How to setup Eclipse IDE

Contents 1 Preparing development environment 2 Download source code 3 Openbravo installation 3.1 Configure the properties 3.2 Install from sources 3.3 Problems running install.source 4 Import into Eclipse IDE 5 Create the Tomcat Server 5.1 Change VM arguments settings 6 Import Preferences 7 Launch from Eclipse

Preparing development environment

First of all you need to install and configure different components of the Openbravo ERP environment as it's described in Custom Installation guide. In order to comply to development requirements some of those components have to be additionally adjusted according to Development Stack Setup.

After completing all of the steps in the aforementioned guides, please make sure that:

• Your OS user has read/write access to your tomcat installation home directory (CATALINA_BASE).
• Environment variables (e.g. ANT_OPTS, CATALINA_OPTS, JAVA_HOME, ANT_OPTS, etc) are declared in the proper categories (i.e. System/User variables) (windows only)
• You have downloaded the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers - Indigo release

Now check out Openbravo ERP source code from the repository.

Download source code

The source code can be checked out using any Mercurial client. There is no any restrictions on the read access so you wouldn't need any credentials to access the repository. The detailed procedure of the source code check out is described in Mercurial Manual for Openbravo Developers. As it's explained in the guide it's normally considered as a good practice to have a pristine clone and working one, so we would strongly encourage you to follow that 'rule'. It is also highly advisable to clone the repository into a destination directory which is outside of Eclipse workspace.

If you want to build the latest stable release:

$ hg clone https://code.openbravo.com/erp/devel/main openbravo
$ cd openbravo
$ hg up 3.0MP22.2

For Openbravo developers, you should work with the pi repository:

hg clone https://code.openbravo.com/erp/devel/pi
$ cd pi

Openbravo installation

The Openbravo ERP installation is performed in several steps.

Configure the properties

So, first of all you have to configure the Openbravo ERP by specifying some general properties, e.g. Tomcat installation directory, database connection details, etc. This can (and in fact must) be done via a special GUI application which has to be downloaded first. For that, go to the directory with the working clone of the repository and execute:

ant setup

The invocation of this ant target will download an executable file called setup-properties-[OS_NAME].[EXT] in config subdirectory.

Move into this subdirectory and launch the executable file to start the GUI configuration application. By going through the wizard pages provide all requested information and click Finish to apply the changes and close the application. As a result of these actions a new file Openbravo.properties, containing specified settings, will be created in config subdirectory.

More about the properties can be found at Openbravo.properties. Now the Openbravo ERP is ready to be installed.

Install from sources

In order to install the Openbravo ERP three main procedures have to be accomplished:

• the Openbravo ERP database has to be created and populated with some initial values
• sources have to be generated
• all sources have to compiled to binaries which later can be executed on a WEB server (Tomcat).

All this is done by invoking from the root of the working clone (XXX\opensource\openbravo\erp\devel\main\).

ant install.source

This process can take quite long time (up to 25 min) depending on hardware configuration. It's always a good idea to redirect the output of the task execution to a log file which then can be analyzed or sent to the support team in case of problems. After the task has completed the log should not contain any error or exception massages as well as it should have BUILD SUCCESSFUL message at the end of the file. (if you are under Linux use grep command to check whether the file contains any exceptions). After successful installation the next step can be taken - importing to Eclipse IDE.

Problems running install.source

If you find problems running install.source, check the Installation/Troubleshooting article

Import into Eclipse IDE

Launch Eclipse.

Now 4 projects need to be imported in the workspace (by menu File=>Import and then General=>Existing Projects into Workspace). Here they are:

openbravo        XXX\opensource\openbravo\erp\devel\main\
OpenbravoCore    XXX\opensource\openbravo\erp\devel\main\src-core
OpenbravoTrl     XXX\opensource\openbravo\erp\devel\main\src-trl
OpenbravoWAD     XXX\opensource\openbravo\erp\devel\main\src-wad

Create the Tomcat Server

Then open Servers view and create a new instance of Tomcat server:

While going through the wizard select openbravo and add it to configured resources. Then click "Finish". The created instance should appear in the view. Double click on it to change its settings in the form depicted on the picture below:

Change VM arguments settings

• in General Information
  • click on Open launch configuration link
  • switch to Arguments tab
  • add the following line at the end of VM arguments input:

 -Xms384M -Xmx512M -XX:MaxPermSize=256M 

• in Server options
  • check the Serve modules without publishing
• in Timeouts
  • set Start and Stop timeouts to 120 seconds

After changing all, save your server configuration (press Ctrl+S).

Import Preferences

The next step is to set the standard preferences used in the development of Openbravo.

• The preference file is located in the openbravo/config/eclipse folder in the development project
• Import workspace preferences clicking on File > Import, then select General > Preferences and click on Next button.

• Browse to openbravo/config/eclipse/openbravo-eclipse-prefs.epf file, select Import all radio button and click on Finish button.

Once finished, select all the projects, refresh them, and rebuild them (right click on one or more projects and you will find the Refresh and the Rebuild options). You should get warnings, but not errors.

Launch from Eclipse

Now start the Tomcat server by right-clicking on the server instance in the Servers view and choosing Start option in the popup menu. Wait until the server is started (can take up to 2 minutes) and visit http://localhost:8080/openbravo/ in your internet browser. If everything was configured and installed properly you will get to the Openbravo ERP log in page. Use these credentials to log in:

• username - Openbravo
• password - openbravo

both are case sensitive.

That's it, the installation is over and you're ready to start developing.

Category: HowTo