JBoss Tools 3 Developers Guide

By Anghel Leonard

Since these technologies covered are different from each other, they are covered in separate chapters that are not interdependent; therefore you can learn to use whichever tool you want, without exploring the previous chapters. This approach sustains the learning per example paradigm and helps you to use the book as a quick guide for your favorite technologies. This book is recommended for Java developers who use at least one of the covered technologies (JSF, Struts, Hibernate, Seam, and so on). It is for all Java developers who are looking for a powerful, unitary tool, especially designed to increase the speed of development and quality of Java web applications. No matter how much (or how little) experience they have, developers of all levels will benefit as their use of JBoss Tools is directly proportional to the complexity of their application. Since JBoss Tools covers all levels of experience, you can use it at your own level for your own applications, without involving unnecessary features. All you need is to be familiar with the Eclipse environment and Java core, and to have some expertise in the technology for which you want to use the JBoss Tools. Basic expertise for each technology is provided in the book, but for more complete and detailed aspects you should read dedicated specifications, tutorials, and articles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Release date: Apr 17, 2009
• ISBN: 9781847196156

Book preview

Table of Contents

JBoss Tools 3 Developer's Guide

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code for the book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. An overview of JBoss Tools

What's new in JBoss Tools 3?

Installing JBoss Tools

Installing Eclipse version 3.4.x (Eclipse Ganymede)

Installing JBoss Tools through Eclipse software updates

Manual installation of JBoss Tools

Summary

2. JBoss AS Tools

JBoss AS plug-in and the Eclipse Web Tools Platform

Adding a WTP Runtime in Eclipse

Adding a WTP server in Eclipse

Creating our first web project—a dynamic web project stub

Deploying the test project on JBoss 4.2 Server

JBoss AS Perspective

JBoss Server View

Top part of JBoss Server View

Starting the JBoss AS

Stopping the JBoss AS

Additional operations on JBoss AS

Server publish status

Bottom part of JBoss Server View

Modules category

Event Log category

XML configuration category

JMX Console category

Project archives view

Creating and deploying projects

Summary

3. JBoss Tools Palette

JBoss Tools Palette Toolbar

Palette Editor

Creating a set of icons

Importing an icon

Creating a group of tag libraries

Creating a tag library

Creating a new tag

Show/Hide

Importing third-party tag libraries

Using tags in text files

Summary

4. JSF Tools

Overview of JSF

Creating a JSF project stub

JSF Project Verification

JSF application configuration file

The Diagram view

Creating pages

Adding navigation rules

The Tree view

Working with Managed Beans

Working with custom converters

Working with custom validators

The Source view

Editing pages code sources

Editing the register.jsp page

Editing the success.jsp page

Editing a start page for the registerJSF project

Testing the registerJSF project

Adding/Removing JSF capabilities for an existing project

Facelets support

Summary

5. Struts Tools

Overview of Struts

Struts project verification

Creating a Struts project stub

Struts editors

Graphical editor for struts-config.xml

Diagram view

Creating JSP pages

Creating an action mapping

Connecting a JSP page with action mappings

Creating a forward

Creating a global forward

Creating a global exception

Let's add some code inside JSPs

Generate source code

Tree view

Creating a form bean

Source view

Graphical editor for tiles files

Creating a new tiles file

Tree view

Diagram view

Source view

Create a start page for the registerStruts application

Testing registerStruts application

Struts Tools and validation aspects

Turning on the automatic validator

Creating the properties file for validation purposes

Graphical editor for validation files

Custom message for the name property (required rule)

Custom message for the zip property (required and mask rules)

Custom message for the email property (required and email rules)

Client-side validation

Server-side validation

Debugging support for Struts projects

Summary

6. Seam Tools

Overview of Seam

Preparations

Creating a new Seam project

General section

Database section

Code Generation section

Test testSeam project

Creating Seam components

Creating a Seam Action

Creating a Seam Form

Creating a Seam Conversation

Creating a Seam Entity

Seam views

Seam Components view

Project Explorer view

Using TestNG for Seam projects

Generating a Seam project from an existing database

Running the generated Seam application (generateSeam)

Modify Seam preferences

Summary

7. Hibernate Tools

Overview of Hibernate

Preparations

Hibernate Tools for Eclipse

Manual installation

Hibernate perspective

Creating a Hibernate mapping file (.hbm.xml)

