Using HAL-browser with spring-hateoas WITHOUT spring-data-rest - spring-data-rest

Question

We're starting a new project, and we're looking into using spring-hateoas / hypermedia. The HAL browser also looks interesting, so we wanted to check it out.
However, the HAL browser seems bundled to spring-data-rest, which we don't want to use (for different reasons).
At a minimum we don't want to auto-expose all repositories as rest-resources, but when doing this we need to explicity define the links for the HAL browser in addition to defining the links with
spring-hateoas.
When NOT auto-exposing the repositories, we have to define
implements ResourceProcessor<RepositoryLinksResource>
and
#Override
RepositoryLinksResource process(RepositoryLinksResource resource) {
resource.add(link('/{id}').withRel('my-dummy'))
return resource
}
in addition to already defined links (using hateoas)
link('/{id}').expand(entity.id).withSelfRel()
This seems cumbersome, and doesnt comply with the DRY principle.
We would rather not implement the #Override method RepositoryLinksResource process(RepositoryLinksResource resource) as these links are already defined elsewhere.
My initial thought was that the HAL browser would re-use the links already defined with hateoas.
But apparanlty I did not understand it correctly?
So the question is
Is there a way of using the spring-bundled HAL browser without using spring-data-rest?
And without having to manually define the links explicitly for the HAL browser when not auto-exposing the repositories?

Answer 1

The HAL browser provided by Spring can not be used without spring-data-rest.
I had a similar need and had considered the following options...
Package the Spring HAL browser in a separate project (hosted on a different port) and mark your original project with #CrossOrigin.
Package the generic HAL browser.
I did not attempt the first approach and so don't know if you would face any other issues with it.
The second approach was done by downloading the HAL browser (https://github.com/mikekelly/hal-browser) and adding it to the Spring Boot project folder src/resources/public (https://spring.io/blog/2013/12/19/serving-static-web-content-with-spring-boot).