问题
Why(In what scenarios) do we need to integrate Spring Webflow with Spring MVC? Both these frameworks are used to create web-app and I do not see any point why we would integrate them. I would appreciate if someone could clarify me about it.
回答1:
We combine both. Web Flow for the multi-step activities, where it doesn't make sense to jump into the middle of a process, and plain-MVC Controllers for the single-step activities. Things you might bookmark individually.
For example, an appointment-scheduling application, "find my appointment" might be a single Controller that accepts identifying information. "Make a new appointment" is a flow, with multiple steps of selecting a location, date, time, confirm the appointment, etc.
回答2:
This is really late but I don't see a satisfactory answer to this question and would like to share an approach I had tried in a recent project which I feel is better than the spring web flow approach which is strictly tied down to spring views and unnecessarily adds to the already existing xml load . I created a SPA(Single Page Application) using angular js with Spring MVC. In angular js I did not use routers or state, rather I created a div within the controller like below
On the server side to capture all possible transitions from one frame(I am referring to a particular screen in the SPA) to another I created a tree of rules using MVEL . So in the database I had a structure which stored a tree of rules for every frame . The data in the MVEL expressions were being set by the various services each action invoked. Thus on any action the following steps were followed.
1) Validate the action.
2) Invoke various services.
3) Capture the data from these services and merge it with the existing data of the user.
4) Feed this captured data into collection of rules for each frame along with the details of the current frame.
5) Run the rules of the tree w.r.t to current frame and fetch its output.
6) If there is only one transition then that is the final transition. If there are 2 transitions and one is default then ignore the default transition and use the other transition.
7) Return the template name of the transition to the angular controller and set the value of the page variable in the scope of the controller.
Using this approach all my services had to do was store data in different data fields w.r.t a particular action. All the complex if-else conditions for Web Flows or any complex process definitions(like the one defined in Spring-Web Flow) were not required. The MVEL rule engine managed all that and since it was all in the database it could be changed without needing a server re-start.
I believe this generic approach with MVEL is a flexible approach which comprehensively handles the problem of a convoluted flow without making the application code a mess or adding additional unnecessary xml files.
回答3:
If your application have complex Flow pages, events which need to be defined as Finite state machine then use Webflow. It would be justified to use webflow for website where you buy Insurance, Flight Tickets. Web Flow conditions are like:
There is a clear start and an end point.
The user must go through a set of screens in a specific order.
The changes are not finalized until the last step.
Once complete it shouldn't be possible to repeat a transaction accidentally
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47420944/reason-to-integrate-spring-web-flow-with-spring-mvc