Rank NOOB wants to use RoboSpice and needs help about robospice

[stephanenicolas]

Hi ramjet,

would you mind to test our new procedure for non maven users :
https://github.com/octo-online/robospice/wiki/Using-RoboSpice-without-Maven-2

For it to work, as we didn't release the examples yet, you will need to
clone our github repo for both RoboSpice and samples.

If you find this document as is, is it understandable ? Does it bring any
new question ?

Thanks for the follow up since Stack Over Flow.
Stéphane

2013/1/1 ramjet69 [email protected]

Hello,

I am a long time C# developer and trying to get my feet wet with android
and java. I have written a workflow web service and published it. Calling
the service from .NET architectures is not a problem. I would like to call
it from my android app (my first app aside from the typical hello world).

I am developing to android 2.3.3 using Eclipse. Looking at the 30 second
image I understand the concept of RoboSpice and the failings of other
technologies. But I am swimming in information on where to start. I figured
getting the jar's I needed would be a good start then looking at some
examples....but I got lost in the downloads as to which jars are needed.

So that would be my first request. How do I determine what jar's I need to
communicate with a WCF web service that is returning a string??

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Stéphane NICOLAS,
OCTO Technology
Développeur & Consultant Android / Java
..........................................................
50, Avenue des Champs-Elysées
75008 Paris
+33 (0)6.26.32.34.09
www.octo.com - blog.octo.com
www.usievents.com
...........................................................

[stephanenicolas]

You didn't answer yet so maybe this is still confusing. And don't worry about the service, RoboSpice does it for you.

Here is what you have to do :

• clone the sample repo of robospice
• install maven
• in the folder where you cloned the samples do a : mvn clean install
• look at the spring android sample project, it has a libs-for-ant that contains all jars
• copy those jars to the libs folder of your project : you can now use them
• follow the sample to know how to write a RoboSpice request and execute it from inside an activity
• add a RoboSpice to your AndroidManifest.xml file, get inspired by the AndroidManifest of the sample if you don't know how to do it.

That's the most simple way to use RoboSpice if you don't know anything about maven and just want to use eclipse and the adt plugin.

[kontinuity]

Is it possible to provide a download bundle for non Maven users? I've used Maven and Ant in my past projects hence it was trivial but I can understand the conundrum of others.

A bundle with dependencies should do the trick. I'll be more than glad to volunteer to build such a bundle and deploy on GitHub.

[stephanenicolas]

Hi Arif,

if you look at the repo, we now have a RoboSpice-samples folder containing
samples for RoboSpice for all modules.
The simples can easily be converted to ant projects (see the wiki
herehttps://github.com/octo-online/robospice/wiki/Using-RoboSpice-without-Maven-2
).

So, with next release, it's gonna be very easy for non maven users to get
an up and running sample with both core and extensions of RoboSpice. The
sample will have a ant/ADT configuration that works and that can be copied
to developer's projects.

Would that be enough ? Can we make it even simpler ?
We believe it's an important issue too.

Stéphane

2013/1/8 Arif Amirani [email protected]

Is it possible to provide a download bundle for non Maven users? I've used
Maven and Ant in my past projects hence it was trivial but I can understand
the conundrum of others.

A bundle with dependencies should do the trick. I'll be more than glad to
volunteer to build such a bundle and deploy on GitHub.

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/17#issuecomment-11991915.

Stéphane NICOLAS,
OCTO Technology
Développeur & Consultant Android / Java
..........................................................
50, Avenue des Champs-Elysées
75008 Paris
+33 (0)6.26.32.34.09
www.octo.com - blog.octo.com
www.usievents.com
...........................................................

[kontinuity]

I would simply look at the ease of integrating RS within a new setup. RoboGuice for example provides direct binaries albeit from Maven repositories but it helps.

http://code.google.com/p/roboguice/wiki/InstallationNonMaven

I would vote for ready downloadable binaries.

[rciovati]

You are right @kontinuity.
We were providing binaries too in the Github download section but that section has been removed from Github and we should link the jar in another page.

[stephanenicolas]

I don't think there is any standard procedure to store jars on GitHub right
now and I doubt there will be as storing binaries seemed to be the
problem.
Nevertheless, woud you like to have a try at the document I gave you and
see if that would be enough for non maven users ?

