactId>
    <version>1.9.1</version>
</dependency>

Using Web Jars in View

Make sure that you restart the application and we are ready to use jquery and bootstrap in our project.

If you expand your dependencies you should see the dependencies. Image

Referring to bootstrap css

    <link href="webjars/bootstrap/3.3.6/css/bootstrap.min.css"
        rel="stylesheet">

Referring to Bootstrap js


<script src="webjars/bootstrap/3.3.6/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>

Referring to jQuery js

<script src="webjars/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

Update view using jQuery and Bootstrap is shown below.

/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/jsp/welcome.jsp

<html>
<head>
    <title>Welcome</title>
    <link href="webjars/bootstrap/3.3.6/css/bootstrap.min.css"
        rel="stylesheet">
</head>
<body>
    <div class="container">
        <table class="table table-striped">
            <caption>Your todos are</caption>
            <thead>
                <tr>
                    <th>Description</th>
                    <th>Target Date</th>
                    <th>Is it Done?</th>
                    <th>Edit</th>
                    <th>Delete</th>
                </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
                    <tr>
                        <td>Todo 1</td>
                        <td>10/12/2017</td>
                        <td>No</td>
                        <td><a class="btn btn-warning" href="/edit-todo">Edit Todo</a></td>
                        <td><a class="btn btn-warning" href="/delete-todo">Delete Todo</a></td>
                    </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
        <div>
            <a class="btn btn-default" href="/add-todo">Add a Todo</a>
            
        </div>
        <script src="webjars/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
        <script src="webjars/bootstrap/3.3.6/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

Spring Boot would auto configure the webjars resource mapping. So you DON’T need to do this anymore.

    <mvc:resources mapping="/webjars/**" location="/webjars/"/>

Complete Code Example

/pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.in28minutes.springboot.web.application</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-web-application-bootstrap-jquery</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>

    <name>spring-boot-web-application-bootstrap-jquery</name>
    <description>Spring Boot Tutorial - Adding Bootstrap and jQuery to Web Application</description>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.0.0.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath /> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
            <artifactId>bootstrap</artifactId>
            <version>3.3.6</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
            <artifactId>bootstrap-datepicker</artifactId>
            <version>1.0.1</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
            <artifactId>jquery</artifactId>
            <version>1.9.1</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
            <artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>spring-snapshots</id>
            <name>Spring Snapshots</name>
            <url>https://repo.spring.io/snapshot</url>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>true</enabled>
            </snapshots>
        </repository>
        <repository>
            <id>spring-milestones</id>
            <name>Spring Milestones</name>
            <url>https://repo.spring.io/milestone</url>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>false</enabled>
            </snapshots>
        </repository>
    </repositories>

    <pluginRepositories>
        <pluginRepository>
            <id>spring-snapshots</id>
            <name>Spring Snapshots</name>
            <url>https://repo.spring.io/snapshot</url>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>true</enabled>
            </snapshots>
        </pluginRepository>
        <pluginRepository>
            <id>spring-milestones</id>
            <name>Spring Milestones</name>
            <url>https://repo.spring.io/milestone</url>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>false</enabled>
            </snapshots>
        </pluginRepository>
    </pluginRepositories>


</project>

/src/main/java/com/in28minutes/springboot/tutorial/basics/application/configuration/SpringBootWebApplicationBootstrapJqueryApplication.java

package com.in28minutes.springboot.tutorial.basics.application.configuration;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class SpringBootWebApplicationBootstrapJqueryApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpringBootWebApplicationBootstrapJqueryApplication.class, args);
    }
}

/src/main/java/com/in28minutes/springboot/tutorial/basics/application/configuration/WelcomeController.java

package com.in28minutes.springboot.tutorial.basics.application.configuration;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;

@Controller
public class WelcomeController {    
    @RequestMapping("/welcome")
    public String loginMessage(){
        return "welcome";
    }
}

/src/main/resources/application.properties

spring.mvc.view.prefix=/WEB-INF/jsp/
spring.mvc.view.suffix=.jsp
logging.level.org.springframework.web=INFO

/src/main/resources/static/css/custom.css

body {
    background-color: lightblue;
}

/src/main/resources/static/js/custom.js

alert("I'm active");

/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/jsp/welcome.jsp

<html>
<head>
    <title>Welcome</title>
    <link href="webjars/bootstrap/3.3.6/css/bootstrap.min.css"
        rel="stylesheet">
    <link href="css/custom.css"
        rel="stylesheet">
</head>
<body>
    <div class="container">
        <table class="table table-striped">
            <caption>Your todos are</caption>
            <thead>
                <tr>
                    <th>Description</th>
                    <th>Target Date</th>
                    <th>Is it Done?</th>
                    <th>Edit</th>
                    <th>Delete</th>
                </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
                    <tr>
                        <td>Todo 1</td>
                        <td>10/12/2017</td>
                        <td>No</td>
                        <td><a class="btn btn-warning" href="/edit-todo">Edit Todo</a></td>
                        <td><a class="btn btn-warning" href="/delete-todo">Delete Todo</a></td>
                    </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
        <div>
            <a class="btn btn-default" href="/add-todo">Add a Todo</a>
            
