Next Framework is a full-stack web framework that embraces and enhances existing technologies to provide extended productivity and lighter learning curve. Spring and Hibernate are on Next core, therefore it is familiar to most Java enterprise developers.

Reference documentation on https://github.com/next-projects/nextframework/wiki

Go to Next Framework Site and download latest version zip.

Extract build-install.xml from the zip file.

Create a web project in your IDE and copy both the zip and install files.

Execute build-install.xml as an ANT script.

Your project is configured with next! No tools, no command lines, no plugins are necessary. Refresh your project to see the new files.

This tutorial works better with Eclipse IDE with web plugins. For IntelliJ, some extra steps are required.

Also: Be sure to configure the JDK in your IDE. Configure the compile output path of your project to be the folder WebContent/WEB-INF/classes within your project, if needed. Install Ant plugin in IntelliJ to work with Ant files.

Next comes with ANT scripts ready to use. A build.xml is placed at the root of the project. Configure the build.properties file. The property server.deploy sets where the files must be deployed.

If using tomcat, server.deploy must be configured with the webapps folder of tomcat. Like : [TOMCAT_HOME]/webapps. Replace TOMCAT_HOME with the folder where tomcat was installed.

To create a controller in next, you should extend org.nextframework.controller.MultiActionController, and annotate it with @Controller annotation. Methods in controllers (that follows certain conventions) are actions. To define a standard action, use @DefaultAction annotation in a method.

package com.foo.bar;

import org.nextframework.controller.*;

@Controller(path="/public/helloworld")
public class HelloWorldController extends MultiActionController {

	@DefaultAction
	public String index(){
		return "helloPage";
	}
}

Each controller must be registered in one module. The module is the first part of the path. /public in the example above.

The index method returns a String representing the name of the JSP to dispatch the request. The JSPs must be placed at WEB-INF/jsp/[controllermodule].

In the WEB-INF/jsp/public create a helloPage.jsp file with the contents:

<%@ taglib prefix="t" uri="http://www.nextframework.org/tag-lib/template"%>

<t:view title="Hello World Page">
Hello World!!
</t:view>

Ask /public/helloworld in your web browser, and you will see the Hello World!! message.

Next comes with ivy pre-configured. You don't have to install ivy. Next will detect its absence and automatically download it if necessary.

The file /ivy.xml created on install, already contain some examples of libraries to download.

Configure your ivy modules and execute ant task Retrieve Ivy Dependencies from the build.xml file.

Next is built on top of Spring Framework. Any Spring configuration will work. Next already pre-configures spring to use annotations. So, you don't have to configure Spring by yourself. @Service and @Autowired annotations work out of the box. All Next controllers are Spring beans.

The quickest way to configure a database is to uncomment the HSQLDB dependency on /ivy.xml file, and run Retrieve Ivy dependencies in build.xml. Next automatically detects HSQLDB on the classpath and configures a data source automatically for it.

To define a custom data source, use connection.properties file. Define driver, url, username and password properties.

When there is a data source available, next configures hibernate. Hibernate annotations can be used. No extra configuration required.

Next yet comes with features like, crud operations support, generic DAOs, java to javascript conversion, a collection of tags, reports and charts API and more. Access Next Framework Site for more information. Or go to wiki documentation.