WebDSL in Eclipse

Use the following instructions to install the WebDSL Eclipse plugin, the plugin also contains the compiler.

Eclipse with plugin pre-installed

For quick setup, zipped eclipse installations are available with the plugin pre-installed:

Windows: http://webdsl.org/eclipse.zip

Linux: http://webdsl.org/eclipselinux.tar.gz

Mac: http://webdsl.org/eclipsemac.tar.gz

Eclipse 3.5 manual plugin install

• Go to Help -> Install New Software...
• In the "Work with:" text area type: http://webdsl.org/update. Important: uncheck "Group items by category" to make the plugin visible (this works around a known issue)
• Check "WebDSL Editor" and press "Install", accept the license agreement, finish the installation, and finally restart Eclipse.

Eclipse 3.4 manual plugin install

• Go to Help -> Software Updates...
• In the "Available Software" tab, click "Add Site..." and enter: http://webdsl.org/update
• Check "WebDSL Editor" and press "Install", accept the license agreement, finish the installation, and finally restart Eclipse.

Project Wizard

The plugin includes a new project wizard which will help you get started using WebDSL:

• Right-click in the package explorer and select New -> Project...
• Select WebDSL project and click next
• Enter project name (project name in eclipse workspace) and application name (for the WebDSL application).
• Select either MySQL or Sqlite database and enter the required database info (Sqlite is only for quick testing, use MySQL if you can).
• Check "overwrite database when deployed" and click Finish
• The WebDSL project is created and a first build is executed.
• Right-click the project and select 'Run as...' -> 'Run on server'
• Add an apache tomcat 6 server (point it to an extracted binary distribution, available here)
• The application is deployed on tomcat. Manage the server using the 'Servers' eclipse view.
• Go to http://localhost:8080/{applicationname} to see the result.
• Make changes to the app and build the project (ctrl+alt+b or cmd+alt+b), it is automatically deployed.
• You can also use the eclipse-build ant command (drag build.xml to Ant view) for a full build, or eclipse-build-code-only to only build the WebDSL code but not copy the project resources to the deployed directory. eclipse-build is the default target for a build of the project.

Migrating from previous version of the plugin

Since the plugin is being changed a lot at this point, updating the plugin may require a migration of old projects. Simply use the wizard to create a new project and copy the application.ini, *.app webdsl files, and any static content such as images and javascript files to the new project.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues when running the plugin, here are a few things that you should check or try:

• Do you have a Java JDK 6 installed?
• Have you tried installing the plugin in a clean Eclipse classic distribution?
• "Transaction not successfully started" error in log -> check db settings in application.ini, see App Configuration
• "Dispatchservlet class not found" -> rebuild the project and check whether automatic project build of eclipse is enabled
• Currently, renaming the project in eclipse is not fully supported, check .settings/. files and application.ini for project references if you want to rename.
• Subscribe to https://mailman.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/listinfo/webdsl and report your issue, or go to the #webdsl channel on irc.freenode.net