        </div>
        <script src="webjars/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
        <script src="webjars/bootstrap/3.3.6/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
        <script src="js/custom.js"></script>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

/src/test/java/com/in28minutes/springboot/tutorial/basics/application/configuration/SpringBootWebApplicationBootstrapJqueryApplicationTests.java

package com.in28minutes.springboot.tutorial.basics.application.configuration;

import org.junit.Test;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;
import org.springframework.boot.test.context.SpringBootTest;
import org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringRunner;

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest
public class SpringBootWebApplicationBootstrapJqueryApplicationTests {

    @Test
    public void contextLoads() {
    }

}

What to Learn Next?

350,000 Learners are learning everyday with our Best Selling Courses : Spring Boot Microservices, Spring, Spring Boot, Web Services, Hibernate, Full Stack React, Full Stack Angular, Python, Spring Interview Guide, Java Interview, Java Functional Programming, AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, PCF, AWS Fargate and Azure

85,000 Subscribers are learning from our Free Videos on YouTube : JSP Servlets, Spring, Spring Boot, Spring MVC, Hibernate, Eclipse, Maven, JUnit, Mockito, Full Stack - React, Full Stack - Angular, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, AWS Fargate, PCF and Azure

Here are the recommend articles to read next : Spring Interview Questions, Spring Boot Interview Questions, Microservices, Hibernate, Spring Security, REST API with Spring Boot, Full Stack with React, SOAP Web Services, Exception Handling, Embedded Servers, Spring Data Rest, Spring vs Spring MVC vs Spring Boot, Building Web Application and Spring Data JPA. You can checkout all our 100+ articles here - All Articles.

Do not know where to start your learning journey? Check out our amazing learning paths: Learning Path 01 - Spring and Spring Boot Web Applications and API Developer, Learning Path 02 - Full Stack Developer with Spring Boot, React & Angular, Learning Path 03 - Cloud Microservices Developer with Docker and Kubernetes, Learning Path 04 - Learn Cloud with Spring Boot, AWS, Azure and PCF and Learning Path 05 - Learn AWS with Microservices, Docker and Kubernetes

Related Posts

Deploy Java Spring Boot Applications to AWS, Azure, GCP with Docker and Kubernetes

In this article, we focus our attention on the cloud. How to learn the cloud and deploy Java Spring Boot Applications to AWS, Azure, GCP with Docker and Kubernetes?

Spring Boot Tutorials for Beginners

At in28Minutes, we are creating a number of tutorials with videos, articles & courses on Spring Boot for Beginners and Experienced Developers. This resources will help you learn and gain expertise at Spring Boot.

Microservices with Spring Boot and Java - Part 1 - Getting Started

Let's learn the basics of microservices and microservices architectures. We will also start looking at a basic implementation of a microservice with Spring Boot. We will create a couple of microservices and get them to talk to each other using Eureka Naming Server and Ribbon for Client Side Load Balancing. In part 1 of this series, lets get introduced to the concept of microservices and understand how to create great microservices with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud.

20+ Spring Boot Projects with Code Examples

At in28Minutes, we have created more than 20 projects with code examples on Github. We have 50+ articles explaining these projects. These code examples will you learn and gain expertise at Spring Boot.

REST API Best Practices - With Design Examples from Java and Spring Web Services

Designing Great REST API is important to have great microservices. How do you design your REST API? What are the best practices?

Index - 500+ Videos

At in28Minutes, we are creating a number of tutorials with videos, articles & courses on Spring Boot for Beginners and Experienced Developers. Here's a list of video tutorials and courses for you

Creating Spring Boot and React Java Full Stack Application with Maven

This guide helps you create a Java full stack application with all the CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete) features using React as Frontend framework and Spring Boot as the backend REST API. We use Maven as the build tool.

Creating a SOAP Web Service with Spring Boot Starter Web Services

Let's learn how to create a SOAP Web Service with Spring Boot Starter Web Services. We will take a Contract First approach by definining an XSD and exposing a WSDL from it.

Spring Boot - Unit Testing and Mocking with Mockito and JUnit

Learn the basics of JUnit and Mockito. We will Spring Boot to create a Business Service and Data Services. We will unit test the Business Service using Spring Boot, Mockito and JUnit in two different approaches.

Introduction to Spring Data - Spring Data JPA, Spring Data REST and MongoDB

Spring Data's mission is to provide a familiar and consistent, Spring-based programming model for data access. In this tutorial, we will explore the different interfaces provided by Spring Data. We will take a quick peek into Spring Data JPA and Spring Data for MongoDB.