Spring MVC and templating engine like Facelets

Question

Is there a real alternative to JSP tags when using Spring MVC?

I'm using Spring MVC to integrate it to a JS framework. What i'm missing in Spring MVC is a kind of templating framework

I have previously used Facelets templating with JSF2 and I love it.

Is there a framework/technology that integrates well with Spring MVC and offers similar features as Facelets?

no (or little) xml configuration
can define sections in one template file and fill all supply content for all sections from one file

I was looking at Apache Tiles documentation and it seems that you need to have separate files for each section in template.

Example (pseudocode) :

template.html:

<insert:headerSection>
<insert:bodySection>

using-template.html:

<use-template: template.html>

<define:headerSection>this is a header</define:headerSection>
<define:bodySection>this is a body</define:bodySection>

I know that I can achieve this using JSP but code looks much cleaner and faster to write using Facelets.

If JSP is my best choice I found some suggestions in this thread

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 14 '13 at 16:29

1

I think Spring Webflow has JSF 2 support. If you want to stick with pure Spring MVC, it also offers templating with Tiles and Velocity, or you can even write your own custom ViewResolver.

answered Feb 14 '13 at 16:29

CodeChimp

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thanks for the answer but I don't need any of JSF2 features besides Facelets templating and I don't have any complex view flows so I don't need WebFlow. As for Tiles and Velocity I didn't find it as easy to use as facelets (xml config, each piece of code for template must come in a separate file) – aurban Feb 15 '13 at 10:48
If Spring doesn't have a Facelets ViewResolver, you could always write your own. – CodeChimp Feb 15 '13 at 19:36

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 21 '13 at 08:53

1

After some testing with Tiles I decided to go with JSP. I needs no configuration and I achieved the above functionality writing a simple tag file and using <jsp:attribute/> and <jsp:invoke/> tags.

answered Feb 21 '13 at 08:53

aurban

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 20 '13 at 16:31

1

What about freemarker or velocity, there's a clear explanation about how to integrate those technologies with Spring MVC. Take a look at the following: http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.2.x/spring-framework-reference/html/view.html

answered Aug 20 '13 at 16:31

gvalenncia

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 06 '13 at 19:28

0

It is possible to configure Facelets with Spring MVC. Check it out here: https://github.com/acichon89/springmvcfacelets

answered Jul 06 '13 at 19:28

Cichy

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 21 '15 at 16:55

I consider that frameworks to make templating are getting deprecated. In this regard, you could think about exposing a Restful API, so that you can separate back-end from front-end technologies. This way you can use the benefits of Spring-MVC in back-end and letting the Front-end to decide the technology to build user interfaces (AngularJS).

Spring-MVC supports the build of Restful controllers, you just need to mark your classes as @RestController.

Spring MVC and templating engine like Facelets

5 Answers5