Maven: A Developer's Notebook

Generating an Eclipse Project

I'll bet that you want to start working in an IDE. Maven comes with plug-ins for Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, JBuilder, JDeveloper, and Emacs. While Maven integrates well with all of these tools, this lab focuses on its integration with Eclipse, a popular open source IDE.

How do I do that?

The process is simple; just execute the eclipse plug-in:

C:\dev\mavenbook\code\genapp\test-application> maven eclipse
  
build:start:
  
eclipse:generate-project:
    [echo] Creating C:\dev\mavenbook\code\genapp\test-application/.project ...
  
eclipse:generate-classpath:
    [echo] Creating C:\dev\mavenbook\code\genapp\test-application/.classpath ...
    [echo] Contains JUnit tests
    [echo] Setting compile of src/test to target/test-classes
Plugin 'cactus-maven' in project 'Test Application' is not available
    [echo] Setting default output directory to target/classes
  
eclipse:
    [echo] Now refresh your project in Eclipse (right click on the project and select 
"Refresh")
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 2 seconds

Maven creates the two files which identify this project as an Eclipse project: .project and .classpath. In Eclipse, you can then import this project by following these steps:

1. Start Eclipse.

2. Select File → Import... from the menu.

3. Select Existing Project into Workspace and click the Next button.

4. Select the C:\dev\mavenbook\code\genapp\test-application directory in the Import dialog, and click the Finish button.

You will then need to perform one more step to point Eclipse at the local Maven repository. Eclipse uses a variable named MAVEN_REPO to point to the local Maven repository. You can set MAVEN_REPO using Maven, by executing the following at the command line:

maven -Dmaven.eclipse.workspace=c:\eclipse\workspace eclipse:add-maven-repo

Executing this goal should set the global MAVEN_REPO variable in the workspace located in the c:\eclipse\workspace directory.

Alternatively, you can configure this variable manually by following these steps:

1. Open Eclipse preferences by selecting Window→Preferences from the menu.

2. In the tree menu on the lefthand side of the Preferences dialog, select Java → Build Path → Classpath Variables.

3. Create a new classpath variable by clicking the New button; this should bring up the New Variable Entry dialog.

4. Type MAVEN_REPO into the Name field.

5. Click the Folder button and select your local Maven repository.

6. Click OK and rebuild all of your projects.

You will need to configure MAVEN_REPO only once; this variable is global and it is shared by all Eclipse projects.

What about...

...JBuilder, JDeveloper, and IntelliJ IDEA?

All of these IDEs have simple plug-ins for Eclipse. To generate the necessary files for a JBuilder project, run maven jbuilder. For JDeveloper run maven jdeveloper, and for the IntelliJ IDEA project run maven idea.