Spring Boot FreeMarker Example Tutorial

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In Spring Boot FreeMarker tutorial we are going to create a simple Spring Boot web application with FreeMarker template engine and H2 database.

H2 Database

H2 is an open-source relational database management system created entirely in Java. It can be embedded in Java applications or run in the client-server mode. It is easy to deploy and install and has a small footprint.
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
            <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>

FreeMarker

FreeMarker is a server-side Java template engine for both web and standalone environments. Templates are written in the FreeMarker Template Language (FTL), which is a simple, specialized language.
Read more about FreeMarker at official site - https://freemarker.apache.org/.
Here is a Spring boot starter for Freemarker:
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-freemarker</artifactId>
        </dependency>

Tools and Technologies used

  1. Spring Boot 2+
  2. Maven 3+
  3. STS or Eclipse IDE
  4. Freemarker
  5. JDK 8+ or OpenJDK 8+
  6. H2 Database
  7. Hibernate - 5.2.17.Final

Development Steps

  1. Create a Spring Boot Application
  2. Maven Dependencies
  3. Project Structure
  4. JPA Entity - Employee.java
  5. JPA Repository - EmployeeRepository.java
  6. Define Spring Controller - EmployeeController.java
  7. Define View Templates
  8. Run Application
  9. Demo

1. Create a Spring Boot Application

There are many ways to create a Spring Boot application. You can refer below articles to create a Spring Boot application.

2. Maven Dependencies

Add required maven depenedencies to pom.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project
    xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>net.guides.springboot2</groupId>
    <artifactId>springboot2-freemarker-example</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>
    <name>springboot2-freemarker-example</name>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.0.5.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath />
        <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>
    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-freemarker</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
            <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

3. Project Structure

Refer below screenshot of final project structure for your reference: 

4. JPA Entity - Employee.java

Let's create a JPA entity - Employee class:
package net.guides.springboot2.freemarker.model;

import javax.persistence.Column;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import javax.persistence.GenerationType;
import javax.persistence.Id;
import javax.persistence.Table;

@Entity
@Table(name = "employees")
public class Employee {

    private long id;
    private String firstName;
    private String lastName;
    private String emailId;

    public Employee() {

    }

    public Employee(String firstName, String lastName, String emailId) {
        this.firstName = firstName;
        this.lastName = lastName;
        this.emailId = emailId;
    }

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
    public long getId() {
        return id;
    }
    public void setId(long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    @Column(name = "first_name", nullable = false)
    public String getFirstName() {
        return firstName;
    }
    public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
        this.firstName = firstName;
    }

    @Column(name = "last_name", nullable = false)
    public String getLastName() {
        return lastName;
    }
    public void setLastName(String lastName) {
        this.lastName = lastName;
    }

    @Column(name = "email_address", nullable = false)
    public String getEmailId() {
        return emailId;
    }
    public void setEmailId(String emailId) {
        this.emailId = emailId;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Employee [id=" + id + ", firstName=" + firstName + ", lastName=" + lastName + ", emailId=" + emailId +
            "]";
    }
}

5. JPA Repository - EmployeeRepository.java

package net.guides.springboot2.freemarker.repository;

import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Repository;

import net.guides.springboot2.freemarker.model.Employee;

@Repository
public interface EmployeeRepository extends JpaRepository<Employee, Long>{

}

6. Define Spring Controller - EmployeeController.java

This is the controller class for the Spring Boot web application. A controller is decorated with the @Controller annotation. The controller has two mappings: one mapping for the home page and one for listing all employees.
package net.guides.springboot2.freemarker.controller;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;

import net.guides.springboot2.freemarker.model.Employee;
import net.guides.springboot2.freemarker.repository.EmployeeRepository;

@Controller
public class EmployeeController {
    @Autowired
    private EmployeeRepository employeeRepository;

    @GetMapping("/")
    public String index(Model model) {

        return "index";
    }

    @GetMapping("/showEmployees")
    public ModelAndView showCities() {

        List < Employee > employees = employeeRepository.findAll();

        Map < String, Object > params = new HashMap < String, Object > ();
        params.put("employees", employees);

        return new ModelAndView("showEmployees", params);
    }
}

application.properties

spring.freemarker.template-loader-path: classpath:/templates
spring.freemarker.suffix: .ftl

