gwt-maven-archetypes

This project contains Maven archetypes for modular GWT projects.

How to use

Generate a project

mvn archetype:generate \
   -DarchetypeCatalog=https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/ \
   -DarchetypeGroupId=net.ltgt.gwt.archetypes \
   -DarchetypeArtifactId=<artifactId> \
   -DarchetypeVersion=1.0-SNAPSHOT

where the available <artifactIds> are:

modular-webapp
modular-requestfactory
guice-rf-activities

This uses the snapshot deployed to Sonatype OSS. Alternatively, and/or if you want to hack on / contribute to the archetypes, you can clone and install the project locally:

git clone https://github.com/tbroyer/gwt-maven-archetypes.git
cd gwt-maven-archetypes && mvn clean install

You'll then use the mvn archetype:generate command from above, except for the -DarchetypeCatalog argument which you'll remove, as you now want to use your local catalog.

Note that tests are sensitive to line endings, so if you're on Windows make sure your clone has Windows (CRLF) end of lines. In case it's not enough, you can simply delete the src/test folder thus bypassing tests (provided the tests pass on the continuous integration platform, it's not a big risk).

Use SuperDevMode

Change directory to your generated project and issue the following commands:

mvn clean install -Dgwt.draftCompile
In one terminal window: cd *-client && mvn gwt:run-codeserver -Ddev
In another terminal window: mvn tomcat7:run -Ddev

The same is available with tomcat6 instead of tomcat7.

Or if you'd rather use Jetty than Tomcat, use cd *-server && mvn jetty:start -Ddev instead of mvn tomcat7:run.

Note that you only need to install once so that gwt:run-codeserver and jetty:start can find the other modules. This is currently needed because neither gwt:run nor jetty:start support running in reactor builds, contrary to tomcat7:run.

The -Dgwt.draftCompile in the first step is not required, it's only to speed up the GWT compilation by disabling optimizations.

Start the development mode

This is similar to using SuperDevMode, except you can use -Dgwt.compiler.skip instead of -Dgwt.draftCompile to speed up the first step (it only has to be done once though so it's probably no big deal), and more importantly you'll use mvn gwt:run instead of mvn gwt:run-codeserver.

Steps therefore become:

mvn clean install -Dgwt.compiler.skip
In one terminal window: cd *-client && mvn gwt:run -Ddev
In another terminal window: mvn tomcat7:run -Ddev

Profiles

There's a special profile defined in the POM file of client and server modules: dev, which is used only when developping. It configures the Tomcat and Jetty plugins and speeds up development with gwt:run-codeserver, gwt:run and jetty:start by not requiring a restart when a change to the ${rootArtifactId}-shared is made.

To activate the dev profile you can provide the -Ddev system property, or use -Pdev.

Productivity tips

When working on the server-side code exclusively, you don't need GWT's DevMode. You can then compile the GWT app using mvn package or mvn package -Dgwt.draftCompile and then mvn tomcat7:run or cd *-server && mvn jetty:start -Ddev. The webapp will be redeployed automatically when you change a class (either compiled by your IDE, or by mvn compile) in either the ${rootArtifactId}-server or ${rootArtifactId}-shared module (be careful though when changing classes in shared that you do not break the GWT client code, particularly when using GWT-RPC).

When working on the client-side code exclusively, to quickly test it in a browser in production mode, use mvn package -Dgwt.draftCompile. You can use mvn package -Dgwt.draftCompile -pl :${rootArtifactId}-client -am while the Tomcat or Jetty server is running (launched by mvn tomcat7:run or cd *-server && mvn jetty:start -Ddev), and then simply hit F5 in your browser.

Compatibility

To use variable interpolation in parameters during mvn archetype:generate, you need at least version 2.2 of the maven-archetype-plugin. Archetypes use ${module.toLowerCase()} as the default value for the module-short-name parameter, so if you don't use version 2.2 or above of the maven-archetype-plugin, make sure you provide a value and do not use the default one for that parameter. You can also make sure you use version 2.2 of the plugin by using mvn org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin:2.2:generate instead of mvn archetype:generate. It should be noted that variable interpolation also does not work in M2Eclipse's wizard, despite using recent versions of Maven thus (probably) a recent-enough version of the maven-archetype-plugin.

moutellou/gwt-maven-archetypes