 | Chapter 2 Install the XMA Development Environment |  |
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| | Chapter 2 Install the XMA Development Environment | |
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XMA applications are built by Ant scripts, but its library dependencies are managed by Maven. This is done by the use of Ant Tasks for Maven. All XMA libraries itself are deployed to a Maven 2 repository. An openXMA project's dependencies are described in a pom.xml in the project's root directory. For are short introduction to the Maven dependency mechanism see: http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-dependency-mechanism.html
For starting XMA development, you need the following tools installed on your workstation:
Java SDK 1.4.2 or newer.
You need to install an XMA-BootRuntime for running openXMA applications, even when they are started from Eclipse. For XMA-BootRuntime installation issues see: XMA Boot-Runtime Installation
Eclipse IDE 3.2.2 (the IDE for openXMA).
You need exactly this version, since the XMA plugins are not ported yet to newer versions. It can be found here: http://archive.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/index.php
Eclipse EMF Runtime 2.2.2 or newer (needed for the openXMA Eclipse plugins).
It can be found here: http://archive.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/emf/downloads/drops/2.2.2/R200702131851/.
Note: If you load the openXMA Eclipse plugins by their update site the EMF Runtime 2.2.2 is loaded as dependency by the Eclipse update mechanism automatically.
openXMA Eclipse plugins (needed for openXMA application design)
The openXMA plugins can be get via an Eclipse plugin update site: http://dist.codehaus.org/openxma/eclipse_plugins/update_site/.
If you prefer manual installation then the openXMA plugins can be downloaded from: openXMA plugins distribution. I
Tomcat 4.1.30 or newer (for local openXMA application testing).
For the automatic deployment of XMA applications you have to
configure a user in the role manager. This can be done by adding the
following line into your tomcat conf/tomcat-users.xml
file
<user username="admin" password="admin" roles="admin,manager"/>
Apache Ant is needed to run the build.xml scripts. It usually comes installed within Eclipse.
Be aware, when installing Maven, that some environment variables have to be set (M2_HOME, M2, JAVA_HOME, add Maven to PATH).
Also in the M2_HOME/conf/settings.xml file you have to do some configurations, for example you should set your local repository location (otherwise it is created under your user directory), e.g.:
<localRepository>yourPath/.m2/repository</localRepository>
For Maven details, see the Maven documentation:
http://maven.apache.org/download.html (Maven installation)
http://maven.apache.org/settings.html (Maven settings)
Copy maven-ant-tasks-2.0.8.jar to M2_HOME/lib. This version can be downloaded from the Maven Central repository: maven-ant-tasks-2.0.8.jar
Eclipse Adaption for Maven (see the original documentation at maven-eclipse-plugin)
Eclipse must have the classpath variable M2_REPO pointing to the local maven repository. This is done executing this command from the command line (restart Eclipse afterward):
mvn -Declipse.workspace=<path-to-eclipse-workspace> eclipse:add-maven-repo
From the Eclipse menu bar, select Window > Preferences. Select the Run/Debug > String Substitution. Add a new variable maven_exec=<M2_HOME>\bin\mvn.bat
An openXMA Eclipse project normally use the Maven Eclipse Plugin for managing the project's .classpath and .project file, which are created from the project's pom.xml. To update the .classpath and .project file from the pom.xml you can run this command from the project directory:
mvn eclipse:eclipse
As such a command might be cumbersome to issue from the
command line, every openXMA project has a launch script to do this.
This is started by Menu Bar > Run > External Tools
> Select launch script.These scripts are named
<projectname> mvn eclipse_eclipse.launch.
Eclipse Adaption for Tomcat launching
Each openXMA project comes with a generated script to start a
tomcat server instance called
start_<projectName>Server. If you use this script
to start Tomcat you have to set two variables pointing to your
Tomcat installation:
TOMCAT_HOME - as Eclipse classpath variable (Window > Preferences. Java > Build Path >Classpath Variable > New)
TOMCAT_HOME - as Eclipse string substitution variable (Window > Preferences. Run/Debug > String Substitution > New)
Alternatively to starting the Tomcat by the project's server launch script and deploying new versions to Tomcat by the project's build.xml you can use the Tomcat Eclipse plugin. See the documentation there for details.
If you want to check out sources from the openXMA repository (e.g. the openXMA sample application) you need some Subversion client. For Eclipse Subclipse is available as plugin, see the documentation there for details.
For developing openXMA applications several Eclipse plugins are needed. The openXMA plugins can be get via an Eclipse plugin update site: http://dist.codehaus.org/openxma/eclipse_plugins/update_site/
If you prefer manual installation then the openXMA plugins can be downloaded from: openXMA plugins distribution. In this case please extract all the zipped plugins into your Eclipse plugin directory (normally "plugins" in your Eclipse base directory where your Eclipse executable is).
In detail these 3 plugins are used:
at.spardat.xma.guidesigner - for creating the
components and pages of an openXMA application
at.spardat.xma.mapper - for mapping JavaBeans
attributes to openXMA GUI elements
at.spardat.xma.prjcreationwizzard - for
creating an openXMA Eclipse project
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| 1.4 XMA Boot-Runtime Structure |  | 2.2 The Sample Application |