sjtower / example-ratpack-gradle-kotlin-app

An example of a Kotlin Ratpack app built with Gradle.

This is an example Ratpack app that:

1. Is implemented in Kotlin
2. Use Guice for dependency injection
3. Uses the ratpack Gradle plugin
4. Uses SpringSource's SpringLoaded for runtime reloading of classes during development
5. Adds helper functions to make Ratpack more Kotlin like (see helpers.kt)

Getting Started

Check this project out, cd into the directory and run:

./gradlew run

This will start the ratpack app in a development mode. In your browser go to http://localhost:5050.

The Gradle Ratpack plugin builds on the Gradle Application plugin. This means it's easy to create a standalone distribution for your app.

Run:

./gradlew installApp
cd build/install/example-ratpack-gradle-java-app
bin/example-ratpack-gradle-java-app

Your app should now be running (see http://gradle.org/docs/current/userguide/application_plugin.html) for more on what the Gradle application plugin can do for you.

Development time reloading

Most application classes can be changed at runtime without needing to restart the application. This is made possible by Gradle's Continuous Mode via Ratpack's Gradle plugin.

If running the application via ./gradlew run --continuous or ./gradlew run -t for short, you will see your changes to source code be detected and applied.

IDEA integration

The Ratpack Gradle plugin has special support for IntelliJ IDEA. To open the project in IDEA, run:

./gradlew idea

This will generate a .ipr file that you can use to open the project in IDEA.

In the “Run” menu, you will find a run configuration for launching the Ratpack app from within your IDE.

Hot reloading is not supported in this mode.

More on Ratpack

To learn more about Ratpack, visit http://www.ratpack.io and join our slack channel https://slack-signup.ratpack.io/