intellij not resolving el variables within JSP code inspection or autocomplete

Question

To summarize the answer shown here Code assist in (jsp /jstl) view for Spring MVC model objects in Eclipse is not working for me at all, is there a setting that I need to change ?

I have just downloaded the sample spring-mvc-showcase on github, and it doesn't work out of the box on that project (with either 11.1.3 or EAP 12 version both full enterprise editions), see below (I have no idea where it gets formBean from) :

Here is an example from my own project,the screen shot below (bottom frame) shows my controller adding a string attribute to model and returning correct view name. I would then expect shopString to be offered up as autocomplete option when editing that view, however it is not :

sg is a javascript variable - so great it should be there, but where is "shopString" ?. Is there a setting I need to change or something else I am missing to get this functionality (using 11.1.3 enterprise edition with all the spring plugins).

It is also failing on spring specific variables :

IS their an open source (one of the spring tutorial projects?) where this definitely works ... or is there a setting I need change in my Intellij install (I have tested with a brand new download of the version 12 EAP) ?

One more screenshot below shows all my spring coifg files set up correctly via autodetection, but the code inspections fails ... this is the spring-mvc-showcase project :

Answer 1

There's a standard way to do this, which is not IntelliJ-specific.

<jsp:useBean id="someModel" scope="request" type="foo.bar.SomeModelClass"/>

The type attribute here does not need to be a concrete class, it can be an interface type as well. Typically you'd put these declarations at the start of your JSP/JSPX files, to provide something like a "declaration of model inputs".

Using JSPs in such a declarative way was recommended in the original book on Spring, in fact (Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development.). IntelliJ has been providing full code completion for such pages since at least 7 years.

Note that there are additional relevant convenience features in IntelliJ: if an EL variable reference is marked as undefined, you can press Alt-Enter to select a QuickFix, which will insert a declaration like above. It will even try to figure out the actual type, based on the properties you're accessing.