Calling default web page of application automatically in Spring Boot

Question

I am a Spring Boot newbie and one thing bothers me: if I have a simple Spring Boot application like this:

package hello;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
    }

}

I can call the default web page of the application from a browser by using URL:

http://localhost:8080/greeting

To return a page called greeting.html which is specified by the controller:

@RequestMapping("/greeting")
    public String greeting() Model model) {            
        return "greeting";
    } 

Is there a way to have Spring Boot automatically open greeting.html in the browser? Can I tell Spring boot which controller method I want it to run when the project starts?

Answer 1

Not sure if there is a setting you can set for this case but what you can do is using redirection.

Just map "/" and redirect to "/greeting" :

@RequestMapping("/")
public String index(Model model) {            
    return "redirect: greeting";
} 

But if you want that the browsers open any page after lunching the application you should lookup if your IDE can do that.

Answer 2

Just map your greeting page to the root:

@RequestMapping("/")
public String greeting() Model model) {            
    return "greeting";
} 

Then when you call http://localhost:8080/ you will be redirected to the greeting page as a default page.