Developing and Deploying Webtop 6.5 customizations using eclipse and JBoss

Is there a Best Practice/Recommended Process for Webtop/WDK 6.5 development using eclipse and JBoss?

Specifically I have several Webtop 5.3 customizations that I need to migrate to 6.5 and the method of development and deployment has changed significantly. In the past I have developed the customization code in eclipse and deployed the Java classes, WDK components, etc. to webtop installed on Tomcat (.../webapps/webtop/custom). With the use of the webtop.war file and JBossin 6.5 this process clearly has to change.

In general the process would seem to be:

Develop the webtop custom code in eclipse
Add the custom code to an expanded webtop.war
Package up the webtop.war file
Deploy the customized webtop.war to JBoss
Test

I have not found any documentation (on EDN or Powerlink) that suggests guidelines on how best to approach this process especially if you are using eclipse. As a start I have expanded webtop.war into an eclipse project (Webtop6.5) and created a JBoss server. Using eclipse when I publish the (uncustomized) Webtop6.5 project to JBoss (which takes a very long time) and then start the server eclipse complains with the message: "Java Virtual Machine Launcher: could not find the main class, program will exit" However JBoss is left running even though webtop fails to load.

Am I close and do I just need to make some configuration changes?

Is there a faster configuration/process (hopefully with eclipse) for development/publishing/testing?

Has anyone established an efficient process for Webtop/WDK 6.5 development using eclipse and JBoss that they would like to share with the community?

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Comments

nick

Great topic to bring up, just when you would probably expect a lot of people might be thinking about migrations. I got one question for you though. The migration that you are planning from 5.3 to 6.5, does this have to go through 6.0? Like it used to be in the past, when we had to migrate from 4i to 5.3, we had to migrate to 5.2.5 first and then to 5.3. I was wondering if that is the case still.

And yes, I concur that there dont seem to be any guideliness which can be followed for the new method of migration. But then the general conception is you make a war file, explode it on the server and deploy the server, restart everything and your new code should be functionable.

devodl

Nick,

I'm "just" a Webtop/DFC/Java developer so I'm not handling the server upgrade but... Our SystemAdmin is upgrading our installation from 5.3SP3 to 5.3SP5 so that he can then make the jump directly to 6.5

My experience and understanding of deployment to a J2EE app server is that I simply drop the warfile into the J2EE app server and it is read by the app server without any restart. This works fine for the basic installation of the webtop.war (or for that matter any web application) onto the JBoss server.

What I want to discuss is what processes and tools other developers may use to produce a deployable webtop.war file that contains customizations. As I stated in the OP it seems like the process to build a custom webtop.war file would be: expand, modify, package, deploy, test. I can invent something myself but surely someone from EMC or one of the development houses has formalized a process. Haven't they?

Steve

david.matheson

We just started D6.5 development, but here is what we do (mostly the same as in 5.3):

Set up a Dynamic Web Application in Eclipse using WTP.
Explode the war into the WebContent directory (or whatever you chose to call it).
Use whatever app server you want, JBoss, Tomcat, WebLogic, etc, they all have WTP adapters.
Write code, deploy (republish in WTP-speak), test.
Check in code and leave it up to continuous integration server (CruiseControl, in our case) and Ant scripts to run unit tests, package and deploy to development server.

That's the basics of our process.

Dave

devodl

Dave,

Thanks for describing your process.

I was suspecting that would be the approach but I wanted to hear from others who had broached that area of development.

I am still hoping to hear some pseudo-official EMC Best Practice response since they would know best.

I gave you credit for a Helpful Reply and if it turns out to be the "official" answer I will give you full credit.

Steve

jorcorde1

Also you could try the following:

Unwar the app to a temp location or eclipse's workspace
Create a java project in Eclipse from the location selected above
Create a link folder from your temp's app/webroot to your app/[app context] in your app server, Tomcat , JBoss, etc. I use Junction (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx)

This way you can develop and debug your code live.

- just another option.

hv15188

Dear Steve

Do you have a sample build file for WebTop/WDK war creation

Regards

Hetal