1. Introduction

Before we move on to create our demo Spring Boot web application with Gradle, I assume we all are ready with the Gradle setup.

• Guide to Gradle Setup
• Gradle Official Website

2. Creating Demo Application

Now that we ready with the plugin installed, create a new Gradle project as shown below –

👁 Image

Clicking on Next, specify the project details as mentioned below –

👁 Image

Click Finish and we are done with the initial project creation –

👁 Image

Like we have pom.xml with Maven, we have build.gradle with Gradle. Lets make the required changes to it by adding the Spring Boot dependencies –

buildscript {
	ext {
		springBootVersion = '1.4.3.RELEASE'
	}
	repositories {
		mavenCentral()
	}
	dependencies {
		classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:${springBootVersion}")
	}
}
 
apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'eclipse'
apply plugin: 'org.springframework.boot'
 
jar {
	baseName = 'boot-gradle'
	version = '0.0.1-SNAPSHOT'
}
 
repositories {
	mavenCentral()
}
 
bootRepackage {
 enabled = true
}
 
dependencies {
	compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter',
	'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web',
	'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf')
}

Lets now create the SpringBootApplication class containing the main method –

👁 Image

SpringBootApplication.java

package com.jcombat;
 
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
 
@org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication
public class SpringBootApplication {
 
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApplication.class, args);
	}
 
}

Similarly, let’s have a Spring controller class created as well –

👁 Image

DemoController.java

package com.jcombat.controller;
 
import java.util.Map;
 
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
 
@Controller
public class DemoController {
 
	@RequestMapping("/")
	public String welcome(Map<String, Object> model) {
		return "welcome";
	}
}

We now need to add welcome.html in the Spring Boot resource location. Note that the resource folder might not exist while creating the Gradle project, so in my case I will have to create one explicitly.

👁 Image

👁 Image

👁 Image

Project structure now should look like –

👁 Image

Now create ‘template’ folder inside the src/main/resource project directory, and create the welcome.html file inside it. Refer to the below snapshot –

👁 Image

Next, Right-click on the project, go to ‘Gradle’ and click on ‘Refresh Gradle project’.

This is it.

3. Running the application

Right-click on the project and Run the application as Spring Boot App –

👁 Image

4. Download the source code

Download the source code