Hibernate XML Editor

Tree View

Adding a element

Adding an element

Adding a element

Adding a element

Adding a element

Creating a Hibernate configuration file

Hibernate Configuration XML Editor

Session Factory view

Security view

Source view

Creating a Hibernate Console Configuration

Main tab

Options tab

Classpath tab

Mappings tab

Common tab

Hibernate Configurations view

Mapping diagram

HQL Editor

Hibernate Criteria Editor

Hibernate Query Result view

Hibernate Dynamic SQL Preview view

Query Parameters view

Properties view

Reverse engineering and code generation techniques

Main tab

Exporters tab

Refresh tab

Common tab

Generating Hibernate artifacts

Customize and control reverse engineering (reveng.xml)

Overview view

Table Filters view

Type Mappings view

Table & Columns view

Design view

Source view

Hibernate Tools for Ant

The Ant Task

Adding Hibernate tools dependencies

Hibernate Configurations

Hibernate Tools exporters

Hibernate Mapping Files Exporter

POJOs Exporter

Hibernate Configuration File Exporter

Database Schema Exporter

Documentation Exporter

Query Exporter

Import all libraries dependencies

Summary

8. jBPM Tools

Downloading and installing the JBoss jBPM Suite

Creating a jBPM stub project

Creating a jBPM process definition

Launching the jBPM JPDL perspective

jBPM GPD Editor

Diagram view

Adding states

Adding task-nodes

Adding nodes

Adding a fork-join system

Adding a mail node

Adding transitions

Customizing node names

Customizing transition's names

Defining swimlanes

Defining a task for the start-state

Defining a task for the task-node

Decorating graph with actions

Configuring Mail node

Source view

Design view

Deployment view

Running a process on JBoss jBPM server

Creating a JUnit test for a jBPM process

Summary

9. ESB Tools

Downloading and installing the JBossESB Server

Creating a JBossESB stub project

JBoss ESB Editor

Defining a Service skeleton in JBossESB

Defining the Action Pipeline

Defining a list of Listeners

Configuring message queues in JBossESB Server

Indicating the classes loading order

Sending an ESB Message through the ServiceInvoker

Sending a JMS Message in a classical manner

Service Registry configuration

Importing the endorsed libraries

Preparing and deploying a Service on JBossESB Server

Testing the ESB Service

What just happened?

Summary

10. Web Services Tools—JBossWS

Overview of Web Services

Downloading and installing JBossWS Native

Configuring JBossWS under Eclispe IDE

Creating a web service using Web Services Tools

Adding the JBoss Web Service facet

Writing a WSDL document using the WSDL wizard

Generating the web service from a WSDL document

Providing service business logic

Generating the web service's client from a WSDL

Providing client business logic

Deploying and testing a web service

Testing a web service through Web Services Explorer

Creating a Web service from a Java bean

Publishing web services and business entities

A brief introduction to UDDI

JBoss AS 4.2 and jUDDI

Preparing the jUDDI database

Using Web Services Explorer as a UDDI Browser

Adding a Registry to the Web Services Explorer

Publishing a business entity

Publishing a web service

Discovering our own web service through WSE

Discovering external web service through WSE

WSDL to WSIL, WSIL in WSE

Convert WSDL to WSIL

WSIL and WSE

Summary

11. JBoss Portal Tools

Overview of Portals and Portlets

Downloading and installing JBoss Portal + JBoss AS

Configuring the JBoss Portal bundle under Eclipse IDE

Starting JBoss Portal

Adding a Java portlet in JBoss Portal

Adding JBoss Portlets Facet

Creating a Java Portlet

Deploying and running a portlet

Adding a JSP portlet in JBoss Portal

Creating a JSP Portlet

Implementing the init method

Implementing the doView method

Implementing the view.jsp page

Implementing the doEdit method

Implementing the edit.jsp page

Implementing the doHelp method

Implementing the help.jsp page

Implementing the processAction method

Writing and configuring a dedicated validator

Adding a JSF portlet in JBoss Portal

Adding a Seam portlet in JBoss Portal

Summary

Index

JBoss Tools 3 Developer's Guide

Anghel Leonard

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JBoss Tools 3 Developer's Guide

