Thursday, February 19, 2009

Getting Started with GWT ADempiere Client

Introduction

This post explains how to install step-by-step GWT ADempiere client on debugging mode by using Eclipse IDE as development environment, and all requirements that are needed to run this project accurately.

Requirements

  1. ADempiere database server
  2. Java 5
  3. Eclipse for Java EE Developers
  4. GWT 1.5.3
  5. Cypal Studio
  6. Subclipse for SVN

Make sure that ADEMPIERE_HOME and JAVA_HOME environment variable had been set properly. Also make sure that ADempiere application is working on the computer where GWT ADempiere client will be running.

Installation process

Once ADempiere database server, Java 5 and Eclipse IDE had been installed properly, next steps are to install GWT, Cypal Studio plug-in, and Subclipse plug-in in Eclipse IDE in order to download the GWT ADempiere client source code from the SVN server and start debugging the code.

Downloading and installing GWT

In this step, GWT will be downloaded and installed into the platform where the user would like to debug the project project. User will download GWT based on the platform, for example, Mac OS, Windows, or Linux. The most important on this step is to set the GWT_HOME environment variable, which should contain the path where GWT is installed.

Downloading and installing Cypal Studio plug-in

Once GWT had been installed, next step is to download and install Cypal Studio plug-in. The instructions that are used to install Cypal Studio plug-in are published on Cypal Studio site http://www.cypal.in/studiodocs. Go to Cypal Studio website for more information.

Downloading and installing Subclipse plug-in

In this step, Subclipse plug-in will be installed in Eclipse IDE. To install this plug-in, follow the instructions that are published on Subclipse website http://subclipse.tigris.org/install.html. The instructions are very useful and easy to follow.

Making check-out of GWT ADempiere project

The final step is to download GWT ADempiere source code. Once Subclipse had been downloaded and installed into Eclipse IDE, check out GWT ADempiere source code from the SVN server by following these steps:

  1. Go to SVN repositories tab in order to add ADempiere SVN server.
  2. Right click on SVN repositories and click on New → Repository Location.
  3. Add the repository URL host, which is https://adempiere.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/adempiere
  4. Once repository URL host had been added, expand ADempiere repository→contributions→e-Evolution.
  5. Right click on ADempiereGWT folder and click on Checkout as it is illustrated in the following image.

Running and debugging the GWT ADempiere Client

To start running the GWT ADempiere project, select Run→Run Configurations in order to open the launch configuration dialog box. Double click on “GWT Hosted Mode Application”. In the main page, select ADempiereGWT as project and org.eevolution.ui.gwt.AdempiereGXT as module. In the parameters page, the parameters can be set such as port and log level for the hosted mode GWTShell to use. The Cypal Studio plug-in page gives more information about Run/Debug GWT application. Finally, click Run to execute the GwtShell and bring up the GWT ADempiere application.