lholmquist / kitchensink-aerogear-js

kitchensink-aerogear-js: Example AeroGear Application Using Multiple HTML5, Mobile & JAX-RS Technologies

Author: Jay Balunas Level: Beginner Technologies: Aerogear, CDI, HTML5, REST Origin: http://www.aerogear.org Summary: Based on kitchensink, but uses HTML5, making it suitable for mobile and tablet computers Target Product: WFK

What is it?

This is your project! It's a deployable Maven 3 project to help you get your foot in the door developing HTML5 based desktop/mobile web applications with Java EE 6 on JBoss. This project is setup to allow you to create a basic Java EE 6 application using HTML5, jQuery Mobile, JAX-RS, CDI 1.0, EJB 3.1, JPA 2.0 and Bean Validation 1.0. It includes a persistence unit and some sample persistence and transaction code to help you get your feet wet with database access in enterprise Java.

This application is built using a HTML5 + REST approach. This uses a pure HTML client that interacts with with the application server via restful end-points (JAX-RS). This application also uses some of the latest HTML5 features and advanced JAX-RS. And since testing is just as important with client side as it is server side, this application uses QUnit to show you how to unit test your JavaScript.

What is a modern web application without mobile web support? This application also integrates jQuery mobile and basic client side device detection to give you both a desktop and mobile version of the interface. Both support the same features, including form validation, member registration, etc. However the mobile version adds in mobile layout, touch, and performance improvements needed to get you started with mobile web development on JBoss.

System requirements

All you need to build this project is Java 6.0 (Java SDK 1.6) or better, Maven 3.0 or better.

The application this project produces is designed to be run on JBoss AS 7 or JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.

An HTML5 compatible browser such as Chrome, Safari 5+, Firefox 5+, or IE 9+ are required. and note that some behaviors will vary slightly (ex. validations) based on browser support, especially IE 9.

Mobile web support is limited to Android and iOS devices. It should run on HP, and Black Berry devices as well. Windows Phone, and others will be supported as jQuery Mobile announces support.

With the prerequisites out of the way, you're ready to build and deploy.

Deploying the application

Deploying locally

First you need to start the JBoss container. To do this, run

$JBOSS_HOME/bin/standalone.sh

or if you are using windows

$JBOSS_HOME/bin/standalone.bat

Note: Adding "-b 0.0.0.0" to the above commands will allow external clients (phones, tablets, desktops, etc...) connect through your local network.

For example

$JBOSS_HOME/bin/standalone.sh -b 0.0.0.0 

To deploy the application, you first need to produce the archive to deploy using the following Maven goal:

mvn package

You can now deploy the artifact by executing the following command:

mvn jboss-as:deploy

The client application will be running at the following URL http://localhost:8080/<artifactId>/.

To undeploy run this command:

mvn jboss-as:undeploy

You can also start the JBoss container and deploy the project using JBoss Tools. See the Getting Started Developing Applications Guide for more information.

Deploying to OpenShift

You can also deploy the application directly to OpenShift, Red Hat's cloud based PaaS offering, follow the instructions here

Minification

By default, the project uses the wro4j plugin, which provides the ability to concatenate, validate and minify JavaScript and CSS files. These minified files, as well as their unmodified versions are deployed with the project.

With just a few quick changes to the project, you can link to the minified versions of your JavaScript and CSS files.

First, in the /src/main/webapp/index.html file, search for references to minification and comment or uncomment the appropriate lines.

Finally, wro4j runs in the compile phase so any standard build command like package, install, etc. will trigger it. The plugin is in a profile with an id of "minify" so you will want to specify that profile in your maven build.

NOTE: You must either specify the default profile for no tests or the arquillian test profile to run tests when minifying to avoid test errors. For example:

#No Tests
mvn clean package jboss-as:deploy -Pminify,default

OR

#With Tests
mvn clean package jboss-as:deploy -Pminify,arq-jbossas-remote

Running the Arquillian tests

By default, tests are configured to be skipped. The reason is that the sample test is an Arquillian test, which requires the use of a container. You can activate this test by selecting one of the container configuration provided for JBoss.

To run the test in JBoss, first start the container instance. Then, run the test goal with the following profile activated:

mvn clean test -Parq-jbossas-remote

Running the QUnit tests

QUnit is a JavaScript unit testing framework used and built by jQuery. This application includes a set of QUnit tests in order to verify JavaScript that is core to this HTML5 application. Executing QUnit test cases is quite easy. First, make sure the server is running and the project has been deployed as some of the tests will be testing the functionality of the services. Then, simply load the following HTML in the browser you wish to test.

<project-root>/src/test/qunit/index.html

For more information on QUnit tests see http://docs.jquery.com/QUnit

Importing the project into an IDE

If you created the project using the Maven archetype wizard in your IDE (Eclipse, NetBeans or IntelliJ IDEA), then there is nothing to do. You should already have an IDE project.

Detailed instructions for using Eclipse / JBoss Tools with are provided in the Getting Started Developing Applications Guide.

If you created the project from the command line using archetype:generate, then you need to import the project into your IDE. If you are using NetBeans 6.8 or IntelliJ IDEA 9, then all you have to do is open the project as an existing project. Both of these IDEs recognize Maven projects natively.

Downloading the sources and Javadocs

If you want to be able to debug into the source code or look at the Javadocs of any library in the project, you can run either of the following two commands to pull them into your local repository. The IDE should then detect them.

mvn dependency:sources
mvn dependency:resolve -Dclassifier=javadoc

Development notes

Copyright headers

To update the copyright headers, just run mvn license:format -Dyear=<current year>