This repository contains the source code of openLCA. openLCA is a Java application that runs on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (Eclipse RCP). This project depends on the olca-modules project which is a plain Maven project that contains the core functionalities of openLCA (e.g. the model, database access, calculations, data exchange, and database updates).
This repository has the following sub-projects:
- olca-app: contains the source code of the openLCA RCP application.
- olca-app-build: contains the build scripts for compiling openLCA and creating the installers for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
- olca-app-html: contains the source code for the HTML views in openLCA (like the start page or the report views).
- olca-refdata: contains the current reference data (units, quantities, and flows) that are packaged with openLCA.
See also the README files that are contained in these sub-projects.
openLCA is an Eclipse RCP application with parts of the user interface written in HTML5 and JavaScript. To compile it from source you need to have the following tools installed:
- Git (optional)
- a Java Development Kit v8
- Maven
- the Eclipse package for RCP developers
- Node.js
When you have these tools installed you can build the application from source via the following steps:
The core modules contain the application logic that is independent from the user
interface and can be also used in other applications. These modules are plain
Maven projects and can be installed via mvn install
. See the
olca-modules repository for more
information.
We recommend that to use Git to manage the source code but you can also download the source code as a zip file. Create a development directory (the path should not contain whitespaces):
mkdir olca
cd olca
and get the source code:
git clone https://github.com/GreenDelta/olca-app.git
Your development directory should now look like this:
olca-app
.git
olca-app
olca-app-build
olca-app-html
olca-refdata
...
To build the HTML pages of the user interface navigate to the olca-app-html folder:
cd olca-app/olca-app-html
Then install the Node.js modules via npm (npm is a package manager that comes with your Node.js installation):
npm install
This also installs a local version of webpack
which is used to create the
distribution package. The build of this package can be invoked via:
npm run build
The output is generated in the dist
folder of this directory and packaged
into a zip file that is copied to the ../olca-app/html
folder.
Download the current Eclipse package for RCP and RAP developers (to have everything together you can extract it into your development directory). Create a workspace directory in your development directory (e.g. under the eclipse folder to have a clean structure):
eclipse
...
workspace
olca-app
.git
olca-app
olca-app-build
olca-app-html
olca-app-refdata
...
After this, open Eclipse and select the created workspace directory. Import the
projects into Eclipse via Import > General > Existing Projects into Workspace
(select the olca/olca-app
directory). You should now see the olca-app
,
olca-app-build
, projects in your Eclipse workspace.
The file platform.target
in the olca-app
project contains the definition of
the target platform
of the openLCA RCP application. Just open the file with the Target Editor
and click on Set as target platform
on the top right of the editor.
This will download the resources of the target platform into your local
workspace and, thus, may take a while. Unfortunately, setting up and
configuring Eclipse can be quite challenging. If you get errors like
Unable locate installable unit in target definition
,
this discussion
may help.
Go back to the command line and navigate to the
olca-app/olca-app
folder:
cd olca-app/olca-app
and run
mvn package
This will copy the installed openLCA core modules and dependencies (see above)
to the folder olca-app/olca-app/libs
.
Refresh your Eclipse workspace (select all and press F5
). Open the file
olca-app/openLCA.product within Eclipse and click
on the run icon inside the openLCA.product
tab. openLCA should now start.
If you want to build an installable product, see the description in the olca-app-build sub-project or simply use the Eclipse export wizard (Export/Eclipse product).
The openLCA application contains database templates that are used when the user
creates a new database (empty, with units, or with all reference data). There
is a Maven project olca-refdata
that creates these database templates and
copies them to the olca-app/olca-app/db_templates
folder from which openLCA
loads these templates. To build the templates, navigate to the refdata project
and run the build:
cd olca-app/olca-refdata
mvn package
Unless stated otherwise, all source code of the openLCA project is licensed under the Mozilla Public License, v. 2.0. Please see the LICENSE.txt file in the root directory of the source code.