JBoss Tools 3 Developer’s Guide
Build functional applications from scratch to server deployment using JBoss Tools
This book will show you how to develop a set of Java projects using a variety of
technologies and scenarios. Everything is described through the "eyes" of JBoss Tools.
After we settle on the project (or scenario) that will be developed, we will configure the
proper environment for the current tool (those projects selected will cover between them
the main components of a web application in terms of the backstage technology). We
continue by exploring the tool for accomplishing our tasks and developing the project's
components. A cocktail of images, theoretical aspects, source codes, and step-by-step
examples will offer you a thoroughgoing for every tool. At the end, the project will be
deployed and tested. In addition, every chapter is "lard" with pure notions about the
underlying technology, which will initiate you into, or remind you of, the basic
aspects of it.
This book will show you complete and functional applications, and will familiarize you
with the main aspects of every tool. By the end you will have been provided with
sufficient information to successfully handle your own projects through JBoss Tools.
What This Book Covers
Chapter 1 is a compressive chapter that will help you discover the features brought by the
new JBoss Tools 3.0. The main goal of this chapter is to make an introduction to what
will follow in the next chapters and to "wake up" your curiosity. In addition, the reader
can see different possibilities of installing JBoss Tools on different platforms and for
different goals.
Chapter 2 teaches you how to use Eclipse and JBoss AS in a symbiotic manner. In this
chapter you will see how to use the JBoss AS Tools to configure, start, stop and monitor
the JBoss AS directly from Eclipse IDE. Also, you can see how to create and deploy
new projects.
Chapter 3 is a collection of tag-components from different technologies as Ajax, JSF,
RichFaces, Seam, and so on. Because the components are built on the drag-and-drop
technique, this tool is very easy to use, especially when you need a fast method for
generating tags into JSP pages. This chapter will cover—with description and
examples—the most important tags that can be generated through JBoss Palette. Also, the
chapter will contain a section about the Palette Options.
Chapter 4 will talk about punctual framework's tools and I will start with JBoss Tools for
Java Server Faces. After I present the Faces Config Editor, which is the main visual
component for JSF support, I will follow the framework mains characteristics and I will
discuss—from the JSF Tools perspective—about managed beans, validators, converters,
navigation rules, and so on.
Chapter 5 will give you a complete cover of the graphical Struts editors that are used for
generating/managing XML documents (configuration, tiles, validators). Also, you will
see how to work with code generation and debug support for Struts projects. Everything
will be sustained by images (captures) and examples.
Chapter 6 will show you how to accomplish the most important modules of a Seam
project, like Action, Form, Entity, and so on through the Seam Tools filter in the first
part. Later, in the second part of the chapter, you will work with the visual editors
dedicated to increasing the speed of developing/controlling Seam components.
Chapter 7 will show some advanced skills, like Hibernate and Ant, generation of POJOs,
debugging goals and reverse engineering control after a detailed presentation of how to
use Hibernate Tools to speed up the configuration and mapping tasks.
Chapter 8 will discuss about the jBPM Tools. You will see how to develop and test a
complete jBPM project.
Chapter 9 will detail the main concepts of JBossESB Services, and you will see how to
use ESB Tools to develop such a Service.
Chapter 10 will help you create from scratch a WSDL document using WSDL Editor.
You will generate a complete web service from a WSDL document and from a Java bean
using WS Tools wizards, and you will publish a web service using jUDDI and Web
Services Explorer. In addition, you will see how to generate a web service's client, how to
test a web service through Web Services Explorer, how to convert WSDL documents to
WSIL documents and how to inspect WSDL web services through WSIL and WSE.
Chapter 11 will work with the Portal Tools. You will see how to use the wizards for
creating projects with Portlet Facets, creating the Java Portlet wizard and creating the
JSF/Seam Portlet wizard.
JBoss Tools Palette
In this chapter, we will discuss the JBoss Tools Palette, which is a very useful tool
designed especially for speeding up the development of JSP, JSF, HTML, XHTML or
any other text file that contains tags. In principle, JBoss Tools Palette is a collection of
common tags, exposed through a flexible and easy-to-use interface.
By default, JBoss Tools Palette is available in the Web Development perspective that
can be displayed from the Window menu by selecting the Open Perspective | Other
option. In the following screenshot, you can see the default look of this palette:
Let's dissect this palette to see how it makes our life easier!
JBoss Tools Palette Toolbar
Note that on the top right corner of the palette, we have a toolbar made of three
buttons (as shown in the following screenshot). They are (from left to right):
- Palette Editor
- Show/Hide
- Import
Each of these buttons accomplishes different tasks for offering a high level of
flexibility and customizability. Next, we will focus our attention on each one
of these buttons.
Palette Editor
Clicking on the Palette Editor icon will display the Palette Editor window (as shown
in the following screenshot), which contains groups and subgroups of tags that are
currently supported. Also, from this window you can create new groups, subgroups,
icons, and of course, tags—as you will see in a few moments.
As you can see, this window contains two panels: one for listing groups of tag
libraries (left side) and another that displays details about the selected tag and
allows us to modify the default values (extreme right). Modifying a tag is a very
simple operation that can be done like this:
- Select from the left panel the tag that you want to modify (for example,
the <div> tag from the HTML | Block subgroup, as shown in the
previous screenshot).
- In the right panel, click on the row from the value column that corresponds
to the property that you want to modify (the name column).
- Make the desirable modification(s) and click the OK button for confirming
it (them).
Creating a set of icons
The Icons node from the left panel allows you to create sets of icons and import new
icons for your tags. To start, you have to right-click on this node and select the Create |
Create Set option from the contextual menu (as shown in the following screenshot).
This action will open the Add Icon Set window where you have to specify a
name for this new set. Once you're done with the naming, click on the Finish
button (as shown in the following screenshot). For example, we have created
a set named eHTMLi:
Importing an icon
You can import a new icon in any set of icons by right-clicking on the corresponding
set and selecting the Create | Import Icon option from the contextual menu
(as shown in the following screenshot):
This action will open the Add Icon window, where you have to specify a name and
a path for your icon, and then click on the Finish button (as shown in the following
screenshot). Note that the image of the icon should be in GIF format.
Creating a group of tag libraries
As you can see, the JBoss Tools Palette has a consistent default set of groups of tag
libraries, like HTML, JSF, JSTL, Struts, XHTML, etc. If these groups are insufficient,
then you can create new ones by right-clicking on the Palette node and selecting
the Create | Create Group option from the contextual menu (as shown in the
following screenshot).
This action will open the Create Group window, where you have to specify a name
for the new group, and then click on Finish. For example, we have created a group
named mygroup:
Note that you can delete (only groups created by the user) or edit groups (any group)
by selecting the Delete or Edit options from the contextual menu that appears when
you right-click on the chosen group. |