Stéphane

2013/1/9 Riccardo Ciovati [email protected]

You are right @kontinuity https://github.com/kontinuity.
We were providing binaries too in the Github download section but that
section has been removed from Github and we should link the jar in another
page.

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Stéphane NICOLAS,
OCTO Technology
Développeur & Consultant Android / Java
..........................................................
50, Avenue des Champs-Elysées
75008 Paris
+33 (0)6.26.32.34.09
www.octo.com - blog.octo.com
www.usievents.com
...........................................................

[kontinuity]

Not trying to nitpick here but the intent is to not have users deal with Maven if they are either not used to it or just don't want and the steps in the document need Maven. Kind of defeating the purpose.

#2. use maven to copy dependencies to the libs-for-ant folder
mvn clean install -Pant

[stephanenicolas]

Ok, I am sensitive to your argument but the only to type damn sample
command. Is that really too much ?

We could also have the libraries include in the libs-extra folder for them,
that's also possible but I got the feeling that it's gonna be error-prone
to maintain the jars before every release of the samples.

As a programmer, I don't use bitbucket or mercurial but I got them
installed just to checkout others' repositories. But you might be right for
a beginner, that could be discouraging.

Stéphane

2013/1/9 Arif Amirani [email protected]

Not trying to nitpick here but the intent is to not have users deal with
Maven if they are either not used to it or just don't want and the steps in
the document need Maven. Kind of defeating the purpose.

#2. use maven to copy dependencies to the libs-for-ant folder
mvn clean install -Pant

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/17#issuecomment-12061128.

Stéphane NICOLAS,
OCTO Technology
Développeur & Consultant Android / Java
..........................................................
50, Avenue des Champs-Elysées
75008 Paris
+33 (0)6.26.32.34.09
www.octo.com - blog.octo.com
www.usievents.com
...........................................................

[kontinuity]

Ok, I am sensitive to your argument but the only to type damn sample
command. Is that really too much ?

Isn't Maven not available on every machine by default? This means even to type those simple commands the user has to install Maven. Tall order given the title of the issue is "Rank NOOB wants to use RoboSpice and needs help" :)

Just to put in my 10 cents.
I agree that having to use Maven is a big deterrent from using Robospice for people that aren't familiar with it.
If there were libraries that could be included into an existing Android project by simply dropping them into the libs folder that would go a very long way in simplifying the process of getting to know Robospice.
I believe it took me 2 days to fumble through the dependencies to get Robospice up and running.

On 09.01.2013, at 20:29, Arif Amirani [email protected] wrote:

Ok, I am sensitive to your argument but the only to type damn sample
command. Is that really too much ?
Isn't Maven not available on every machine by default? This means even to type those simple commands the user has to install Maven. Tall order given the title of the issue is "Rank NOOB wants to use RoboSpice and needs help" :)

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[stephanenicolas]

I agree, I think that's one of the points that makes it difficult for
RoboSpice to become more widespread, that and the lack of simple samples.

But we worked hard on those points and want non-maven users to get it
simple.

So, you suggest we just put the jars in the samples and that's it ?

(I mean they will be in a libs-extra folder, not libs so that they
don't ***ck up eclipse configurations for maven users - that would make dex
fail as it would include jars twice-).

Really, it's nice to take time to give us feedback and guidance on that
point.

Stéphane

2013/1/9 Moritz Pfeiffer [email protected]

Just to put in my 10 cents.
I agree that having to use Maven is a big deterrent from using Robospice
for people that aren't familiar with it.
If there were libraries that could be included into an existing Android
project by simply dropping them into the libs folder that would go a very
long way in simplifying the process of getting to know Robospice.
I believe it took me 2 days to fumble through the dependencies to get
Robospice up and running.

On 09.01.2013, at 20:29, Arif Amirani [email protected] wrote:

Ok, I am sensitive to your argument but the only to type damn sample
command. Is that really too much ?
Isn't Maven not available on every machine by default? This means even
to type those simple commands the user has to install Maven. Tall order
given the title of the issue is "Rank NOOB wants to use RoboSpice and needs
help" :)

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/17#issuecomment-12063608.

