Closes gh-17249

Closes gh-17246

Closes gh-17248

Closes gh-17244

Closes gh-17247

Closes gh-17245

On error cases, the "outcome" tag would be missing from recorded metrics
for the `WebClient`.

This commit fixes this issue and improves the reference documentation by
mentioning the tag values used for error cases, when the client response
is not received (I/O errors, client error, etc).

Fixes gh-17219

Closes gh-17237

Closes gh-16854

Closes gh-17236

Closes gh-17235

Closes gh-17232

Update Gradle archive tasks to ensure that `META-INF/` and
`META-INF/MANIFEST.MF` remain as the first entries of the archive.

Prior to this commit, rewritten archives would violate the implicit
specification of `JarInputStream` that these entries should be first.

Fixes gh-16698

Closes gh-17227
Closes gh-17228

* pr/16535:
  Polish "Fix connection timeout configuration for Netty"
  Fix connection timeout configuration for Netty
  Chain predicates in PropertyMapper when methods

Closes gh-16535

See gh-16535

Update `NettyWebServerFactoryCustomizer` to deal with the fact that
Netty treats `0` and negative connection timeout values differently to
Tomcat, Undertow and Jetty.

See gh-16535

Update `PropertyMapper` to correctly combine predicates when repeated
calls are made to `when` and `whenNot`. Prior to this commit, subsequent
invocations would replace the previous predicate.

Fixes gh-17225

Closes gh-17224

Closes gh-17222

Closes gh-17223

Fixes gh-17062

See gh-17221

Closes gh-17220

* gh-16485:
  Polish "Honour base path from @WebAppConfiguration in @WebMvcTest"
  Honour base path from @WebAppConfiguration in @WebMvcTest

Closes gh-16485

See gh-16485

See gh-16485

Closes gh-17218

* gh-16814:
  Polish "Consider properties from @AutoConfigureTestDatabase"
  Consider properties from @AutoConfigureTestDatabase

Closes gh-16814

See gh-16814