What You'll Learn
The Grails Example tutorial series walks through the Grails web application framework step by step. Below is an overview of the topics covered across the site's articles and video content, organized by category.
| # | Topic | Category | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What is Groovy? | Basics | An introduction to the Groovy programming language, the foundation of Grails development. |
| 2 | Getting Started with Grails | Basics | Setting up a development environment and creating your first Grails application. |
| 3 | Controllers & Views | Build | Understanding the MVC pattern in Grails and building interactive web pages. |
| 4 | Domain Classes & GORM | Build | Modeling data with Groovy domain classes and using the Grails Object Relational Mapping layer. |
| 5 | Services & Dependency Injection | Build | Encapsulating business logic in Grails services and leveraging Spring dependency injection. |
| 6 | Basic Security | Build | Securing a Grails application using the Spring Security Core Plugin and authentication best practices. |
| 7 | Deploying a Grails Application Using AppFog | Build | Packaging a Grails app into a WAR file and deploying it to a cloud platform. Published November 10, 2013. |
For hands-on code samples that accompany these lessons, visit the Code Examples page.
How the Series Is Organized
Basics
Introductory material covering Groovy fundamentals and the core concepts needed before diving into Grails development.
Build
Hands-on tutorials that guide you through constructing real Grails applications, from controllers to deployment.
Code Examples
Practical code snippets and sample projects referenced throughout the tutorials, available on the Code Examples page.
The Grails Example course outline is designed to take learners from complete beginners through to confident Grails developers. The series begins with the fundamentals of the Groovy programming language, which serves as the foundation for all Grails development work. From there, students progress through setting up their development environment, installing the necessary tools, and creating their first application. Each tutorial builds on the previous one, ensuring that concepts are introduced in a logical sequence. Whether you are new to the JVM ecosystem or coming from another language like Java or Ruby, the material is structured to be accessible while still offering depth for more experienced developers.
A significant portion of the course is devoted to understanding the Model-View-Controller pattern that Grails is built around. Learners explore how to create controllers that handle requests, views that render content to users, and domain classes that manage application data. The tutorials walk through practical examples of building interactive web pages, handling form submissions, and managing user input. By working through these hands-on exercises, students gain a clear understanding of how the pieces of a Grails application fit together, preparing them to build complete, functional web applications on their own.
Security is a central theme woven throughout the course outline, with dedicated tutorials covering authentication, user roles, and protecting application resources. The series demonstrates how to implement login functionality, restrict access to certain pages or actions, and manage user sessions securely. These lessons are grounded in real-world scenarios, showing learners how to apply security best practices to their own projects. Understanding these concepts early in the development process helps students build applications that are both functional and safe, an essential skill for anyone planning to deploy their work to a public hosting platform or cloud service.
The course also covers the deployment and production-readiness side of Grails development. Tutorials walk through packaging applications, building WAR files, and preparing projects for deployment to various hosting environments. Learners explore database configuration, including setting up a datasource and managing MySQL connections, as well as tuning application settings for production use. The material addresses practical concerns such as choosing a hosting platform, understanding cloud service options, and taking an application from a local development environment to a live server. These lessons bridge the gap between writing code and shipping a working product.
Beyond the core framework topics, the course outline includes additional material on extending Grails applications with supporting services and integrations. Learners explore working with email functionality, file uploads and sharing, and integrating with popular external services. The tutorials also touch on community practices such as subscribing to updates, participating in discussions, and finding additional resources for continued learning. This broader perspective helps students understand the Grails ecosystem beyond the framework itself, encouraging them to become active members of the developer community and to continue building their skills long after completing the core curriculum.