Copyright © 2009 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: April 2009

Production Reference: 1090409

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-847196-14-9

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Karl Moore (<[e-mail]>)

Credits

Author

Anghel Leonard

Reviewers

Joseph Edem Morny

Peter Johnson

Acquisition Editor

Sarah Cullington

Development Editor

Dhiraj Chandiramani

Technical Editor

Abhinav Prasoon

Copy Editor

Ajay Shanker

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Editorial Team Leader

Abhijeet Deobhakta

Project Team Leader

Lata Basantani

Project Coordinator

Leena Purkait

Proofreader

Laura Booth

Production Coordinator

Aparna Bhagat

Cover Work

Aparna Bhagat

About the Author

Anghel Leonard is a senior Java developer with more than 12 years of experience in Java SE, Java EE, and the related frameworks. He wrote and published more than 20 articles about Java technologies and more than 100 tips and tricks. Also, he wrote two books about XML and Java (one for beginners and one for advanced). In this time, he developed web applications using the latest technologies on the market. In the past two years he has been focused on developing RIA projects for GIS fields. He is interested to bring onto the Web as much desktop as possible, therefore GIS applications represent a real challenge for him.

I want to thank my family, especially my wife.

About the Reviewers

Joseph Edem Morny has been involved in Enterprise Java technologies since he got introduced to Java in 2005, using open source tools and technologies like JBoss AS and JBoss Seam. His favourite web framework is Seam, which he has been using since its pre 1.5 days.

He has been an active promoter of Java EE and Seam, organizing workshops and seminars on university campuses where he worked as a teaching assistant, and on a national scale at Ghana's foremost institution of IT, Kofi Annan Centre for IT Excellence. Edem holds a Bsc Computer Science from KNUST in Ghana. He is also a SCJP, SCWCD and SCBCD.

Edem is a senior developer at the application development center in Accra, Ghana of an international biometric security solutions company, leading thedevelopment of Biocryptic Identity Management Systems for the global market.

Peter Johnson has been working in information technology since 1980, starting with mainframes, then to Solaris, then Windows, and now also on Linux. In the 90s, he developed using C++ and for the last 9 years has been working with Java. He works in a team that evaluates open source software for inclusion in an open source stack that is offered on Unisys and other hardware. In addition, he spends a lot of time on performance tuning and speaks regularly on that topic at various international conferences, such as the Computer Measurement Group Conference, JBoss World and Linux World. Peter is also currently co-authoring a book on JBoss Application Server, and is a JBoss committer and frequent JBoss forum contributor.

Preface

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.

What you need for this book

As different software products are involved in this book, it is pretty hard to recommend a list of system requirements and operating systems. Nevertheless, we have developed this book using the following specifications (use this configuration as a mark):

Mobile AMD Sempron (tm)

Processor 3400+

789MHz, 896 MB of RAM

Physical Address Extension.

Following are the software requirements for this book:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 2 (or any other supported operating system)

Java 5 and Java 6 for Windows (or your operating system)

Rest of software, such as Eclipse, JBoss Application Server and so on, will be installed through the book.

Who this book is for

This book is recommended to Java developers that use at least one of the covered technologies (JSF, Struts, Hibernate, Seam and so on). This book is for all Java developers who are looking for a unitary and powerful tool, especially designed for increasing the speed of developing, and for improving the quality of, Java web applications.

No matter how much, or how little, experience you have, developers of all levels will benefit as your use of JBoss Tools is directly proportional to the complexity of your application. Since JBoss Tools covers all level of experience, you may use it at your own level for your own applications, without involving unnecessary features. All you have to be familiar with is Eclipse environment, Java core, and you must have some expertise in the technology for which you want to use the JBoss Tools. Basic expertise for each technology is provided in the book, but for more complete and detailed aspects you should read dedicated specifications, tutorials, and articles.

Conventions

In this book you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive.

A block of code will be set as follows:

overflow: auto; width: 270px; height:375px; padding:0px; margin: 0px>

top nowrap>

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items will be shown in bold:

// Global Forwards public static final String GLOBAL_FORWARD_start = start;

 

// Local Forwards

public static final String FORWARD_success = success;

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

eclipse –clean

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen.

