a spring boot ionic simple app

Spring Boot, Ionic, and Stormpath

This demo script shows pre-recorded IntelliJ Live Template shortcuts to build an Ionic and Spring Boot app. Prerequisites: Java 8, Node.js.

Spring Boot API

Create your Spring Boot API project using start.spring.io.

http https://start.spring.io/starter.zip \
dependencies==data-jpa,data-rest,h2,web,devtools -d
  1. Run the application with ./mvnw spring-boot:run. Create a Beer entity class in src/main/java/com/example/beer. → boot-entity
  2. Create a JPA Repository to manage the Beer entity (tip: @RepositoryRestResource). → boot-repository
  3. Create a CommandLineRunner to populate the database. → boot-command
  4. Add default data in the run() method. → boot-add
  5. Create a BeerController for your REST API. Add some business logic that results in a /good-beers endpoint. → boot-controller
  6. Add a /good-beers mapping that filters out beers that aren't great. → boot-good

Create Ionic App

Install Ionic and Cordova:

yarn global add cordova ionic

From a terminal window, create a new application using the following command:

ionic start ionic-beer --v2
cd ionic-beer
ionic serve

Check your changes into Git.

git add .
git commit -m "Create client"

Build a Good Beers UI

  1. Run ionic generate page beer to create a component and a template to display the list of good beers.
  2. Add BeerPage to the declarations and entryComponent lists in app.module.ts.
  3. Run ionic generate provider beer-service to create a service to fetch the beer list from the Spring Boot API.
  4. Change src/providers/beer-service.ts to use have a getGoodBeers() method. → io-beer-service
  5. Modify beer.html to show the list of beers. → io-beer-list
  6. Update beer.ts to import BeerService and add as a provider. Call the getGoodBeers() method in the ionViewDidLoad() lifecycle method. → io-get-good-beers
  7. To expose this page on the tab bar, add it to tabs.ts. Update tabs.html too!

If you run ionic serve, you’ll likely see a CORS error in your browser’s console. To fix this, open your BeerController and add the following line to the good beers endpoint.

@CrossOrigin(origins = {"http://localhost:8100","file://"})

Restart Spring Boot and your Ionic app.

Add some fun with Giphy! Run ionic generate provider giphy-service. → ng-giphy-service

Update beer.ts to take advantage of GiphyService. → ng-giphy-foreach

Update beer.html to display the image retrieved. → io-avatar

If everything works as expected, you should see a page with a list of beers and images.

Add a Modal for Editing

Change the header in beer.html to have a button that opens a modal to add a new beer. → io-open-modal

In this same file, change <ion-item> to have a click handler for opening the modal for the current item.

<ion-item (click)="openModal({id: beer.id})">

Add ModalController as a dependency in BeerPage and add an openModal() method. → io-open-modal-ts

This won't compile because BeerModalPage doesn't exist. Create beer-modal.ts in the same directory. → io-beer-modal

Create beer-modal.html as a template for this page. → io-beer-modal-html

Add BeerModalPage to the declarations and entryComponent lists in app.module.ts.

You'll also need to modify beer-service.ts to have get() and save() methods. → io-get-save

Add Swipe to Delete

To add swipe-to-delete functionality on the list of beers, open beer.html and make it so <ion-item-sliding> wraps <ion-item> and contains the *ngFor. → io-swipe

Add a remove() method to beer.ts. → io-remove

Add toastCtrl: ToastController as a dependency in the constructor so everything compiles.

After making these additions, you should be able to add, edit and delete beers.

PWAs with Ionic

Run the Lighthouse Chrome extension on this application. To register a service worker, and improve the app’s score, uncomment the serviceWorker block in index.html.

After making this change, the score should improve. In my tests, it increased to 69/100.

If you refresh the app and Chrome doesn’t prompt you to install the app (a PWA feature), you probably need to turn on a couple of features.

chrome://flags/#bypass-app-banner-engagement-checks
chrome://flags/#enable-add-to-shelf

After enabling these flags, you’ll see an error in your browser’s console about assets/imgs/logo.png not being found. This files is referenced in src/manifest.json. You can fix this by copying a 512x512 PNG into this location or by modifying manifest.json accordingly.

Deploy to a Mobile Device

To see how your application will look on different devices you can run ionic serve --lab. The --lab flag opens opens a page in your browser that lets you see how your app looks on different devices.

iOS

To emulate or deploy to an iOS device, you’ll need a Mac and a fresh installation of Xcode. If you’d like to build iOS apps on Windows, Ionic offers an Ionic Package service.

ionic platform add ios

You’ll need to run ionic emulate ios to open your app in Simulator.

The biggest problem I found when running the app in Simulator was that it was difficult to get the keyboard to popup. To workaround this, I used Edit > Hardware > Keyboard > Toggle Software Keyboard when I needed to type text in a field.

To deploy the app to an iPhone, start by plugging your iOS device into your computer. Then run the following commands to install ios-deploy/ios-sim, build the app, and run it on your device.

npm install -g ios-deploy ios-sim
ionic build ios
cd platforms/ios/
open ionic-beer.xcodeproj

Select your phone as the target in Xcode and click the play button to run your app.

Android

To deploy to the Android emulator, add support for it to the ionic-beer project using the ionic command.

ionic platform add android

If you run ionic emulate android you’ll get instructions from about how to create an emulator image.

Error: No emulator images (avds) found.
1. Download desired System Image by running: /Users/mraible/Library/Android/sdk/tools/android sdk
2. Create an AVD by running: /Users/mraible/Library/Android/sdk/tools/android avd
HINT: For a faster emulator, use an Intel System Image and install the HAXM device driver

Run the first suggestion and download your desired system image. Then run the second command and created an AVD with the following settings:

AVD Name: TestPhone
Device: Nexus 5
Target: Android 7.1.1
CPU/ABI: Google APIs Intel Axom (x86_64)
Skin: Skin with dynamic hardware controls

After performing these steps, you should be able to run ionic emulate android and see your app running in the AVD.