Using Vaadin With Spring Boot

Adding Dependencies

Vaadin offers a startup dependency that includes all the necessary modules and auto-configuration, similar to many other tech stacks on Spring Boot. Only the vaadin-spring-boot-starter dependence is necessary, however, if you require further Vaadin dependencies, we advise you to also declare the vaadin-bom dependency. We also advise adding the vaadin-maven-plugin, which creates the optimized JavaScript packages, for production builds.

Examples of pom.xml dependencies for Vaadin Spring Boot.

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
            <artifactId>vaadin-bom</artifactId>
            <!-- declare the latest Vaadin version
                 as a property or directly here -->
            <version>${vaadin.version}</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
        <artifactId>
            vaadin-spring-boot-starter
        </artifactId>
        <version>${vaadin.version}</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
    <plugins>
        <!-- The Spring Boot Maven plugin for easy
             execution from CLI and packaging -->
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>
                spring-boot-maven-plugin
            </artifactId>
        </plugin>
        <!--
            Takes care of synchronizing java
            dependencies and imports in package.json and
            main.js files. It also creates
            webpack.config.js if does not exist yet.
        -->
        <plugin>
            <groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
            <artifactId>vaadin-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>${vaadin.version}</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>prepare-frontend</goal>
                        <goal>build-frontend</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

Running Spring Boot Applications

Applications created using Spring Boot are run using the standard main() function. Spring Boot launches a web server and sets up Vaadin with Spring if a Vaadin Spring dependency is on your classpath. If you used https://start.vaadin.com or https://start.spring.io to build your project, you already have access to an application class with the main() method.

Application class, for instance.

Under the hood, Spring Boot is enabled by the @SpringBootApplication annotation. The auto-configuration, component scanning, and Spring configuration are all included in this.

Adding Vaadin View to a Spring Boot Application

Vaadin uses the @Route annotation to define views as Java classes. The classes are identified and published during application startup at a path obtained from the class name or specified as a parameter to the annotation. Consider the MainView class.

@Route
public class MainView extends VerticalLayout {
   public MainView() {
   add(new Text("Welcome to MainView."));
   }
}

If you don't give the framework a path parameter, it will infer the path from the class name. Any trailing "View" will be dropped, and the derived name will be written in lowercase. Additionally, MainView and Main will map to root (that is, the path will be "").

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Vaadin for?

Vaadin is made to increase full-stack teams' productivity. You may concentrate all your efforts on creating functionality thanks to full-stack type safety and smooth server-to-browser communication.

When ought one to employ Vaadin Flow?

The productivity and security of the Flow framework are its main focuses.

Using Flow, the entire application may be created in Java. There is no need to create REST endpoints or other communication-layer code because server-client communication is automated. Because of the server-side architecture, Flow is by design very secure.

Can Vaadin be used to create PWAs?

Yes. Applications created using Vaadin are by default progressive web apps. For an offline fallback page, the starters create a manifest file and a service worker. The offline page, icons, and colors can all be changed.

Conclusion

In this blog, we discussed the basics of Spring Boot and why is it used. We also discussed the Vaadin framework of Spring Boot, it's working. Then we saw various operations which can be performed like adding dependencies, running Spring Boot applications, and lastly adding Vaadin view to Spring Boot application.

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