Unable to use macros with velocity in email templates? - spring

Question

greetings all
i am using velocity templates when sending emails
and i want to read texts dynamically from property files depending on user locale
the xml config:
<bean id="messageSource" class="org.springframework.context.support.ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource">
<property name="basenames">
<list>
<value>classpath:messages</value>
<value>classpath:messages_ar</value>
</list>
</property>
<property name="defaultEncoding" value="UTF-8"/>
</bean>
<bean id="velocityEngine"
class="org.springframework.ui.velocity.VelocityEngineFactoryBean">
<property name="velocityProperties">
<props>
<prop key="resource.loader">class</prop>
<prop key="class.resource.loader.class">org.apache.velocity.runtime.resource.loader.ClasspathResourceLoader</prop>
<prop key="velocimacro.library">org/springframework/web/servlet/view/velocity/spring.vm</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>
<bean id="velocityConfig" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity.VelocityConfigurer">
<property name="resourceLoaderPath" value="/WEB-INF/classes/com/spacerdv/mailTemplates"/>
</bean>
<!--
View resolvers can also be configured with ResourceBundles or XML files. If you need
different view resolving based on Locale, you have to use the resource bundle resolver.
-->
<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity.VelocityViewResolver">
<property name="cache" value="true"/>
<property name="prefix" value=""/>
<property name="suffix" value=".vm"/>
<!-- if you want to use the Spring Velocity macros, set this property to true -->
<property name="exposeSpringMacroHelpers" value="true"/>
</bean>
and when trying to read the text from property file like :
<span>#springMessage("hi.message")</span>
it doesn't read any thing, or prints the default value, just prints:
$springMacroRequestContext.getMessage($code)
i don't know why? , am i missing something ?, any help ?

Answer 1

When using the velocity engine for sending emails, you may have to configure your engine tu use the velocimacro librabry shipped within spring.
<bean id="velocityEngine" class="org.springframework.ui.velocity.VelocityEngineFactoryBean">
<property name="velocityProperties">
<props>
<prop key="resource.loader">class</prop>
<prop key="class.resource.loader.class">org.apache.velocity.runtime.resource.loader.ClasspathResourceLoader</prop>
<prop key="velocimacro.library">org/springframework/web/servlet/view/velocity/spring.vm</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>
You can check the example in spring documentation.
If Spring doesn't inject automatically the $springMacroRequestContext variable into your model, you should put it yourself:
model.put("springMacroRequestContext", new RequestContext(request, response, getServletContext(), model));
That's basically what they do in the AbstractTemplateView class. I guess you won't be able to do it, since you're handling emails here, and not web requests. But that's definitely a hint on what you can do to get it working.

Answer 2

macros can't be used outside web app like in email templates, so a solution would be to pass messageSource to the vm file and read from the property file by it like the answer in here:
Is it possible to read static text dynamically from property files in velocity template?