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader feedback

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To send us general feedback, simply drop an email to <[e-mail]>, and mention the book title in the subject of your message.

If there is a book that you need and would like to see us publish, please send us a note via the SUGGEST A TITLE form on www.packtpub.com, or send an email to .

If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book on, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.

Customer support

Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.

Downloading the example code for the book

Visit http://www.packtpub.com/files/code/6149_Code.zip to directly download the example code.

The downloadable files contain instructions on how to use them.

Errata

Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our contents, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in text or code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration, and help us to improve the subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/support, selecting your book, clicking on the let us know link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata added to any list of existing errata. Any existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.

Piracy

Piracy of copyright material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately, so that we can pursue a remedy.

Please contact us at <[e-mail]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.

We appreciate your help in protecting our authors, and our ability to bring you valuable content.

Questions

You can contact us at <[e-mail]> if you are having a problem with any aspect of this book, and we will do our best to address it.

Chapter 1. An overview of JBoss Tools

As you probably know, JBoss Tools are a set of Eclipse plug-ins that offer support for developing, deploying, and testing applications based on JBoss.org (http://www.jboss.org/) projects.

If this definition doesn't say much, then let's just say that JBoss Tools is an all-in-one product that provides complete support for developing Java SE and Java EE applications. Also, it's important to note that JBoss Tools can sustain the development of each tier of an enterprise/desktop application by providing dedicated components like editors, wizards, syntax-highlighting, import/export skills, code completion, refactoring, etc.

If you are familiar with the JBoss Tools evolution, then it is impossible to skip the fact that the new JBoss Tools 3 Candidate Release 2 (JBoss Tools 3.0.0 CR2) version is the king of all versions. But, if JBoss Tools is a new challenge for you, then try to be careful; JBoss Tools creates dependency and it seems that the current software market doesn't offer an antidote yet. This compelling superiority is because JBoss Tools provides tools for both standard J2SE/J2EE technologies like EJB3 and JPA as well as open source technologies that have become widely accepted in enterprise Java development, for example, Hibernate, JBPM, Seam, etc. It brings everything that you'll ever need—together!

Looking inside the 3.0.0 CR2 bundle, we see the following tools (this is just a brief overview meant to reveal the JBoss Tools covered technologies):

JBoss AS Tools: To manage application servers (especially for JBoss AS)

JBoss JSF Tools: Tools dedicated to supporting JSF/JSF-related technologies

JBoss Struts Tools: Tools dedicated to the Struts framework

JBoss Seam Tools: Tools dedicated to Seam projects

JBoss Hibernate Tools: Tools dedicated to the Hibernate framework

JBoss jBPM Tools: Tools to design and deploy jBPM business processes

JBossWS Tools: WTP Tooling for JBoss Web Services

Portlet Tools: Tooling for Portlets

JBoss ESB Tools: Tools to develop ESB components

JBoss XDoclet Tools: Tools to integrate XDoclet in Eclipse

JBoss Freemarker IDE: Syntax-highlighting editor for Freemarker files

JBoss RichFaces VPE: Visual Page editor for Richfaces, JSF, HTML, and CSS

BIRT Tools: Reporting Tooling for JBoss J2EE Servers (not presented in this book)

JBoss Smooks: Tooling Tools for Smooks (not presented in this book)

Next, in this chapter, you will see a brief listing of the features of JBoss Tools and after that we will proceed to install and configure the 3.0.0 CR2 release.

Further, in the following chapters, we will discuss the main tools and see that JBoss Tools can be a complete solution for Java developers.

What's new in JBoss Tools 3?

To amaze its fans and win new ones, JBoss Tools comes with a long list of bug fixes and very important add-ons, like Seam 2, JBossWS, and Mac OS X support. Based on new features and the finest interactivity, JBoss Tools give us a strong feeling of control and robustness.

Here is a short list of the JBoss Tools features. These are the checkpoints in JBoss Tools evolution from its first release until version 3.0.0 CR2:

Seam Tools:

Change Seam parent project

Easier view-id selection

Seam pages editor preferences

Seam Ear project validator

Seam project settings validator

Seam components/EL

Sub classes/inner classes

Hibernate Tools:

Console configuration created for JPA project

Export diagram

Query