Java – Spring application context file location in IntelliJ

IntelliJ 14.X Onwards

From version 14.0 onwards, the path to the setting dialog is slightly different, a General submenu has been added between Editor and Appearance as shown below

IntelliJ 8.1.2 - 13.X

From IntelliJ 8.1.2 onwards, this option is in File | Settings¹. Within the IDE Settings section of that dialog, you'll find it under Editor | Appearance.

1. On a Mac, these are named IntelliJ IDEA | Preferences...

Since I spent a lot of time on this issue, I thought I'd share my solution. Since spring 3.0.4, there is a configuration parameter that is called <mvc:resources/> (more about that on the reference documentation website) which can be used to serve static resources while still using the DispatchServlet on your site's root.

In order to use this, use a directory structure that looks like the following:

src/
 springmvc/
  web/
   MyController.java
WebContent/
  resources/
   img/
    image.jpg
  WEB-INF/
    jsp/
      index.jsp
    web.xml
    springmvc-servlet.xml

The contents of the files should look like:

src/springmvc/web/HelloWorldController.java:

package springmvc.web;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;

@Controller
public class HelloWorldController {

 @RequestMapping(value="/")
 public String index() {
  return "index";
 }
}

WebContent/WEB-INF/web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="2.4" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee 
         http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">

 <servlet>
  <servlet-name>springmvc</servlet-name>
  <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
  <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
 </servlet>

 <servlet-mapping>
  <servlet-name>springmvc</servlet-name>
  <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
 </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

WebContent/WEB-INF/springmvc-servlet.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
 xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">

    <!-- not strictly necessary for this example, but still useful, see http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.x/spring-framework-reference/html/mvc.html#mvc-ann-controller for more information -->
 <context:component-scan base-package="springmvc.web" />

    <!-- the mvc resources tag does the magic -->
 <mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" />

    <!-- also add the following beans to get rid of some exceptions -->
 <bean      class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter" />
 <bean
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping">
 </bean>

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

</beans>

WebContent/jsp/index.jsp:

<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
<h1>Page with image</h1>
<!-- use c:url to get the correct absolute path -->
<img src="<c:url value="/resources/img/image.jpg" />" />

Hope this helps :-)