Introduction To Spring Mobile

What is Spring Mobile?

Spring Mobile is an extension of the Spring Framework that aids in developing mobile web applications. It provides features that enable developers to create applications that can adapt their content and layout based on the device being used. This is especially important in today's world where users access applications from a variety of devices with differing screen sizes and capabilities.

Key Features of Spring Mobile

Spring Mobile offers several key features:

Device-aware Views: It allows developers to define different views for different types of devices, enhancing user experience.
Device Detection: Spring Mobile can automatically detect the type of device making a request (e.g., mobile, tablet, desktop).
Site Switcher: It allows easy switching between mobile and desktop sites based on the user's device.
Integration with Spring MVC: It integrates seamlessly with Spring MVC, allowing developers to leverage existing Spring capabilities.

Getting Started with Spring Mobile

To get started with Spring Mobile, you need to include the necessary dependencies in your project. If you are using Maven, you can add the following dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.mobile</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-mobile-core</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.4.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

Once the dependency is added, you can configure Spring Mobile in your application context.

Configuration

To configure Spring Mobile, you typically need to set up a few beans in your application context:

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

    <bean id="deviceResolver" class="org.springframework.mobile.device.DeviceResolverHandlerInterceptor"></bean>

    <bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
        <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/" />
        <property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
    </bean>

</beans>

This configuration sets up a device resolver that will help determine the type of device being used.

Creating Device-specific Views

With Spring Mobile, you can create device-specific views. For example, you can create a view for mobile devices named index-mobile.jsp and a view for desktop devices named index.jsp. Based on the device type, Spring Mobile will automatically select the appropriate view.

/WEB-INF/views/index.jsp
/WEB-INF/views/index-mobile.jsp

When a mobile device accesses your application, index-mobile.jsp will be rendered, while desktop users will see index.jsp.

Conclusion