How to install the view package
Intended Audience
Users/devs who wants to get started with view development. This setup guide is valid for both users and devs.
Purpose
To help users install views. This is the "getting started" setup-guide.
Prerequisites
- You have to use the trunk version of forrest to use views because it is in an early stage of development.
Steps
The process of setting up the plugin is quite involved. We promise it will be easier in the future. Some of the instructions have to be modified with your local settings.
Build the view and the viewHelper plugins
The first step is to build the view and the viewHelper plugins. Change to a console of your choice and go (cd) to the trunk version of forrest {forrest-trunk}. Then do an update and after this deploy both plugins locally.
cd {forrest-trunk} svn up cd whiteboard/plugins/org.apache.forrest.plugin.internal.view/ ant local-deploy cd ../org.apache.forrest.plugin.output.viewHelper.xhtml/ ant local-deploy
Seed a new project
Go to the dir where you want to seed a new project and seed it. Next we have to prepare a default.fv directory ("conf") in project.conf-dir (forrest.properties) of the fresh seed. This will be needed as soon you modify the default view of your project. A "templates" directory is needed as well, for your project-specific contract implementations.
cd ~/src/newSeed forrest seed mkdir src/documentation/conf mkdir src/documentation/resources/templates
Modifying forrest.properties
Now we have to tell forrest that we are planning to use the view plugins. We will do that by editing to the forrest.properties to add the plugins:
project.required.plugins=org.apache.forrest.plugin.output.viewHelper.xhtml,org.apache.forrest.plugin.internal.view
We also have to change the project skin to leather-dev. The reason for this is that the plugins are still not independent from the "old fashion skins".
project.skin=leather-dev
Test your new view-based project
Now you have finished the preparation and the setup to finally try
forrest run
then point to http://localhost:8888/ and you should see the default view-based skin.
Available contracts
To start working with views you need to know which contracts you can use. For this we will install another plugin org.apache.forrest.plugin.input.viewHelper.xhtml.ls. The setup is:
cd {forrest-trunk} svn up cd whiteboard/plugins/org.apache.forrest.plugin.input.viewHelper.xhtml.ls/ ant local-deploy
The newly installed plugin will show the available contracts listed in an html page. First we have to tell forrest that we are planning to use the new plugin. We will do that by editing the forrest.properties of the newSeed to add the plugin:
project.required.plugins=org.apache.forrest.plugin.input.viewHelper.xhtml.ls
Now point your browser to http://localhost:8888/ls.contracts.html. On this page you will find all contracts that you can use in your project.
Further Reading
Congratulations, you are now able to work with views. From here we recommend reading the following How-To's:
Feedback
Please provide feedback about this document via the mailing lists.