QuickTime for Java: A Developer's Notebook

About the Examples

When unzipped, the examples will create a directory whose contents look like this:

build.xml             my.ant.properties.win 
classes/              src/
jars/

build.xml is the build file for Ant, the de facto standard for building Java projects. You don’t have to use Ant, but considering the classpath challenges in dealing with Java builds, particularly with QTJ (see Chapter 1), you’ll probably find it well worth your while. If you don’t already have it, you can get Ant from http://ant.apache.org/, and you can learn more in Ant: The Definitive Guide (O’Reilly).

Tip

The classes and jars directories are created by Ant, and will not be present when you first unzip the archive.

Using the command line, type ant in this directory to run the default target. In this case, it’s the help message:

cadamson% ant
Buildfile: build.xml
 
help:
   [echo] Available targets:
   [echo] ch0n -- compile source for chapter n (eg "ch01", "ch02", etc.)
   [echo] all -- compile source for all chapters
   [echo] ch0n.jar -- make a .jar file for chapter n
   [echo] qtj-notebook.jar -- compile source for all chapters and make jar
   [echo] all.jar -- synonym for qtj-notebook.jar
   [echo] run-example -- compile and run "example"
   [echo] help-names -- echo all example names for use with run-example
   [echo] clean -- remove .class files
   [echo] help -- this help message (default)
   [echo]     
 
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 2 seconds

You can look in the build.xml file for more information. One important note is that compiling requires the path to the QTJava.zip file, as described in Chapter 1. The default is the Mac OS X path, /System/Library/Java/Extensions/QTJava.zip. If you’re using Windows, you need to override this. The provided file my.ant.properties.win has a sample path that looks like this:

qtjavazip.file=c:\\Progra~1\\Java\\j2re1.4.2\\lib\\ext\\QTJava.zip

Edit this so that it refers to the path to QTJava.zip on your system, and then rename the file to my.ant.properties, so build.xml will pick it up. Because any Ant properties are picked up from this file, it also gives you the opportunity to make other Ant tweaks, such as repointing jvm.home to use one of several Java installations on your box, or to change the java.compiler to jikes.

To compile all the book examples into a JAR file, type:

ant qtj-notebook.jar

This will produce output like the following:

cadamson% ant qtj-notebook.jar
Buildfile: build.xml
 
init:
   [echo] qtjavazip.file = /System/Library/Java/Extensions/QTJava.zip
 
all:
  [javac] Compiling 53 source files to /Users/cadamson/Documents/
O'Reilly/books/qtj 
developer's notebook/code/classes
 
qtj-notebook.jar:
    [jar] Building jar: /Users/cadamson/Documents/O'Reilly/books/qtj 
developer's notebook/code/jars/qtj-notebook.jar
 
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 7 seconds

You can then run any of the examples by extending the classpath to include the qtj-notebook.jar file, as in:

java -cp jars/qtj-notebook.jar com.oreilly.qtjnotebook.ch02.SimpleQTPlayer

There are also Ant targets to compile and run every example in the book. Use ant help-examples to see a list of example names.