In this book, we will be using http://start.spring.io, which is a convenient tool for generating Spring Projects with the required dependencies to get started. This tool supports multiple Spring Boot versions, programming languages (Java, Groovy, Kotlin), project types (Maven, Gradle), and dependencies. Learning to use this tool will help readers to get started quickly with Spring Projects. The following is a screenshot of the tool to help us get familiarized with it:

This tool allows the selection of a Project type (Maven Project, Gradle Project), programming language (Java, Groovy, Kotlin), Spring Boot version (2.0.*, 1.5.*), project artifact group, artifact name, and project dependencies. After selecting the correct options, click on Generate Project will download a ZIP file of the project.

The ZIP file needs to be extracted first before being used. The extracted ZIP file will have the following structure:

<Project Name>/
├── src/
├── pom.xml
├── mvnw
└── mvnw.bat

To open the generated project with IntelliJ, we perform the following steps:

1. Open IntelliJ IDE.
2. Select File | Open from the menu bar as shown in the following screenshot:

3. Navigate to the location where the extracted project is and click on OK after selecting the project, shown as follows:

4. The IDE will show the opened project.

To open the generated project the Spring Tool Suite, we perform the following steps:

1. Open STS.
2. Select File | Open Projects from File System... from the menu bar, as shown in the following screenshot:

3. From the dialog box that launched, click on the Directory... button:

4. Navigate to the extracted project location and Click on OK after selecting the project:

5. Finally, click on Finish on the import projects dialog box.
6. The IDE will show the opened project.

The source code for this chapter can be found at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Spring-Boot-2.0-Projects-Fundamentals-of-Spring-Boot-2.0, in the Chapter01 directory.