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<h1>Ant PlugIn for VisualAge for Java</h1>
<a name="authors"></a>by
<ul>
  <li>Wolf Siberski (<a href="mailto:wolf.siberski@tui.de">
    wolf.siberski@tui.de</a>)</li>
  <li>Christoph Wilhelms (<a href="mailto:christoph.wilhelms@tui.de">
    christoph.wilhelms@tui.de</a>)</li>
</ul>
Version 1.0 - 2000/11/09<br>
<hr>
<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li>
  <li><a href="#installation">Installation</a></li>
  <li><a href="#usage">Usage</a></li>
  <li><a href="#faq">Frequently Asked Questions</a></li>
  <li><a href="#va_versions">Visual Age Versions</a></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h2><a name="introduction"></a>Introduction</h2>
Visual Age for Java is a great Java IDE, but it lacks decent build support
for creating deliveries. On the other hand, Ant supports the build process
very good, but is (at least at the moment) command line based. So we decided
to write a small visual Ant frontend to make running Ant from VAJ possible.
We use the Tool API to integrate Ant in VisualAge for Java. In combination
with the VAJ targets (vajload, vajexport, vajimport) you can load defined
defined versions of projects into your workspace, export the source code,
compile it with an external compiler and build a jar without leaving the
IDE. Of course compile messages are viewed in a logging window. Concluding:
This tool provides a comfortable deployment VAJ has not (out of the box)!<br>
<hr>
<h2><a name="installation"></a>Installation</h2>
At the moment the installation has it's rough edges. If something described
below doesn't work for You, it's probably not Your fault but incomplete/wrong
instructions. In this case, please contact one of the <a href="#authors">
authors</a>.<br>
We assume <font face="Courier">C:\IBMVJava</font> as VAJ install directory.
If You have installed it elsewhere, adapt the pathes below. Execute following
steps to get the PlugIn up and running:
<ul>
  <li>import the Ant sources into VAJ.</li>
  <li>import an appropriate XML parser to VAJ (we use Xerces 1.2.0 and are
    happy with it). Unfortunately the XML parser delivered with VAJ (in the
    project 'IBM XML Parser for Java') doesn't work with Ant. You have to
    remove that project (temporarily) from the workspace before importing
    another XML implementation.</li>
  <li>Create the directory <font face="Courier">
    C:\IBMVJava\ide\tools\org-apache-tools-ant</font>.</li>
  <li>export the Ant and XML parser class files into this directory. Be sure
    to select class files and resources. Sources don't have to be exported.
    Some optional tasks have errors and can't be exported when You don't have
    the necessary packages in Your workspace (e.g. junit task, ejbc task).
    If You need this tasks either import these packages into VAJ, too,
    or copy the .class files directly from the binary distribution</li>
  <li>copy <font face="Courier">default.ini</font> (in
    <font face="Courier">jakarta-ant\src\...\taskdefs\optional\ide</font>)
    to <font face="Courier">
    C:\IBMVJava\ide\tools\org-apache-tools-ant\default.ini</font>.</li>
  <li>if&nbsp; you want to access this help from the Workbench, create the
    directory <font face="Courier">
    C:\IBMVJava\ide\tools\org-apache-tools-ant\doc</font> and copy the files
    <font face="Courier">VAJAntTool.html</font>,
    <font face="Courier">toolmenu.gif</font> and
    <font face="Courier">anttool1.gif</font> to it.</li>
  <li>VAJ has to be restarted to recognize the new tool.</li>
  <li>Now if You open the context menu of a project, You should see the entry
    'Ant Build' in the Tools submenu (see <a href="#usage">Usage</a>).</li>
  <li>Make sure the tool works as expected. Now You can remove Ant and the
    imported XML parser from Your workspace (and optionally add the IBM parser
    again).</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h2><a name="usage"></a>Usage</h2>
Beeing sure the tool is installed correctly and your Ant build file is
configured, it is really easy to use.<br>
Go to your Workbench, select the project you want to deploy and open
its context menu. In the submenu <i>Tools</i> you should find the new
entry <i>Ant Build</i>. Klick it to start the tool!
<p><center><img src="toolmenu.gif" border="0" height="246" width="393">
</center></p>
After a short time this frame should pop up:
<p><center><img src="anttool1.gif" border="0" height="222" width="389">
</center></p>
This frame contains the following:
<ul>
  <li>A menubar with some options described later</li>
  <li>The name of your selected VAJ project</li>
  <li>An entry field for the Ant XML buildfile with a browse [...] button. The
    full qualified filename, including the directory is needed here.</li>
  <li>A list with tasks specified in the buildfile. Until your first save of
    the build info (described later), this list will be empty. When loading a
    build file by the <i>Reload Project</i> button, this list is filled with
    all tasks which have a description attribute. The task you select in this
    list will be executed when pressing the <i>Execute Task</i> button.</li>
  <li>A pulldown box for specifying the log level.</li>
  <li>Three buttons. Two of them I have already described and the third one
    is just the <i>Close </i>button to exit our small tool!</li>
</ul>
After you have set up your buildprocess you might find it useful to save
the data you've just entered, so we implemented an option to save it to
the repository into your selected project. Make sure that you have an open
edition of your project before selecting <i>Save BuildInfo To Repository</i>
from the <i>File</i> menu. Now your information is saved to this edition
of your project and will be loaded automatically the next time you start
<i>Ant Build</i>.<br>
If you have closed the log window accidentally, it can be reopened with
the <i>Log</i> item in the <i>File</i> menu, and if you want to know who
developed this, just select <i>About</i> in the <i>Help</i> menu.
<br>
<hr>
<h2><a name="faq"></a>Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<p>F: I want to load, export and build more then one Visual Age project to
one jar! How to?<br>
A: The VA tasks are able to load and export several Projects all at
once. You can choose whatever project you like for storing the tool
information, it doesn't really matter.</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="va_versions"></a>VisualAge for Java Versions</h2>
This tool integration has been tested with versions 3.02 and 3.5 of VisualAge
for Java. It should run with the 2.x Versions, too, but we didn't try.
The graphical user interface is build with AWT so it is JDK independent
by now!<br>
<hr>
<p><center>Copyright &copy; 2000 Apache Software Foundation.
All rights Reserved.</center></p>
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