With so many different options and configurations available, setting up a development environment can be a daunting task, particularly for those who are new to the world of IT. However, there is one tool that can make this process much easier: Spring Tool Suite (STS).
STS is an Eclipse-based IDE that is specially designed for developing Spring applications. It comes with a wide range of features that can greatly improve the developer experience, including:
In addition, STS provides a wealth of plugins that can add even more functionality, such as:
With all of these features, STS can be a powerful asset for any developer, regardless of their experience level. In this article, we will take a closer look at how to get started with STS and some of its most useful features.
STS can be downloaded from the Spring Tools website. There are two versions available:
For this article, we will be using the Ultimate edition. Once you have downloaded the ZIP file, extract it to a location of your choice and launch the STS executable.
When you first launch STS, you will be presented with the Welcome screen. From here, you can choose to create a new project, import an existing project or open a project from a directory.
We will be creating a new project, so select the "Create a new Spring Starter Project" option.
On the next screen, you will be asked to provide some information about the project, such as the name and location. You can also choose which build tool you want to use (Maven or Gradle) and which type of project you want to create.
For this example, we will be creating a Maven-based Spring Boot project. Once you have entered the necessary information, click the "Finish" button.
STS will now create the project and open it in the IDE.
The STS IDE is based on Eclipse, so if you are familiar with that IDE, you should feel right at home. However, there are some STS-specific features that are worth mentioning.
One of the most useful features of STS is the Spring Boot Dashboard. This is a special view that provides quick access to the most commonly used Spring Boot features.
From the dashboard, you can view and manage your application's dependencies, start and stop the application, view the application logs and much more.
Another useful feature of STS is the Spring Boot Beans view. This view shows all of the beans that are defined in your application, as well as their dependencies.
This can be a valuable tool for debugging your application, as it can help you to understand how the different pieces of your application fit together.
The Spring Boot Apps view is another STS-specific feature that can be very helpful when developing Spring Boot applications.
This view shows all of the Spring Boot applications that are running on your local machine, as well as their debug and JMX ports. This can be very useful when you need to connect to a remote application for debugging or monitoring purposes.
In this article, we have looked at some of the most useful features of the Spring Tool Suite IDE. We have also seen how to install STS and create a new Spring Boot project.
While this is just a brief introduction to what STS has to offer, it should give you a good idea of how this powerful tool can help you to develop Spring applications more effectively.