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Example for RWT standalone on Spring Boot [message #1852206]

Wed, 04 May 2022 20:50

Benjamin Wolff

Messages: 137
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Dear RAP community,

tl;dr: I created a small example that demonstrates how RWT standalone can be used in a Spring Boot based web app. Maybe it can helpful in case someone is interested in such a setup or is looking into a way to migrate an existing RAP application.

The example project is available here: https://github.com/bwolff/rwt-on-spring-boot

Longer version with some background: I just recently ported an osgi-based v3 workbench RAP 3.20 application to a Spring Boot based application that uses RWT standalone for the UI part. The application was initially created almost 15 (!!) years ago and has been developed, maintained and steadily kept up-to-date since then. The move to Spring Boot and RWT was my investment in preparing the application for the upcoming 15 years in the Java ecosystem. An age that my particular app might actually reach ;).

At that point I'd like give a big "thank you" to the RAP team for creating this nice piece of technology! As I mentioned, I started the application over 15 years ago, which is a different era in web development (probably several). RWT has been around since then and is still around today and is receiving some care and love and also integrates nicely with modern tech stacks, as this example demonstrates. RAP/RWT served its purpose very well in my project and will continue to do so, now with a new underpinning that benefits from the features of Spring Boot and the convenience of the Gradle build tool :).

Thanks a lot!

Yours truly
Ben

PS: Some other nice-to-haves that I managed to integrate along with the migration:

* Spring (web) security for authorization and authentication;
* SCSS to CSS compiler for creating the custom RWT themes (that's just sooo sweet!);
* Building, testing and running the app like you just don't care;
* Packaging and running the app in a docker container;
* Having the option to use other IDEs than Eclipse (no hard feelings, still love you *kiss smiley emoji*)

PPS: See also: https://www.javacodegeeks.com/2018/11/eclipse-rap-spring-boot.html

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Re: Example for RWT standalone on Spring Boot [message #1852218 is a reply to message #1852206]

Thu, 05 May 2022 07:14

Ivan Furnadjiev

Messages: 2429
Registered: July 2009
Location: Sofia, Bulgaria

Senior Member

Hi Ben,

thank you very much for the kind words. Such feedback motivates us to continue improving and extending the RAP framework.

Best regards,
Ivan

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Re: Example for RWT standalone on Spring Boot [message #1852230 is a reply to message #1852206]

Thu, 05 May 2022 13:32

Markus Knauer

Messages: 179
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Hi Ben,

that's amazing, thank you, it makes us proud and is a great motivation to go the extra mile, e.g. by making the bundles available in a consumable form via Maven Central.

I hope you don't mind if we link your GitHub repository from our pages - I'm just looking for suitable places and am open to suggestions.

Thanks and regards
Markus

--

Twitter: @mknauer23 and @EclipseRAP
Blog: http://eclipsesource.com/blogs/

Professional services for RAP and RCP?
http://eclipsesource.com/services/rap/

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Re: Example for RWT standalone on Spring Boot [message #1852236 is a reply to message #1852230]

Thu, 05 May 2022 14:30

Benjamin Wolff

Messages: 137
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Hi Ivan and Markus,

you're very welcome ;).

@Markus: yes, having the RAP deps in Maven Central was one of the big enablers for this!

About linking to the GitHub repo, sure, be my guest! I can also improve the README and or the code, as this was just a quick example. I'm not sure what you mean by "from our pages". In case you are referring to the official Eclipse RAP pages, I think this could find a mention in the developer's guide. It's specific to RWT standalone, so there could be a section about it on the following page: https://www.eclipse.org/rap/developers-guide/devguide.php?topic=rwt-standalone.html&version=3.20

In fact, the demo project provides a complete working example and a starting point for a Spring Boot + RWT standalone setup. If you think it's worth, it could even receive it's own section under "Building Applications" in the guide.

With my project I have really reached a point where RWT just fits like a glove on top of the Spring Boot ecosystem. If a project does not rely on the workbench or OSGi, this is imho a really nice production-ready combination. You get the trusty RWT API and functionality and also all the nice things that Spring Boot and Gradle provide. Building, running and creating the deploy artefact, all with one command. Gradle wrapper makes it very portable (you can also use the Maven wrapper). CD/CI compatible out of the box. Use your favourite Maven dependencies like you're used to to. No more launch configs, features, war products. IDE agnostic. A real productivity booster with modern development ergonomics, I'm very happy with it :).

Cheers,
Ben

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