Spring Explorer with Java-based Web-Container configuration

Hello,

i configure my WebApp with the javax.servlet.ServletContainerInitializer respecitve with a WebApplicationInitializer, and Java based Configuration.
Is there a way to configure the Spring Eplorer View of STS to show the Configuration and the Dependency Graph correctly?

A Google & a Forum search was without result.

Any hint will be helpful for me..

Best Regards,
Gianpietro Dal Zio

Hey!

The tooling doesn't recognize the Spring configuration at the moment if there is not a single configuration file. This should definitely be changed to support this scenario. I filed an enhancement request for this:
https://issuetracker.springsource.com/browse/STS-2309

In the meantime you could add a simple configuration file that contains the component-scanning definition and add that to the list of used config files for the project. This is a somewhat ugly workaround (I know), but it should at least work.

-Martin

Hello Martin,

thak you very much for your answer, and for the enhancement request.
I already try the "simple configuration file" workaround; bud it does not work really good, the recongnition of the dependencies between Beans are not recognized:

Code:

---

@Bean
public TesterBean testerBean()
{
        TesterBean tb = null;
        try
                {
                        tb = new TesterBean(this.entityManager());
                }
        catch (Throwable e)
                {
                // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                        e.printStackTrace();
                }
                tb.init();
                return tb;
                }

---

The graphs shows the #testerBean but not the dependency with the #entityManager bean...

Tank you!
-Gianpietro

Hey Gianpietro!

The beans graph is not yet able to analyse those dependencies between beans that are coming from inside @Bean configurations. This is somewhat complex to analyze and to implement because of the wide variety of possibilities and ways to configure beans using this style. Nevertheless, I think it would be great to have those dependencies within that graph as well. I opened this JIRA issue to track this:
https://issuetracker.springsource.com/browse/STS-2318

Cheers,
-Martin

Thank you Martin,

Gianpietro

Hi Martin,

I too came across the problem that the "Spring Explorer" doesn't show me beans for my purely annotation-driven Spring project (... I'm currently playing around with the spring-social-showcase ).

I tried your workaround using a simple configuration file.

In the project's src/main/java folder, I created a file componentscan.xml with the following content

Code:

---

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
      xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
      xsi:schemaLocation="
            http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
            http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-2.5.xsd">

      <context:component-scan base-package="org.springframework.social.showcase"/>

</beans>

---

Then I added this xml file to the "Beans Support config file list": Project properties -> Spring -> Beans Support -> Config Files -> Scan... -> select src/main/java/componentscan.xml -> OK -> OK

Now the Spring Explorer view gets a refresh.

To my suprise, this list does not include all beans which are part of the spring-social-showcase (e.g. @Bean beans dataSource, facebook, textEncryptor, etc.). Instead the Spring Explorer's beans list includes a handful of @Controller controllers and @Configuration configurations).

Is it the case that the Spring Explorer view is currently broken with respect to viewing @Bean annotated beans?

Hi!

If the Spring explorer doesn't show the @Bean annotated beans for your case, it sounds like a bug in Spring IDE or STS. Can you please file a JIRA for this:

https://issuetracker.springsource.com/browse/STS

and maybe attach a small sample project that reproduces the problem? That would be great!

Thanks,
Martin

I'd like to file a request. The problem is I only have a vague understanding about STS' features and views. That is, I didn't find any documation explaining what the different Spring views (e.g. "Spring Explorer", "Beans Cross References") are supposed to do and how to work with them.

Therefore, I cannot say whether what I'm asking for ("Annotation beans don't show up in Spring Explorer") is a feature request or an observed defect, or is actually completely out of place.

tl;dr: Please provide documentation for STS, explaining what you can do with it.

Hey!

Sorry for not getting back to this sooner, it slipped through my to-do list somehow. Sorry for that.
We don't have extensive documentation about the IDE features in a written-down format, but you can find a lot of useful information from this collection of "getting started" material:

http://forum.springsource.org/showth...etting-Started

Hope this helps!
-Martin