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| <title>Ant VisualAge for Java Tool Integration</title> |
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| <body> |
| <h1>Ant PlugIn for VisualAge for Java</h1> |
| <a name="authors"></a>by |
| <ul> |
| <li>Wolf Siberski (<a href="mailto:wolf.siberski@tui.de"> |
| wolf.siberski@tui.de</a>)</li> |
| <li>Christoph Wilhelms (<a href="mailto:christoph.wilhelms@tui.de"> |
| christoph.wilhelms@tui.de</a>)</li> |
| </ul> |
| Version 1.0 - 2000/11/09<br> |
| <hr> |
| <h2>Table of Contents</h2> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#installation">Installation</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#usage">Usage</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#faq">Frequently Asked Questions</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#va_versions">Visual Age Versions</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| <hr> |
| <h2><a name="introduction"></a>Introduction</h2> |
| Visual Age for Java is a great Java IDE, but it lacks decent build support |
| for creating deliveries. On the other hand, Ant supports the build process |
| very good, but is (at least at the moment) command line based. So we decided |
| to write a small visual Ant frontend to make running Ant from VAJ possible. |
| We use the Tool API to integrate Ant in VisualAge for Java. In combination |
| with the VAJ targets (vajload, vajexport, vajimport) you can load defined |
| defined versions of projects into your workspace, export the source code, |
| compile it with an external compiler and build a jar without leaving the |
| IDE. Of course compile messages are viewed in a logging window. Concluding: |
| This tool provides a comfortable deployment VAJ has not (out of the box)!<br> |
| <hr> |
| <h2><a name="installation"></a>Installation</h2> |
| At the moment the installation has it's rough edges. If something described |
| below doesn't work for You, it's probably not Your fault but incomplete/wrong |
| instructions. In this case, please contact one of the <a href="#authors"> |
| authors</a>.<br> |
| We assume <font face="Courier">C:\IBMVJava</font> as VAJ install directory. |
| If You have installed it elsewhere, adapt the pathes below. Execute following |
| steps to get the PlugIn up and running: |
| <ul> |
| <li>import the Ant sources into VAJ.</li> |
| <li>import an appropriate XML parser to VAJ (we use Xerces 1.2.0 and are |
| happy with it). Unfortunately the XML parser delivered with VAJ (in the |
| project 'IBM XML Parser for Java') doesn't work with Ant. You have to |
| remove that project (temporarily) from the workspace before importing |
| another XML implementation.</li> |
| <li>Create the directory <font face="Courier"> |
| C:\IBMVJava\ide\tools\org-apache-tools-ant</font>.</li> |
| <li>export the Ant and XML parser class files into this directory. Be sure |
| to select class files and resources. Sources don't have to be exported. |
| Some optional tasks have errors and can't be exported when You don't have |
| the necessary packages in Your workspace (e.g. junit task, ejbc task). |
| If You need this tasks either import these packages into VAJ, too, |
| or copy the .class files directly from the binary distribution</li> |
| <li>copy <font face="Courier">default.ini</font> (in |
| <font face="Courier">jakarta-ant\src\...\taskdefs\optional\ide</font>) |
| to <font face="Courier"> |
| C:\IBMVJava\ide\tools\org-apache-tools-ant\default.ini</font>.</li> |
| <li>if you want to access this help from the Workbench, create the |
| directory <font face="Courier"> |
| C:\IBMVJava\ide\tools\org-apache-tools-ant\doc</font> and copy the files |
| <font face="Courier">VAJAntTool.html</font>, |
| <font face="Courier">toolmenu.gif</font> and |
| <font face="Courier">anttool1.gif</font> to it.</li> |
| <li>VAJ has to be restarted to recognize the new tool.</li> |
| <li>Now if You open the context menu of a project, You should see the entry |
| 'Ant Build' in the Tools submenu (see <a href="#usage">Usage</a>).</li> |
| <li>Make sure the tool works as expected. Now You can remove Ant and the |
| imported XML parser from Your workspace (and optionally add the IBM parser |
| again).</li> |
| </ul> |
| <hr> |
| <h2><a name="usage"></a>Usage</h2> |
| Beeing sure the tool is installed correctly and your Ant build file is |
| configured, it is really easy to use.<br> |
| Go to your Workbench, select the project you want to deploy and open |
| its context menu. In the submenu <i>Tools</i> you should find the new |
| entry <i>Ant Build</i>. Klick it to start the tool! |
| <p><center><img src="toolmenu.gif" border="0" height="246" width="393"> |
| </center></p> |
| After a short time this frame should pop up: |
| <p><center><img src="anttool1.gif" border="0" height="222" width="389"> |
| </center></p> |
| This frame contains the following: |
| <ul> |
| <li>A menubar with some options described later</li> |
| <li>The name of your selected VAJ project</li> |
| <li>An entry field for the Ant XML buildfile with a browse [...] button. The |
| full qualified filename, including the directory is needed here.</li> |
| <li>A list with tasks specified in the buildfile. Until your first save of |
| the build info (described later), this list will be empty. When loading a |
| build file by the <i>Reload Project</i> button, this list is filled with |
| all tasks which have a description attribute. The task you select in this |
| list will be executed when pressing the <i>Execute Task</i> button.</li> |
| <li>A pulldown box for specifying the log level.</li> |
| <li>Three buttons. Two of them I have already described and the third one |
| is just the <i>Close </i>button to exit our small tool!</li> |
| </ul> |
| After you have set up your buildprocess you might find it useful to save |
| the data you've just entered, so we implemented an option to save it to |
| the repository into your selected project. Make sure that you have an open |
| edition of your project before selecting <i>Save BuildInfo To Repository</i> |
| from the <i>File</i> menu. Now your information is saved to this edition |
| of your project and will be loaded automatically the next time you start |
| <i>Ant Build</i>.<br> |
| If you have closed the log window accidentally, it can be reopened with |
| the <i>Log</i> item in the <i>File</i> menu, and if you want to know who |
| developed this, just select <i>About</i> in the <i>Help</i> menu. |
| <br> |
| <hr> |
| <h2><a name="faq"></a>Frequently Asked Questions</h2> |
| <p>F: I want to load, export and build more then one Visual Age project to |
| one jar! How to?<br> |
| A: The VA tasks are able to load and export several Projects all at |
| once. You can choose whatever project you like for storing the tool |
| information, it doesn't really matter.</p> |
| <hr> |
| <h2><a name="va_versions"></a>VisualAge for Java Versions</h2> |
| This tool integration has been tested with versions 3.02 and 3.5 of VisualAge |
| for Java. It should run with the 2.x Versions, too, but we didn't try. |
| The graphical user interface is build with AWT so it is JDK independent |
| by now!<br> |
| <hr> |
| <p><center>Copyright © 2000 Apache Software Foundation. |
| All rights Reserved.</center></p> |
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