Keith, Thanks you for taking this on!
I think you've got a decent grasp of the issues; I've basically been forcing the GWT project to have a different structure than is recommended/required because I can't get the maven plugin to work right otherwise. My answers to your questions (but mostly because of how broken things are) go something like this: - I don't create new projects (or haven't lately), so I'm useless here. - I compile at the command line (mvn gwt:compile) -- I also use m2eclipse plugin (http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/ update/), but in a GWT context, it's not terribly reliable about picking up changes I've made in one file that break compilation in other files. - I haven't succeeded in debugging with Eclipse, and mostly don't try. (The server side of the app is GAE-python; I'm sure it's possible, but hasn't been worth the neurons.) - I run unit tests at the command line (mvn test) - I don't really create a war. Mostly, I link (or, for real deployment, copy & check in) the /html directory of my python app to the output directory of the GWT project I should note that I'm a particularly tough case--this project has been around since (?before?) GWT-1.5 (and certainly before java was available on the appengine), so we had to do something about the transition to the war structure. We also used the totsp maven plugin to start with, and had to do something to move to the current codehaus plugin. Mostly, that "something" in both cases was a combination of hacking and finessing. (I'm not a real maven expert either, so I probably haven't worked out the right answers. But they work.) Hope this helps; I'm happy to send along a (redacted) pom if it would help. Best, LH On Jan 13, 11:35 am, Keith Platfoot <kplatf...@google.com> wrote: > Hi folks, > > For the next release of the Google Plugin for Eclipse, we're planning on > making a few tweaks to make life easier for Maven users. That's right: we've > seen the stars on the issue tracker, and have decided it's time to act. I > would say, "we feel your pain", but the problem is, we don't. Which is to > say, nobody on the plugin team actually uses Maven (everybody around here > uses Ant). However, I've been researching Maven to determine exactly what > changes we should make to allow it to work more seamlessly with the Google > Eclipse Plugin. I've read the relevant issues and groups postings, so I > think I have a rough idea of what needs to happen. However, before we go and > make any changes, I wanted to ask for the community's advice. So, here are > some questions for you. > > What is the typical workflow of a GWT developer using Maven? > > I've installed Maven and the gwt-maven-plugin 1.2-SNAPSHOT and managed to > create a GWT 2.0 app with the provided archetype. After some tweaking, I'm > able to GWT compile, debug with Eclipse (though not via our Web App launch > configuration), create a WAR, etc. However, I'm more interested in how you all > are doing things. For example: > > How do you... > > - Create a new project? > - Perform GWT compiles? > - Debug with Eclipse? > - Run your tests? > - Create a WAR for deployment? > > What specific pain points do Maven users run into when using the Google > plugin? > > I know one major obstacle is that our plugin currently treats the war > directory as both an input (e.g. static resources, WEB-INF/lib, > WEB-INF/web.xml) and output (WEB-INF/classes, GWT artifacts like nocache.js > and hosted.html) . Maven convention, however, says that /src/main/webapp > should be input only, which means that hosted mode (or development mode, in > GWT 2.0) needs to run from a staging directory (e.g. gwt:run creates a /war > folder on demand). This mismatch results in the plugin creating spurious > validation errors and breaks our Web App launch configuration. > > Another incompatibility is that Maven projects depend on the GWT Jars in the > Maven repo, whereas our plugin expects to always find a GWT SDK library on > the classpath. > > Are my descriptions of these pain points accurate? If so, one possible > solution would be for the plugin to allow the definition of an input war > directory (e.g. src/main/webapp) separate from a launch-time staging > directory, and for us to relax the requirement that all GWT projects must > have a GWT SDK library. So tell me: would these changes adequately reduce > the friction between Maven and the Google plugin? > > Also, are there other problems Maven users are running into when using the > plugin? > > Thanks in advance for all feedback, > > Keith, on behalf of the Google Plugin for Eclipse team
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