Getting started with Email Manager

This guide explains the minimal steps to integrate Email Manager in a new application.

Prepare the Application

A new application created on start.vaadin.com can be used as a starting point for this tutorial. Open the site, select an empty project, choose Spring Boot as the framework, and download the generated archive. Extract it, import it into your IDE of choice, and verify the application starts correctly by running the main class.

Add the AppJars Repository

AppJars artifacts are published to the public AppJars Maven repository. Add it to your pom.xml so that Maven can resolve the AppJars dependencies:

<repositories>
    <repository>
        <id>appjars</id>
        <name>AppJars Public Repository</name>
        <url>https://maven.appjars.com</url>
        <releases>
            <enabled>true</enabled>
        </releases>
        <snapshots>
            <enabled>false</enabled>
        </snapshots>
    </repository>
</repositories>

Add the Dependencies

Given that it is a monolithic application, the following dependencies representing the three layers of the appjar must be added:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.appjars</groupId>
    <artifactId>appjars-email-manager-flow</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.appjars</groupId>
    <artifactId>appjars-email-manager-data-impl</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.appjars</groupId>
    <artifactId>appjars-email-manager-business-impl</artifactId>
</dependency>

After adding them, build the application to confirm that the dependencies are resolved correctly.

Configure the Router Layout

Inject the RouteConfigurer provided by Email Manager and configure the router layout in a @PostConstruct method so that the appjar views share the same layout as the rest of the application:

@Autowired
@Qualifier("EmailManagerRouteConfigurer")
RouteConfigurer routeConfigurer;

@PostConstruct
public void configure() {
    routeConfigurer.setViewsRouterLayout(MainLayout.class);
}

The import for RouteConfigurer is com.appjars.emailmanager.flow.util.RouteConfigurer.

Add the Email Manager view to the application's navigation menu. Insert the following snippet at the end of the method createNavigation() in MainLayout, before returning nav:

if (accessChecker.hasAccess(EmailCrudView.class)) {
    nav.addItem(new SideNavItem("Emails", EmailCrudView.class, LineAwesomeIcon.ENVELOPE_SOLID.create()));
}

The import for the view class is:

com.appjars.emailmanager.flow.view.EmailCrudView

Email Manager does not restrict access to its view by itself. Restricting the Emails menu item to a particular role, such as ADMIN, is the responsibility of the host application's security configuration.

Configure Application Properties

Add the following properties to application.properties:

spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=update
spring.jpa.generate-ddl=true
spring.aop.proxy-target-class=false
vaadin.i18n.provider=com.appjars.utils.i18n.AppjarsI18nProvider

The spring.aop.proxy-target-class=false property is required for the appjar to function correctly.

Email Manager sends messages through a mail server. Add the SMTP connection details:

spring.mail.host=<your-smtp-host>
spring.mail.port=587
spring.mail.username=<your-username>
spring.mail.password=<your-password>
spring.mail.properties.mail.smtp.auth=true
spring.mail.properties.mail.smtp.starttls.enable=true

Email Manager supports file attachments. To allow attachments of a reasonable size, also add:

spring.servlet.multipart.max-file-size=100MB
spring.servlet.multipart.max-request-size=100MB

Finally, add com.flowingcode and com.appjars to the list of whitelisted packages in application.properties:

vaadin.allowed-packages = com.vaadin,org.vaadin,dev.hilla,com.example.application,com.flowingcode,com.appjars

Testing the Application

Start the application by running the main Spring Boot class. After it starts, log in with an administrator account and navigate to Emails in the menu.

Compose a new email by clicking the Create button, filling in the recipient address and subject, and optionally attaching files. Once sent, the email record remains visible in the list with its delivery status updated accordingly.