Stéphane NICOLAS,
OCTO Technology
Développeur & Consultant Android / Java
..........................................................
50, Avenue des Champs-Elysées
75008 Paris
+33 (0)6.26.32.34.09
www.octo.com - blog.octo.com
www.usievents.com
...........................................................

[rciovati]

Can't we just creare a page with direct link to the jars (either robospice and dependencies)?
I think we should also provide a little description about what extensions do.

[stephanenicolas]

I agree, each extension should have its wiki page. This is added to milestone 1.4.0 (see issue 26)
The whole point of this issue was a better documentation of RoboSpice setup for non maven users, this is integrated to milestone 1.4.0.

If we could find a way to expose the jars from within github or point to them by a set of links that would be interesting too (this is not part of release 1.4.0).

[stephanenicolas]

They are only available in the 1.4.0 / current state of repo.

We are rushing to release 1.4.0 asap. Meanwhile, you can use a simpler
SpringAndroidService. JacksonSpringAndroidService is just an helper to get
a fully equiped SpringAndroidService with cache manager using a jackson
persister.

Stéphane

2013/1/14 Afzal Najam [email protected]

Am I missing something? JacksonSpringAndroidSpiceService class is not
actually in the robospice jar files?
The robospice spring android sample can't compile.

(I'm posting in this thread because I'm also a noob to maven)

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/17#issuecomment-12202753.

Stéphane NICOLAS,
OCTO Technology
Développeur & Consultant Android / Java
..........................................................
50, Avenue des Champs-Elysées
75008 Paris
+33 (0)6.26.32.34.09
www.octo.com - blog.octo.com
www.usievents.com
...........................................................

[jeffdgr8]

I have installed Maven and tried following the directions here and get errors when trying to build with Maven:

$ mvn clean install -Pant
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building Robospice - Sample Core 1.0.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[WARNING] The POM for com.octo.android.robospice:robospice:jar:1.3.2-SNAPSHOT is missing, no dependency information available
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 1.530s
[INFO] Finished at: Fri Jan 18 03:34:27 MST 2013
[INFO] Final Memory: 7M/243M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal on project robospice-sample-core: Could not resolve dependencies for project com.octo.android.robospice:robospice-sample-core:apk:1.0.0-SNAPSHOT: Could not find artifact com.octo.android.robospice:robospice:jar:1.3.2-SNAPSHOT -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/DependencyResolutionException

[rciovati]

Before building the sample you should build the entire library :-)

git clone [email protected]:octo-online/robospice.git
cd robospice
mvn clean install

2013/1/18 Jeff Lockhart [email protected]

I have installed Maven and tried following the directions herehttps://github.com/octo-online/robospice/wiki/Using-RoboSpice-without-Maven-2and get errors when trying to build with Maven:

$ mvn clean install -Pant
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building Robospice - Sample Core 1.0.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[WARNING] The POM for com.octo.android.robospice:robospice:jar:1.3.2-SNAPSHOT is missing, no dependency information available
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 1.530s
[INFO] Finished at: Fri Jan 18 03:34:27 MST 2013
[INFO] Final Memory: 7M/243M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal on project robospice-sample-core: Could not resolve dependencies for project com.octo.android.robospice:robospice-sample-core:apk:1.0.0-SNAPSHOT: Could not find artifact com.octo.android.robospice:robospice:jar:1.3.2-SNAPSHOT -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/DependencyResolutionException

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Riccardo Ciovati

[jeffdgr8]

Ah, important to note. Thanks. I'll also note I needed to make sure I had an environment variable ANDROID_HOME set to the Android SDK path as well as a device attached for the tests to run during compile (although they never seemed to actually run anything, always a 0 next to run). There were also a number of [WARNING] lines outputted. But all is working. Now to integrate in my own code. Thanks!

[AfzalivE]

I think if you run mvn clean package, it won't need a device.

[stephanenicolas]

If you want to build the library, you only need a device to run the tests of RoboSpice (over 140 tests..that can be long). Then you can use this command line to skip them :

mvn clean install -DskipTests=true

Is it possible to close this issue ?

As of release 1.4.0 (to be released next week), RoboSpice has improved its documentation in a couple of ways to help new RoboSpice users :

• new samples for every extension of RoboSpice
• new setup pages for maven and non maven users (should be ready soon)

Is there any thing we can do to make it even easier to use RoboSpice ?