Tutorials

Introduction:

• Custom portlets for JBoss portal can be developed using in two ways:

          >> By using JBoss Developer Studio

          >> By installing JBoss tools in eclipse

• JBoss Developer Studio is not freely available.
• This presentation showcases developing custom portlets for JBoss portal using Eclipse IDE.
• JBoss set of plug-in’s extends JBoss Portal features.
• JBoss Tools provide to ease the development with JBoss Portal.

Building the setup:

• Installing Eclipse version 3.4.x(Eclipse Ganymede)
• Installing JBoss Tools through Eclipse software updates
• Manual installation of JBoss Tools

Installing Eclipse version 3.4.x(Eclipse Ganymede):

• Before installing JBoss Tools,we’ll need to download and install the Eclipse IDE.
• It is recommended to use Eclipse version 3.4.x
• The quickest way to download the Eclipse IDE, from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads

Installing JBoss Tools through Eclipse software updates:

• The quickest and simplest way to install the JBoss Tools consists of using a facility of Eclipse, named Software Updates.
• This is a graphical wizard that will guide us through the search/install process of the latest plug-ins/add-ons for Eclipse.
• JBoss Tools 3.0 for Eclipse 3.4 "Ganymede”
• To use JBoss Tools with Eclipse 3.4, start Eclipse, then do the following:

1). Launch the Eclipse IDE.

2). From the Help menu, select Software Updates.

3). Switch to the Available Software tab.

4). Click on the Manage Sites button.

5). Add these URLs, or, if they're already listed, make sure they're enabled (checked)


6). Click OK.


7).Expand the JBoss Tools Update Site and select any or all of the available features listed there under.

8).Click Install... then Next and/or Finish. Restart when prompted

Installing JBoss Tools Manually:

• Instead of using the Update Manager, we can download the archive of the JBoss Tools plugins and incorporate them into our Eclipse installation manually .

Obtaining a JBoss Tools release:

• The latest release of JBoss Tools can be found on the JBoss Tools download page.
• Once the download completes, we need to decide what type of installation we are going to use before extracting it.
• We can either install it directly into your Eclipse installation or we can link the plugins to our Eclipse installation.

Installing the plugins directly into your Eclipse installation:

• Install the JBoss Tools plugins directly into the Eclipse installation.
• The directory structure inside the archive is as follows:

          Eclipse/
          features/
          plugins/

If we are using the commandline and the Eclipse installation directory is named "eclipse“:

• Navigate to the directory above the Eclipse installation and extract the archive using the unzip command.
• unzip JBossTools-2.1.2.GA-ALL-linux-gtk.zip

If we prefer to extract using an archive manager or your Eclipse installation directory is not named "eclipse",:

• Extract the features and plugins folders in the archive into your Eclipse installation.

Linking the plugins to the Eclipse installation:


1). Extract the JBoss Tools release anywhere outside of your Eclipse installation.

2). It‘s convenient to put this eclipse folder inside of a directory with the name of the plugin (i.e., /home/max/eclipse-addons/jbosstools)

3). Create the file jbosstools.link in the links folder (Eclipse < 3.4) or dropins folder (Eclipse >= 3.4) of your Eclipse installation

4). The contents of jbosstools.link should consist of a single line that defines the path where you extracted the JBoss Tools plugins .

path=/home/max/eclipse-addons/jbosstools

The links or dropins folder can contain any number of .link files that point to Eclipse extension directories.

Refreshing the plugin cache

eclipse –clean