7. Define View Templates

The index.ftl template file is the home page of the application. It contains a link to retrieve all employees.

index.ftl

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Home page</title>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
        <link href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.3.1/css/bootstrap.min.css" 
         rel="stylesheet" integrity="sha384-ggOyR0iXCbMQv3Xipma34MD+dH/1fQ784/j6cY/iJTQUOhcWr7x9JvoRxT2MZw1T" 
         crossorigin="anonymous">
    </head>

    <body>
    <div class="container">
      <div class="panel panel-primary">
     <div class="panel-heading">
       <h2>Home Page</h2>
     </div>
         <a href="showEmployees">Show Employees (Retrieve employee data from database)</a>
         </div>
        </div>
    </body>

</html>

showEmployees.ftl

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Employee List</title>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
        <link href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.3.1/css/bootstrap.min.css" 
         rel="stylesheet" integrity="sha384-ggOyR0iXCbMQv3Xipma34MD+dH/1fQ784/j6cY/iJTQUOhcWr7x9JvoRxT2MZw1T" 
         crossorigin="anonymous">
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/style.css">
        </head>
    <body>
    <div class="container">
       <div class="panel panel-primary">
             <div class="panel-heading">
   <h2>Employee List</h2>
             </div>
    <div class="panel-body">            
      <table class="table table-striped">
        <thead>
          <tr>
            <th>Firstname</th>
            <th>Lastname</th>
            <th>Email</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
         <#list employees as employee>
                          <tr>
                                <td>${employee.firstName}</td>
                                <td>${employee.lastName}</td>
                                <td>${employee.emailId}</td>
                          </tr>
             </#list>
        </tbody>
      </table>
    </div>
  </div>
           </div>
     </body>
</html>

8. Run Application

We set up the Spring Boot application. The @SpringBootApplication annotation enables auto-configuration and component scanning. We implemented the run() method of CommandLineRunner interface to store a few employee records in the database.
package net.guides.springboot2.freemarker;

import java.util.List;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.boot.CommandLineRunner;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

import net.guides.springboot2.freemarker.model.Employee;
import net.guides.springboot2.freemarker.repository.EmployeeRepository;

@SpringBootApplication
public class Application implements CommandLineRunner {

    @Autowired
    private EmployeeRepository employeeRepository;

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
    }

    @Override
    public void run(String...args) throws Exception {

        employeeRepository.save(new Employee("Ramesh", "Fadatare", "ramesh@gmail.com"));
        employeeRepository.save(new Employee("Tom", "Cruise", "tom@gmail.com"));
        employeeRepository.save(new Employee("John", "Cena", "john@gmail.com"));
        employeeRepository.save(new Employee("tony", "stark", "stark@gmail.com"));
        // get list of employees
        List < Employee > employees = employeeRepository.findAll();
        employees.forEach(employee - > System.out.println(employee.toString()));
    }
}

9. Demo

The application is deployed on the built-in Tomcat server, which listens on port 8080.
Hit http://localhost:8080/ link in a browser will open a home page:
Click on showEmployees will retrieve all employees from the database and populate on this page:
Get source code of this tutorial on my GitHub Repository.

Related Spring and Spring Boot Tutorials/Guides:

Spring Boot Tutorials [500+] Spring Boot Testing Tutorial Spring Boot Microservice Tutorial Spring Boot Kafka Microservices Spring Boot + Apache Kafka Tutorial Spring Core Tutorial Spring MVC Tutorial Spring Data JPA Tutorial Spring Framework for Beginners Spring AOP Tutorial Spring Security Tutorial Spring Exceptions Tutorial Spring Boot Interview Questions Spring Boot Microservices Interview Questions Apache Kafka Tutorials Docker Tutorials and Guides Spring Boot RabbitMQ Tutorials Angular CRUD Example with Spring Boot Spring Boot + Angular 12 CRUD Full Stack Spring Boot + Angular 8 CRUD Full Stack Spring Boot + Angular 10 CRUD Full Stack Spring Boot + React JS CRUD Full Stack React JS ( React Hooks) + Spring Boot Spring Boot Thymeleaf CRUD Full Stack Spring Boot User Registration and Login Node Js + Express + MongoDB CRUD Vue JS + Spring Boot REST API Tutorial

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