PoC: Spring Boot LiveReload

Existing support for LiveReload in Spring Boot depends on LiveReload browser extensions. There are several concerns related to that approach:

• LiveReload browser extensions [1] [2] have been unmaintained for several years

• modern web development tools offer LiveReload (or similar) capabilities without needing to use any browser extensions

This project is a proof of concept for an improved LiveReload support in Spring Boot that doesn’t require usage of browser extensions. The approach taken in this PoC consists of:

• LiveReload.js script served as a static resource

• a Servlet filter (see LiveReloadScriptInjectingFilter) that injects LiveReload.js script element into the head of an HTML document being served

• auto-configuration (see LiveReloadScriptInjectingFilterAutoConfiguration) that sets up the filter if DevTools are enabled

All of the above are handled by poc-devtools, which depends on org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-devtools and pulls it in transitively, while poc-application is a simple Spring Boot application that utilizes the poc-devtools and can be used to showcase the improved LiveReload capabilities.

Note	This PoC targets Servlet-stack (Spring Web MVC)

Related issues/PRs:

• spring-projects/spring-boot#32111

• spring-projects/spring-boot#43697

• spring-projects/spring-boot#47387

• spring-projects/spring-framework#35577