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Spring initialiser dependencies for a REST consumer console application

I am a Spring Boot newbie. I'd like to initialise a project which consists of:
A console application that acts on command line arguments so the JAR files could be later used in scheduled tasks.
Consumes a RESTful service
Logging
Which package dependencies should I choose in Spring Initializer? Apart from the necessary packages, are there any libraries that are optional but make development easier?

Depends on how you want to consume the restful service, but you may not need any extra starters, the core spring-boot-starter that you get when you just hit "Generate Project" and is usually implied with all the common starters like -web, -security, .. has logging and dependency injection and is all you need to create a jar that can easily be started with java -jar
However, it does not come with RestTemplate which is a common way to build rest clients in spring. For that you'll need to manually add a dependency on org.springframework:spring-web like you can see examples for in https://spring.io/guides/gs/consuming-rest/
But you can as well use other rest client libraries if you like them better.
There is also Feign that can be used as rest client and it's available from the initializer, examples at https://cloud.spring.io/spring-cloud-netflix/multi/multi_spring-cloud-feign.html - have not tried it and I'm not sure how much extra cloud dependencies will be added when you add the starter.
I also like having Lombok in all projects but that's preference. The obvious sounding choice of DevTools doesn't give you much benefit in a console application but is great for live reloading of web servers.
[...] so the JAR files could be later used in scheduled tasks.
sounds like you're trying to create a library / module of a larger application. You don't need an application that works standalone for that though so maybe https://spring.io/guides/gs/multi-module/ is good to read for you. Difference for libraries is that you don't need the spring boot plugin for maven/gradle which can package a standalone jar, just the dependency management.

Should I use the Spring Framework jar files or Spring Batch jar files while creating a java email batch program?

I am trying to create a java email batch program that sends an email with an attachment each day to a specific email address, and I have to use Spring as the framework for this program. It is not going to be a web application, but since I'm implementing Spring into this, how would I go about this? I am totally new to Spring (and Java for that matter), but am unsure of which direction I need to go. Which jar files do I need? Spring Batch or Spring Framework? Also, where can I download the jar files for Spring Framework? The spring.io site won't let me download those jar files.

I very strongly suggest you use a build tool that handles dependency management. Such tools are Ant+Ivy, Maven and Gradle. They will take care of downloading the appropriate jars based on your declaration of what dependencies you need and will take care of all the transitive dependencies.
One good way of getting started with Spring Batch is to follow this tutorial using either Maven or Gradle (the latter would probably be easier since you don't need to install it - the tutorial's code has a wrapper).
The tutorial uses Spring Boot which vastly simplifies Spring configuration (which is a serious benefit especially for someone who is new to Spring)

As others already told you, I personally would not start any spring based project (means: any project) without maven! You have so much benefits from it, not only depencency management.
To start a spring app outside an application context:
#Configuration
public class AppConfig {
//any bean configurations here
}
//your entry class
static void main(String args[]) {
//get a reference to the spring context. use this context throughout your app!
ApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(CacheConfig.class).get();
//optain any beans from the context. inside these beans, you can use any spring feature you like, eg #Autowired
ctx.getBean(YourBean.class).executeMethod();
}

I'd recommend starting with Spring Boot which will handle all of that for you. As others have mentioned, pick a build tool (Maven or Gradle) and follow the guide we provide on building a batch application here: http://spring.io/guides/gs/batch-processing/.

Can I hot-deploy apps into Tomcat?

I'm wondering is it possible to "hot develop" spring application.
For example. In Play framework when I change something in template or even controller or configuration I don't need to republish the application or restart server. I just refresh the page.
Is this kind of quick and easy work is possible with spring framework ? Does it depend of server?

If you want true hot (re)deployment you'll probably need to use something that modifies Java class-loading like JRebel.

Spring itself doesn't tell much about redeployment and stuff, but in most cases you can reload your templates without restarting depending on your ViewResolver.
Furthermore in some environments (for example in OSGi) it is possible to hot-deploy classes, resources and nearly everything. Having a properly configured SpringSource Tool Suite and eg. Virgo WebServer it is possible to achieve hot deployment and as such you can reload the running classes as you save them.

Create web application framework with Maven

we are trying to develop a web application framework and build implementatins on top of it. This framwork will be versioned in SVN, live its own life in parallel to those implementations. It will have lots of spring config files, security config and so on. We would like to use those in those implementations.
What structure should such an project have? Keep everything together? Link particular folers (implementations) in "svn: externals"? We would like to use Maven, and create an archetype for those implementations, but is it possible to update the archetype after it has been changed in implementation applications?
Regards,

This is a good example :
http://www.sonatype.com/books/mvnex-book/reference/web.html
Also this book is very useful resource when starting with maven
I found this also :
http://www.avajava.com/tutorials/lessons/how-do-i-create-a-web-application-project-using-maven.html

I'd suggest you create your framework project as a simple jar project to include in your implementation, which would be war projects. For the Spring config files you have three options then:
Package them into your framework jar. This would make it hard for the implementations to customize it. I would not recommend it, unless your configuration is definitively fixed.
Use svn: externals. I have not much experience with that, but I think dependencies between svn repositories would be hard to manage.
Maintain these configuration files per implementation. So, an archetype would help to get started with an initial configuration. Then maintain these configuration files as your framework evolves. This is what we do most of the time. The good thing about Spring configuration is that it often rarely needs to be touched once you are confident with it.

I am confused with Hibernate Spring

I am rookie into Java and I am directly thrown into Hibernate and Spring. I have attended some training classes and I am following documents online from random forums and trying to run a test project. I have some set of questions to be answered.
What is the latest version of Hibernate that has come and where do I download all the dependent jars in one place?
What is the latest version of Spring that is out there?
Any links/blogs that shows me to configure a hello world or a similar implementation would be of great help with the latest versions of Spring and Hiberante!!
Thanks.

The project web page says it is Spring 3.0.5 Release
The project web page says it is Hibernate 3.6.1 Release
Hibernate and Spring tutorial
Rest you will find using some web search like google.com or bing.com or altavista.com

I highly recommend you check out Spring Roo. There is a super duper quickstart.
Although its touted for doing Code and JSP scaffolding I find its biggest benefit is setting up your project in a very canonical and java/spring best practice setup.
It will setup maven and all the dependencies you will need. The default Maven Pom file alone is a big time saver.
If you don't want to use Roo you can easily just strip it out of your Maven pom file after your done doing the initial scaffolding.
The other option is using a Maven Archetype like AppFuse but I haven't used this in quite some time and I find Roo easier.
What I don't recommend is wasting your time writing an Ant script and then trying to cobble together all the dependencies.