How to load themes from the database in Spring MVC?

Question

I'm going to have a single site that needs to be themed a number of ways. I want to pull the theme information from a database to save from having to redeploy every time a new theme is needed. I read you can create a custom ThemeSource implementation but was unsure how to implement a database driven theme source. Anyone have experience with this in Spring MVC?

Answer 1

It's simple.

Spring Controller, no filter - controllers are easier to wire-up.

• Make the theme simple (one css file, one js file, a couple of images) it will help.

• Create a theme and themeresource table in the database. theme contains theme_id, theme_name, theme_description. themeresource contains resource_id, theme_id, name, content(blob). (I'd use Hibernate)

• Create a DAO for theme access (I'd use Hibernate)

• Create a controller called ThemeController. Map it to "/theme/resources".

• In the controller read the request, see what file it's requesting(ex: "/theme/resources/style.css").

• You already know what theme is required because of the ThemeResolver

• Serve the "style.css" file (and all other files) from the database by querying the DAO with the theme and the resource name

Another option would be to create a listener/filter that does exactly what the above controller should do.