Configure Eclipse IDE for Spring Development (January 7, 2012)

By Mike Hubbartt, © Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved.

Spring is a nice Java framework that simplifies J2E tasks, and is in wide use in many real-world business development environments. If you don’t know it and want to do dynamic web development with Java, this is a good time to learn it.

You need a couple of things to do Spring development. A good IDE, Tomcat for local development, and a good database for dynamic content. I enjoy using Eclipse IDEs, so this Spring setup procedure covers Eclipse Indigo.

Spring Configuration

1. Download and install Eclipse Indigo from http://www.eclipse.org.
2. Download and install Tomcat 6 from http://tomcat.apache.org/.
3. Download and install a relational DBMS like MySQL or SQL Anywhere for Developers.
4. Download the Spring framework with dependencies (for this example, I downloaded Spring 2.5 RC2) from http://www.springsource.org/download and then unzip the file into a folder. I keep all of my Spring files a folder surprisingly called Spring – it holds the Spring framework files and any Spring-specific articles I find to be useful as references.
5. Download the Spring plug-ins by
   1. Using Help – Install New Software.
   2. At the Install popup, select the Add button.
   3. At the Add Repository popup, use Spring for the name and http://dist.springframework.org/release/IDE as the location.
   4. Select Core/Spring IDE and Resources/Spring IDE, then press the Next button.
   5. Select the Next button.
   6. Select the ‘I accept…’ licensing option and then press the Finish button.
   7. Restart Eclipse when prompted after the plugin is installed.
6. In Eclipse, select File – New – Other, then select Dynamic Web Project, then press the Next button.
7. Enter a Project Name, then press the Finish button.
8. Create a war directory in the project – this is where non-Java source (.JSPs, XML, etc) are stored. In Eclipse, use File – New – Folder, and enter ‘war’ as the folder name, then press the Finish button.
9. In the new war folder, create a WEB-INF folder using File – New – Folder just as you did in step 8.
10. In the new WEB-INF folder, create a lib folder using File – New – Folder just as your in step 8.
11. Time to configure the build path:
    1. Highlight the project name in the IDE, right mouse click, then select build path/configure build path.
    2. At the Properties dialog box, select the Java Build Path option at the left of the dialog, then select the Source tab.
    3. Select the ‘Add Folder’ button, then select the ‘war’ folder – do not select the folders below war, then select the OK button.
12. Now add 2 JARs to the project.
    1. Using Windows Explorer, locate the Spring.jar file, then drag and drop it onto the war/WEB-INF/lib folder in the IDE..
    2. Using Windows Explorer, locate the commons-logging.jar file, then drag and drop it onto the war/WEB-INF/lib folder in the IDE.
    3. With the project name highlighted, select File – Refresh from the IDE meu options.
13. You are done – the project is ready to be used as a blank Spring project.