spring boot return string instead of .html file

Question

I tried to run spring boot application, that will return me the HTML static file on the static folder, the problem was: every time I load the page: 127.0.0.1 I get the String \"

Answer 1

@Controller VS @RestController

• @Controller is used to mark classes as Spring MVC Controller.
• @RestController is a convenience annotation that does nothing more than adding the @Controller and @ResponseBody annotations.

So in your case just removing the @ResponseBody annotation from the welcome() method in HomeController.java, should be enough to get the desired output.

Also have a look at this Spring Guide displaying how to Serve Web Content with Spring MVC