Spring Social With Spring Boot | Spring Social

Introduction

Spring Social is a framework that simplifies the integration of social media APIs into Spring applications. It allows developers to connect with popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn with ease. In this tutorial, we will explore how to set up a Spring Boot application that utilizes Spring Social to connect to a social network.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following prerequisites:

Java Development Kit (JDK) 8 or higher
Apache Maven for dependency management
Basic knowledge of Spring Boot
An IDE (like IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse)

Setting Up the Project

To create a Spring Boot application with Spring Social, you can use Spring Initializr. Follow these steps:

Go to Spring Initializr.
Select "Maven Project" and the latest version of Spring Boot.
Under "Dependencies", add:
- Spring Web
- Spring Social Core
- Spring Social Facebook (or any other social network)
Click on "Generate" to download the project.

After downloading, extract the project and import it into your IDE.

Configuring Spring Social

To configure Spring Social, you'll need to set up the application properties and create a social connection. Open src/main/resources/application.properties and add the following:

application.properties

spring.social.facebook.app-id=YOUR_APP_ID
spring.social.facebook.app-secret=YOUR_APP_SECRET

Replace YOUR_APP_ID and YOUR_APP_SECRET with your actual Facebook app credentials. You can create a new app on the Facebook Developer Portal.

Creating a Social Connection

Next, you need to create a configuration class to set up the connection to Facebook. Create a new class named SocialConfig.java in your project:

SocialConfig.java

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.social.config.annotation.EnableSocial;
import org.springframework.social.config.annotation.EnableConnectionHistory;
import org.springframework.social.facebook.connect.FacebookConnectionFactory;
import org.springframework.social.connect.ConnectionFactoryLocator;
import org.springframework.social.connect.UsersConnectionRepository;

@Configuration
@EnableSocial
public class SocialConfig {
    @Bean
    public FacebookConnectionFactory facebookConnectionFactory() {
        return new FacebookConnectionFactory("YOUR_APP_ID", "YOUR_APP_SECRET");
    }
}

Make sure to replace YOUR_APP_ID and YOUR_APP_SECRET with the same credentials you used in the application.properties.

Implementing Social Login

To enable social login, create a new controller named SocialController.java:

SocialController.java

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.social.connect.ConnectionFactoryLocator;
import org.springframework.social.facebook.api.Facebook;
import org.springframework.social.facebook.api.FacebookProfile;
import org.springframework.social.facebook.connect.FacebookConnectionFactory;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController
public class SocialController {
    @Autowired
    private ConnectionFactoryLocator connectionFactoryLocator;

    @GetMapping("/login/facebook")
    public String facebookLogin() {
        return "Redirecting to Facebook...";
    }
}

This controller will handle the redirect to Facebook for login.

Running the Application

To run your Spring Boot application, use the following Maven command:

Run the Application

mvn spring-boot:run

Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080/login/facebook. You should be redirected to Facebook for authentication.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we covered the basics of integrating Spring Social with Spring Boot. You learned how to set up a project, configure Spring Social, create a social connection, and implement social login. From here, you can expand your application by adding more features such as user profile retrieval and posting to social media.

Spring Social with Spring Boot Tutorial