Spring Tool Window

View | Tool Windows | Spring

The Spring tool window lets you look at your project from the Spring perspective. It consists of two tabs:

• Beans tab
• MVC tab

Each tab consists of a set of panes where the contents of the selected item is shown in the pane to the right. The documentation (and, if applicable, a diagram) for the selected item is shown in the rightmost pane.

The toolbars in each tab control the amount and the type of data to be displayed.

The context menu commands allow you to switch between the panes and open items in the editor.

You can filter the information in the panes by entering a search string.

In this topic:

• Beans tab
  • Beans tab toolbar
• MVC tab
  • MVC tab toolbar
• Context menu commands
• Filtering information
• Beans icons

Beans tab

The Beans tab allows you to view definitions for the Spring beans used in your project, and see how they are related to other beans.

The leftmost pane shows a list of modules that your project consists of. When you select a module, the list of filesets (contexts) appears on the right. The next pane shows the list of configuration files included in the selected context. The next pane shows the list of Spring beans defined in the selected configuration file. The rightmost pane shows documentation for the selected bean, and a diagram that shows this bean's relation to other beans.

Beans tab toolbar

Icon	Tooltip	Description
	Show modules	Select this option if you want the panes showing the modules, contexts and configuration files to be displayed. If this option is disabled, only the beans pane showing all beans used in your project is displayed.
	Show filesets	Select this option if you want the panes showing the filesets (contexts) and configuration files to be displayed. If this option is disabled, only the modules pane and the beans pane are displayed.
	Show configuration files	Select this option if you want the panes showing the configuration files to be displayed. If this option is disabled, only the modules pane, the filesets pane and the beans pane are displayed.
	Show Implicit Beans	Select this option if you want implicit beans to be displayed in the beans pane. Implicit beans are service beans added by the Spring framework and are not defined explicitly by the user.
	Show Infrastructure Beans	Select this option if you want infrastructure beans to be displayed in the beans pane. Infrastructure beans are service beans that form the structure of a context by pointing to configuration files where other beans are defined.
	Show Bean Documentation	Select this option if you want documentation for the selected bean to be displayed in the rightmost pane. The documentation pane shows the type of the selected bean (Spring Bean, specific namespace element, @Component, @Repository, etc.), the bean class, some bean attributes (prototype, @Qualifier, etc.), and the path to the file where this bean is declared.
	Show Bean Graph	Select this option if you want a diagram showing how the selected bean is related to other beans to be displayed in the rightmost pane.

MVC tab

The MVC tab allows you to view controller mappings for the Spring MVC framework.

The leftmost pane shows a list of modules that your project consists of. When you select a module, the list of controllers that belong to this module appears on the right. The next pane shows the mappings defined for the selected controller. The rightmost pane shows documentation for the selected mapping.

MVC tab toolbar

Icon	Tooltip	Description
	Show modules	Select this option if you want the panes showing the modules to be displayed. If this option is disabled, only the controllers pane and the mappings pane are displayed.
	Show controllers	Select this option if you want the controllers pane to be displayed. If this option is disabled, only the modules pane and the mappings pane are displayed.
	Request Method	Click this icon to filter mappings by the HTTP method. Only the mappings that implement the methods selected in the popup menu are displayed in the mappings pane.
	Show documentation	Select this option if you want documentation for the selected mapping to be displayed in the rightmost pane. The documentation pane shows the mapping between the URL and the file that must be opened for this URL, and the HTTP method that this mapping implements.

Context menu commands

The context menu is available in all panes of the Spring Tool Window and the Spring Tool Window except for the documentation pane.

Filtering information

You can filter data in any pane of the Beans tab and the MVC tab except for the documentation pane. Place the cursor in a pane and start typing. As a result, only the items whose names contain the specified string will be displayed.

Beans icons

The icons before the name of each bean in the list indicate the bean type:

• : beans defined in XML files.
• : Spring auto-discoverable beans declared through @Component annotations.
• : service beans added by the Spring framework and not defined explicitly by the user.