JBuilder for Cocoon developing

While developing in any of Borland IDEs, you always have a documentation at your hand. This is very important and especially for new-byes, the context-help can be very helpful. JBuilder is not an exception. Using JBuilder for developing J2SE or J2EE is a pleasure. When developing J2EE application (what Cocoon is), all files of your web app are browsable in tree view and every file is editable by editors applicable only to its specific type. You can control all dependencies by specifying paths for jars, classes, documents (such a html, xml), configuration files (sitemap), or resources (gifs).

Running and debugging your web application is seamless because for running all web applications JBuilder uses Tomcat integrated in IDE. If you need to test your web application on different web server, JBuilder creates Java archives (jars) and web archive (war) from your web application and all you need to do is set the path where the resulting war file should be saved. Also, all the Java classes could be debugged directly from the IDE, even XSP pages compiled by Cocoon located in /work directory. I think there is nothing else to be said.

Although JBuilder is famous for developing web applications based on JSP, Cocoon developing in JBuilder is almost as easy. There is much more than web developing that JBuilder offers. Unfortunately, such a powerful IDE is not for free. Your option, however, is to use the evaluation version of JBuilder Professional or JBuilder Enterprise. For 60 days, though.

Next picture can give you better idea what JBuilder consist of and how it works. Do not get frustrated by its look. It does not contain fancy M$ toolbars, menus or icons. It is written in Java so it uses Swing for its user interface, which has kind of limited capabilities. On the other hand, you can be pretty sure it will look and run similar on Linux or Solaris.

(click on image for larger version)

After opening JBuilder, it is necessary to create new project for your Cocoon2 web application.

• In File | New Project... change only project name and project root path in step 1
• Remove all required libraries in step 2
• In File | New... choose web application from Web tab
• Choose name for your web app (will be used as context name in web server)
• Create directory for your web app under project root directory (you can use project root directory, but to organize your project better, create new directory with name same as one chosen for your web app)
• Copy all your web files (xml, xsp, xsl, ...) to web app directory creating auxiliary directory tree (i.e. documents, stylesheets, images, entities...)
• Copy deployment descriptor web.xml to WEB-INF directory of your web application (replace empty one)
• Copy sitemap.xmap, cocoon.xconf, (logkit.xconf) to web app directory (sitemap.xmap entries should respect created directory structure, but you can change it later if needed)

There are some additional settings needed for Cocoon2 web application type.

• In order of classpaths to be set properly for Cocoon2 libraries, go to Project | Project Properties... and on Paths tab choose Required libraries | Add... . Define new library named Cocoon2Lib (or similar) and add all libraries (jars) from your Cocoon2 distribution. Do not forget to include cocoon.jar from build directory.
• In web app properties (right click in project pane) on WebApp tab add additional files that should be included to your project. Xml, xsd, dtd, xsp and xsl is minimal option in my opinion, but final decision depends on requirement of your application. These will be automatically included to your project and will be copied to web archive (war) file after build.
• To include configuration files sitamp.xmap and cocoon.xconf to project, there are some additional settings needed, because their file extensions are not recognized by default. In Tools | IDE Options... on File types tab find XML file among Recognized file types and add xmap and xconf extensions. After this change, JBuilder will recognize these new file types and will treat them as any other xml file, thus it will display them right in editor and automatically include them to your project (if you have set this option for xml files).
• Unfortunately, to take these settings effective, you need to restart JBuilder. Do not forget to save your project before performing this action!

Cocoon2 web application requires Tomcat 4.0 in order to run in JBuilder and JBuilder 5 normally uses Tomcat version 3.2 which is good only for Cocoon version 1.x. Fortunately, JBuilder can run Tomcat 4.0 after few settings.

• In Project | Project Properties... choose servers tab and choose Tomcat 4 server for setup. All you need to do is to point JBuilder to Tomcat 4 distribution root directory on your hard disk. It is not much configurable, but working approach. Of course, leave Tomcat 4 option selected for your project.
• Cocoon2 component "entity resolver" (defined in cocoon.xconf) needs external file CatalogManager.properties located in WEB-INF/classes directory of your web app. The easiest way how to include it automatically is to copy the file to src directory in your project (if does not exist - create one) and treat it as a resource. Then in web app properties (right click | Properties...) on Classes tab add this file to Required classes, packages and resources.
• Now everything should be set in order to run your web application (unless you need to make some changes in sitemap or Cocoon configuration). After building and (or just) running the project, JBuilder starts Tomcat and creates context for you web application. You can use any Internet browser to test the application. However, to use browser integrated in JBuilder, you need to specify what page should be initially displayed. To accomplish this, go to Project | Project properties... and set the Launch URI in Run | JSP/Servlet tab.
• You all set! Welcome to the professional Cocoon2 developing!