OpenbravoPOS Developer guide

Introduction

This guide refers to the Openbravo POS 2.10 version and next versions. This document is oriented to developers and advanced users of Openbravo POS with some development skills that wants to inspect the source code and make modifications.

Obtaining the sources from SVN

In order to access the subversion repository you must install a subversion client. The current development sources of Openbravo POS can be checked out through subversion with the following instruction:

svn co https://openbravopos.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/openbravopos/trunk openbravopos 

If you already checked out the Openbravo POS sources you can update your sources executing the following instruction in the folder you checked out the sources:

svn up

For more information about the subversion repository of Openbravo POS hosted in Sourceforge go to http://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=127939.

Obtaining the sources of the stable version

To download the sources of the latest stable version or a previous version go to the download page and get the sources http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=127939. Once downloaded uncompress it to the desired folder.

Build from the sources

To build the Openbravo POS sources you need ant. Ant is a build tool used by Openbravo POS to compile and package the distribution files from the sources. The binary and source packages can be obtained executing the following instruction from the folder you downloaded or checked out the sources:

ant dist

All the packages created by the build process are located in the subfolder build/dist. There are other ant targets if you only need one of the packages. To obtain the package openbravopos.jar execute the following instruction:

ant jar

To obtain the binary distribution package execute:

ant dist.bin

To obtain the sources distribution package execute:

ant dist.src

Edit the sources using the Netbeans IDE

Netbeans is the preferred java IDE to develop Openbravo POS because the Swing components of Openbravo POS has been developed with the visual editor of Netbeans and this edition is stored in *.form files that only Netbeans is able to interpret.

You can download Netbeans from http://www.netbeans.org. And there is a quick guide to develop with Netbeans here http://www.netbeans.org/kb/60/java/quickstart.html.

To create a new Netbeans project with the Openbravo sources, open Netbeans and select New project... to open the new project wizard, select Java Project with Existing Sources and press Next.

New project wizard. Step 1.

In the following step select the project name and the folder where the Netbeans project files will be stored and press Next. Do not select the same folder you downloaded or checked out the sources.

New project wizard. Step 2.

In the following step select the source folders. Add the folders locales, reports, src-beans, src-data, src-erp, and src-pos. In this step you can press Finish.

New project wizard. Step 3.

The next step is to add the libraries needed to build and execute Openbravo POS. Open the Properties... dialog of the project and in the libraries section add all the *.jar files of the folder lib.

New project wizard. Step 4.

Now you have ready a Netbeans project configured than you can edit, build and test. To execute and debug Openbravo POS you need also to select the main class of the project. Open the Properties... dialog and in the run section Openbravo select com.openbravo.pos.forms.StartPOS as the Main Class and press OK.

New project wizard. Step 4.

Edit the sources using the Eclipse IDE

If your favorite java IDE is Eclipse you can use it to develop Openbravo POS. You will only miss the visual edition of the swing components created with Netbeans. In this case you must take into account that if you modify the java code generated by Netbeans, then the Netbeans user will not have in sync your modifications and may overwrite it the next time.

You can download Eclipse from http://www.eclipse.org/. And there is a guide to develop with Eclipse here: http://www.eclipse.org/documentation/.

The Eclipse project files are included in the source packages. To create new Eclipse project is very easy, open Eclipse and select Import... to open the import project wizard, select Existing projects into workspace and press Next.

Import project wizard. Step 1.

In the following step select the root folder of the Openbravo POS sources and press Finish.

Import project wizard. Step 2.

Now you have ready your Eclipse project. To execute it, select the project run it as a Java application and select the com.openbravo.pos.forms.StartPOS as the main class.