WebJars is a useful tool. It’s a client-side web libraries (e.g. jQuery & Bootstrap) packaged into JAR (Java Archive) files. But a static URL for your dependency is painfull to maintain. This tutorial provides a simpler way of managing version and URL in only one location.

How?

By using Maven filtering to provide a dynamic jar version value.

use a jsp file instead of html to avoid filtering conflicts with html templating engine from webapp folder (like in angularjs) *.jsp
put a filtering properties into your index.jsp webjars url version src=”webjars/jquery/1.2/…” to src=”webjars/jquery/${jquery.version}/…”
extract your webjars versions into a maven properties ‘1.2’ to ‘1.2</version>’
configure war plugin to also include fitlering for final packaging (avoid conflict with eclipse wtp plugin)

index.jsp (custom example, use webjars paths)

<!DOCTYPE html>
<head>
  <!-- PUT YOUR STYLE LIBS HERE -->
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="webjars/bootstrap/${bootstrap.version}/css/bootstrap.css">
</head>
<body>
 
  <!-- DO YOUR STUFF HERE... -->
  Hello!
 
 
  <!-- PUT YOUR JS LIBS HERE -->
  <script src="webjars/jquery/${jquery.version}/jquery.js"></script>
  <script src="webjars/bootstrap/${bootstrap.version}/js/bootstrap.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

webapp web.xml (declare webjars servlet)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">
 
  <!--Webjars Servlet -->
  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>WebjarsServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.webjars.servlet.WebjarsServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>disableCache</param-name>
        <param-value>true</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>2</load-on-startup>
  </servlet>
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>WebjarsServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/webjars/*</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
 
</web-app>

maven pom.xml (manage web dependencies)

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>com.damienfremont.blog</groupId>
  <artifactId>20151008-javaee-webjars-versions</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <packaging>war</packaging>
  <properties>
 
    <!-- WEB DEPENDENCIES VERSIONS (USED FOR FILTERING AND URL RESOLUTION) -->
    <bootstrap.version>3.3.5</bootstrap.version>
    <jquery.version>2.1.4</jquery.version>
 
  </properties>
  <dependencies>
 
    <!-- WEB DEPENDENCIES -->
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
      <artifactId>webjars-servlet-2.x</artifactId>
      <version>1.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
      <artifactId>bootstrap</artifactId>
      <version>${bootstrap.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
      <artifactId>jquery</artifactId>
      <version>${jquery.version}</version>
    </dependency>
 
  </dependencies>
 
  <!-- RESOURCES FILTERING ONLY ON JSP FILES TO AVOID HTML TEMPLATES MODIFICATION -->
 
  <build>
    <resources>
 
      <!-- FILTERING FOR WTP PLUGIN -->
 
      <resource>
        <directory>src/main/webapp</directory>
        <filtering>true</filtering>
        <targetPath>${project.basedir}/target/m2e-wtp/web-resources</targetPath>
        <includes>
          <include>*.jsp</include>
        </includes>
      </resource>
    </resources>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.6</version>
        <configuration>
          <webResources>
 
            <!-- FILTERING FOR PACKAGING -->
 
            <resource>
              <directory>src/main/webapp</directory>
              <filtering>true</filtering>
              <includes>
                <include>*.jsp</include>
              </includes>
            </resource>
          </webResources>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>