DTU 
 
 

02162: Course on Software Engineering 2 (e14)

In this tutorial, you will learn how to install and use the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers (Eclipse WTP) for developing and running simple web applications on a web server (GlassFish).

 

Up to now, the web application will consist of simple dynamic web pages (JSP and Servlets) only. Later, there will be tutorials for implementing web services and database support (using Derby and Jersey).

 

First, you will install the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers and the GlassFish server; then you will develop a first web application. The steps are explained below. The main steps will also be discussed in the tutorial on Friday, Sept. 5. The tasks should be finished by Sept. 12. Open questions or problems will also be discussed in the tutorial on Sept. 12.

 

Generally, it is enough, if one or two members of each group complete the assignment. But, all students should install the Eclipse WTP and the GlassFish server and have a rough understanding of web projects.

 

Note that the groups do not need to submit their solutions now (even though they should be completed by the given deadlines). All the completed tutorials are to be presented by each group in the "Tutorial presentation" in week 45 (see material and schedule page).

 

Tasks

Here are the tasks for the first assignment with step by step instructions.

 

  1. If you do not have JDK7 installed on your computer install the JDK7. You will find the instructions and necessary downloads here.

     

  2. Next, you need to install Eclipse WTP with GlassFish Tools and the GlassFish4 server. To this end, follow the following steps.

     

    1. Download the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers (Eclipse WTP) for Eclipse luna (4.4) for your platform and install it on your computer. For Windows, it is recommended to use the 64-bit version (eclipse-jee-luna-R-win32-x86_64.zip). Extract the file to some appropriate folder on your computer.

       

      Once extracted, there should be a folder "eclipse" that contains an executable file also called eclipse (eclipse.exe on Windows). You can start this installation of Eclipse by executing this file.

       

    2. Start this new installation of Eclipse as explained above. On the first startup, you will be promted for a folder in which the workspace of Eclipse should be stored. You can choose any folder you like; I suggest to create a new folder with a subfolder called "ws"; on Windows, make sure that the path is short!

       

    3. Once this new Eclipse is running, install the GlassFishTools for Eclipse feature to it. You can do this with Eclipse's install dialog (Help -> Install new Software). In the opended "Install" dialog, first add the following new update site: http://download.oracle.com/otn_software/oepe/luna/.
      To this end, press the "Add" button and enter the above URL and some name.

       

      Then, select this update site in the "Work with" drop down menu, enter GlassFish in the filter field below. Then, the "GlassFish Tools" feature should show up. Select this "GlassFish Tools" feature and follow through the installation dialog (note that you will be asked for accepting the license). Once the installation process is finished, restart Eclipse.

       

    4. Before you can start web applications on GlassFish, you need to install GlassFish first. To this end, download the platform independet version of GlassFish4 from https://glassfish.java.net/getstarted.html (you can click here for downloading the glassfish-4.0.zip file directly).

       

      Unzip this file to some folder which you find appropriate (remeber the path — you will need it in the next step).

       

    5. At last, you need to register the GlassFish server with your Eclipse WTP, so that Eclipse can directly deploy and start your Web applications on the GlassFish sever.

       

      Before you do that, make sure that you have selected JDK7 as your default runtime environment. You can do that in your Eclipse preference (Window->Preferences->Java->Installed JREs).

       

      Normally the "Servers" view should be open in your Eclipse workbench. If it is not, open this view via Window->Show View->Other...->Server->Servers. Once you opened this view (normally, it opens at the bottom of the Eclipse workbench), right-click in it and select "New->Server". Then, in the "New Server Dialog" window select "GlassFish4" in category "GlassFish" and follow through the process; in the dialog "New GlassFish 4.0 Runtime", select the "Browse" button for selecting the directory where you installed your GlassFish4 server (the folder "glassfish" from yor GlassFish4 installation from above). Note that do not need to configure the resources for this server, since you do not have any web projects yet.

       

  3. Now, the installation of Eclipse WTP with GlassFish4 should be complete. To test it, you need to create a simple web project and deploy it. This is done in the steps below.

     

    1. First, create a new web project by File->New->Dynamic Web Project and following through the dialogs (make sure that you create a "dynamic" web project").

       

      Normally, this wizard should create a file "index.jsp" in the folder "WebContent". If such a file is not there you can use this example file instead; make sure to copy it to the folder "WebContent" (and to name it "index.jsp").

       

    2. Now start the GlassFish4 server with this project. You can do this from your Eclipse workbench: Select the project in the Eclipse Project Explorer, right-click on it and choose Run As->Run on Server from the pop up menu.

       

      Once successfully started, Eclipse also starts a web browser on the homepage of this project. It will show the content of your index.jsp.

       

    3. The contents of the above index.jsp is a bit boring (it is just static content). In order to make it more dynamic, you could add some content that is dynamic, such as showing the current date, greeting the user by "good moring" or "good evening" depending on the current time etc. The simplest way of doing this is puting some code like <%= new java.util.Date() %> somewhere to your JSP.

       

      Check whether your new index.jsp works dynamically now by restarting the web application in the same way as discussed above.

       

      Actually JSP is much more powerful than that, which we cannot explain here in full (see links at the bottom of this page for some more details).

       

    4. Now, add a HTML from (see for exmple http://www.tutorialspoint.com/html/html_forms.htm) to your index.jsp (in the version provide above, there is a form already). This form should have an input field for the user's name and a submit button. By using an empty action and the POST method the user's name is posted to the same page again. Then, make sure that the index.jsp greets the user by name, if the user has entered a name.

       

      The value of a posted parameter can be accessed by request.getParameter("yourname") in case the input field had the name "yourname".

       

      Restart your simple web application and make sure that it works as intended.

       

    5. At last, you should try to do the same thing with servlets. Just put a servlet class into a package of your "src" folder in the "Java Resources" folder. First create a new package in the "src" folder and then create a new servlet by New->Servlet. If you want, you can use the example from https://glassfishplugins.java.net/nonav/eclipse36/MyServlet.java to start with.

       

      Next change this servlet so that it has the same functionality as your index.jsp from above. Note that, in a servlet, you can access the value of a posted parameter by request.getParameter("yourname"), too (if request is the name of the request parameter of the respective doGet() or doPost() method.

       

      Test also this servlet of your application. The servlet can accessed in the running web application on the GlassFish server by adding the name of the servlet to the URL of your web application running on GlassFish.

       

    6. Finally, read up a bit more on JSP and Servlets (see links below), and also on the possibilities of the Eclipse WTP IDE (you can do all kinds of things, such as debugging your web application). In particular have a look a the following web page: https://glassfishplugins.java.net/nonav/eclipse36/ — for now, we do not use the database, though. Note that this tutorial referes to older versions of Eclipse and GlassFish; most features, however, are still the same (for the installation, you find the correct URLs, downloads and versions for GlassFish4 and Eclipse luna in the instructions above).

       

Useful links

Here are some links that might be helpful (some of which are mentioned in the above instructions already).

 

 

Ekkart Kindler (), Sept 4, 2014