Return HTML page with Spring Controller

Question

So, apparently, I'm trying to return an HTML file with help of the Spring Controller.

I already have added Thymeleaf dependencies and also tried the following ways to configure it:

1.

@RequestMapping ("/")
@ResponseBody
public String homeDisplay() {
    return "homepage";
}

@Controller
public class HomeController {

@RequestMapping ("/")
public ModelAndView index () {
    ModelAndView modelAndView = new ModelAndView();
    modelAndView.setViewName("homepage");
    return modelAndView;
}
}

Anyway, didn't help, I get Whitelabel Error Page.

Whitelabel Error Page This application has no explicit mapping for /error, so you are seeing this as a fallback. Sun Dec 13 20:14:04 EET 2020 There was an unexpected error (type=Not Found, status=404). No message available

How can I fix it and display the HTML I need.

Answer 1

Try replacing the @RequestMapping with @GetMapping("/") or @RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)

Why? because @RequestMapping will map to any request to that URL, so you have to specify that it's a GET request (I suppose that is what you want to use).

Since you didn't share your frontend code that is sending the request we can't tell if there is a problem there. Please share it as well.

Answer 2

I was running in to a similar problem when trying to get a homepage to show up for a REST API that I was making. The project does not have Thymeleaf though. I used the following and this worked for me. The following code makes the home.html file, stored in resources/static to show up when the application starts. It's a static page and no data is sent to it.

@Controller
public class HomeController {

    @RequestMapping("/")
    public String welcome() throws Exception {
        return "home.html"; //note that this says .html
    }
}

For a project that I was using Thymeleaf in, I have the following code which shows the login page stored in resources/templates folder.

@Controller
public class LoginController {

    @GetMapping("/login")
    public String showLoginForm() {
        return "login"; //note that this is just the name of the file with no extension
    }
}

Be sure to put the html file in the correct folder. My guess is that since you're using Thymeleaf, you will probably be using some templates.