Serve static html files omitting the .html extension in the url

Question

With the fine way to serve static html/css/js resources from src/main/resources/static, is there a way to have some form of url abstraction?

Precisely, I would like to remove the .html ending from the urls.

Answer 1

To return html static file without extension is the same as return view name from any of templates engines (jsp, theamleaf, freemarker), the thing here you do not need to run any templates processing on view file, you just return it as it is.

Add code below to your Spring configuration:

@Bean
public InternalResourceViewResolver internalResourceViewResolver() {
    InternalResourceViewResolver internalResourceViewResolver = new InternalResourceViewResolver();
    internalResourceViewResolver.setPrefix("pages/");
    internalResourceViewResolver.setSuffix(".html");
    return internalResourceViewResolver;
}

Be careful /pages folder should be inside your ResourceLocation , that means ResourceLocation + "/pages/" + pageName.html in browser should give you desired file (if you already configured servicing of static files it will not be a problem for you to find your ResourceLocation, check method addResourceHandlers in your WebMvcConfigurer)

Now at your WebMvcConfigurer you can add:

@Override
public void addViewControllers(ViewControllerRegistry registry) {
    registry.addViewController("/").setViewName("index");
    registry.addViewController("/admin").setViewName("admin");
    registry.addViewController("/contact").setViewName("contact");
    registry.addViewController("/error").setViewName("index");
}

or just use it, as you would use it in usual view resolver within MVC controller

@GetMapping("/")
public String greeting() {
    return "index";
}