Introduction to Spring IDE 2.0

Introduction

This article will introduce you with Spring IDE 2.0. Spring IDE 2.0 is a plugin for developing Spring Applications with ease in Eclipse IDE. This article will walk you through the various steps involved in installing Spring IDE 2.0 in Eclipse. This article also describes common tasks done in Spring Framework way using Spring IDE 2.0 plugin.

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Spring Framework

Spring Framework is a light weight framework which provides Inversion of Control or Dependency Injection and many other utilities through many sub projects. Spring modules like Context, DAO, ORM, AOP and many more provide standard ways and templates to use Java SE features. Spring IDE 2.0 is a tool to facilitate writing applications using Spring Framework easily.

Prerequisites

I have used the latest available stable versions of the tools to demonstrate and explain the features of Spring IDE 2.0. To summarize all the tools needed for working on the steps I have explained, we will need the following installed.

• Operating System
  Windows, Linux, Mac any operating system may be used as we will be doing platform independent stuff. I have used CentOS 4 and Gnome windows manager for the demonstration images.
• Java SE 6.0
  You will have to make sure Java is installed before you attempt any of these steps. I used Java SE 6.0 version.
• Eclipse 3.3 Europa with WTP
  Eclipse 3.3 version also called as Europa release with WTP is available as a single bundle. I used Eclipse with WTP included as some Spring IDE features need WTP installed. Minimum version of Eclipse IDE for Spring IDE plugins is 3.2.x, anything equal to or above 3.2.x should work. Minimum version of the Web Tools project is 1.5.x and this is also a requirement for the Eclipse 3.2.x release.
• Spring Framework 2.0.6
  Spring Framework is needed obviously as we will be developing sample application for Spring Framework. We will just need some library JAR files in our projects from the Spring Framework, and hence no installation as such is needed.
• Spring IDE 2.0
  This article explains steps to install Spring IDE 2.0 on Eclipse3.3 with WTP as a plugin.
  

Installing Spring IDE 2.0

We will need the Spring IDE update site ZIP file which can be downloaded from the Spring IDE update URL

There are two ways of installing Spring IDE 2.0 on Eclipse.

1. Using Update Site Directly
   This method is described step by step in the Spring IDE Install page in Spring IDE Wiki. This wiki page is very slow currently and requires considerable time to get loaded fully in browser.
2. Using Site Archive downloaded as a ZIP file from update URL
   We will follow the second way. Using the first way is very similar and only some of the first steps need to be changed to use that option, which can be figured out easily. Download the ZIP file and remember the location where the file is stored.

Installing Spring IDE Plugin in Eclipse
Open the Help menu and click on the Software Updates option. You will see Find and Install menu, choose this menu.

Feature Updates Dialog
You will see the feature updates dialog box. Here we will choose "Search for new features to install" radio button, and then click the Next button.

Update sites to visit Dialog
You will see the Update sites to visit Dialog box. Here we will choose "New Archived site" button.

Select Local Archive Site Dialog