Reload static content spring boot application

Question

I am using Netbeans and I am developing my first web application using spring boot. I was keeping my HTML, js, CSS in "webapp" folder and then I refactored my project and I put all static content in /resources/static. Since then, I have to rebuild my project every time because the static content isn't reloaded.

Can I easily bypass this problem if I'll use browser-sync plugin for Gulp?

Answer 1

Add the following to src/main/resources/application.properties:

spring.web.resources.static-locations[0]=file:src/main/resources/static/
spring.web.resources.static-locations[1]=classpath:/static/

The "file:" causes the content to be reloaded on refreshing the browser, see related issue.

Alternatively, the file resource locations can be discovered at runtime and added programmatically.

See also documentation and tutorial.

Note that prior to Spring Boot 2.4, the property was called "spring.resources.static-locations".

Answer 2

Normally the static content is copied to the build directory ( target if you are using maven) by the spring-boot plugin. You can find your files at {build-directory}/classes/static: These are the files that you should modify to reflect changes. You should also copy your changes to resources/static, because whenever you restart spring boot, the files are copied.