ZetCode

Spring Boot ViewControllerRegistry tutorial

last modified July 6, 2020

Spring Boot ViewControllerRegistry tutorial shows how to use ViewControllerRegistry to create simple routes.

Spring is a popular Java application framework for creating enterprise applications. Spring Boot is an evolution of Spring framework which helps create stand-alone, production-grade Spring based applications with minimal effort.

ViewControllerRegistry

ViewControllerRegistry allows to create simple automated controllers pre-configured with status code and/or a view.

Spring Boot ViewControllerRegistry example

In the following example we create a simple route with ViewControllerRegistry. 

pom.xml
src
├───main
│   ├───java
│   │   └───com
│   │       └───zetcode
│   │           │   Application.java
│   │           └───config
│   │                   AppConfig.java
│   └───resources
│       ├───static
│       │       index.html
│       └───templates
│               hello.html
└───test
    └───java

This is the project structure.

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.zetcode</groupId>
    <artifactId>viewregistry</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <maven.compiler.source>11</maven.compiler.source>
        <maven.compiler.target>11</maven.compiler.target>
    </properties>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.1.1.RELEASE</version>
    </parent>

    <dependencies>

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

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

    </dependencies>

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

</project>

Spring Boot starters are a set of convenient dependency descriptors which greatly simplify Maven configuration. The spring-boot-starter-parent has some common configurations for a Spring Boot application. The spring-boot-starter-web is a starter for building web, including RESTful, applications using Spring MVC. It uses Tomcat as the default embedded container. The spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf is a starter for building MVC web applications using Thymeleaf views.

The spring-boot-maven-plugin provides Spring Boot support in Maven, allowing us to package executable JAR or WAR archives. Its spring-boot:run goal runs the Spring Boot application.

com/zetcode/config/AppConfig.java
package com.zetcode.config;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.ViewControllerRegistry;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.WebMvcConfigurer;

@Configuration
public class AppConfig implements WebMvcConfigurer {

    @Override
    public void addViewControllers(ViewControllerRegistry registry) {
        registry.addViewController("/hello").setViewName("hello");
    }
}

In the AppConfig we register a new route with ViewControllerRegistry's addViewController() method.

resources/templates/hello.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Hello page</title>
</head>
<body>

<p>
    Hello there
</p>

</body>
</html>

The hello.html view displays a simple message.

resources/static/index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Home page</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>
    This is home page. Go to <a href="hello">hello page</a>
</p>

</body>
</html>

This is a home page.

com/zetcode/Application.java
package com.zetcode;

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

@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {

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

The Application sets up the Spring Boot application. The @SpringBootApplication enables auto-configuration and component scanning. 

$ mvn spring-boot:run

After the application is run, we can navigate to localhost:8080/.

In this tutorial, we have showed how to use Spring ViewControllerRegistry to create simple routes.

List all Spring Boot tutorials.