Create a GWT Maven Project

Question

I'm trying to create a new project with Eclipse in order to create GWT application under maven 2 system. I have create the project with the follow mvn command

mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeRepository=repo1.maven.org -DarchetypeGroupId=org.codehaus.mojo -DarchetypeArtifactId=gwt-maven-plugin -DarchetypeVersion=2.3.0

I have installed the follow eclipse plugins: * m2eclipse * egit * gwt plugin

Here my POM file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">

  <!-- POM file generated with GWT webAppCreator -->
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>com.mobc3.paperquid</groupId>
  <artifactId>Backoffice</artifactId>
  <packaging>war</packaging>
  <version>1.0.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <name>GWT Maven Archetype</name>

  <properties>
    <!-- Convenience property to set the GWT version -->
    <gwtVersion>2.3.0</gwtVersion>
    <!-- GWT needs at least java 1.5 -->
    <maven.compiler.source>1.5</maven.compiler.source>
    <maven.compiler.target>1.5</maven.compiler.target>
    <webappDirectory>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}</webappDirectory>
  </properties>

  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.gwt</groupId>
      <artifactId>gwt-servlet</artifactId>
      <version>2.3.0</version>
      <scope>runtime</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.gwt</groupId>
      <artifactId>gwt-user</artifactId>
      <version>2.3.0</version>
      <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>  
    <dependency>
      <groupId>junit</groupId>
      <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
      <version>4.7</version>
      <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>

  <build>
    <!-- Generate compiled stuff in the folder used for developing mode -->
    <outputDirectory>${webappDirectory}/WEB-INF/classes</outputDirectory>

<plugins>

      <!-- GWT Maven Plugin -->
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
        <artifactId>gwt-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.3.0</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <goals>
              <goal>compile</goal>
              <goal>test</goal>
              <goal>i18n</goal>
              <goal>generateAsync</goal>
            </goals>
          </execution>
        </executions>
        <!-- Plugin configuration. There are many available options, see gwt-maven-plugin 
          documentation at codehaus.org -->
        <configuration>
          <runTarget>Backoffice.html</runTarget>
          <hostedWebapp>${webappDirectory}</hostedWebapp>
          <i18nMessagesBundle>com.mobc3.paperquid.backoffice.client.Messages</i18nMessagesBundle>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>

      <!-- Copy static web files before executing gwt:run -->
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.1.1</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <phase>compile</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>exploded</goal>
            </goals>
          </execution>
        </executions>
        <configuration>
          <webappDirectory>${webappDirectory}</webappDirectory>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>

    </plugins>
  </build>

</project>

I can compile and deploy my application using the linux shell but I have many problems to build and run the application inside eclipse.

I haven't found any tutorial that explain how to create step by step a GWT application under maven inside eclipse.

Can someone help me?

Answer 1

One more option:

• Make a gwt project by using the gwt plugin in Eclipse. Now you have an Eclipse gwt project.
• Select the project in Project Explorer, right-click it, then choose Configure. Then select Convert to Maven Project. Now you get a gwt-maven project.
• Now add necessary dependencies to pom.xml.

Answer 2

Here is the relevant (I think) section from my pom setup when I was running my GWT app with the gwt:run goal:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
  <artifactId>gwt-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.3.0</version>
  <configuration>
    <runTarget>/ModuleName.html</runTarget>
    <modules>
      <module>${project.groupId}.package.ModuleName</module>
    </modules>
    <copyWebapp>true</copyWebapp>
  </configuration>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <configuration>
        <extraParam>true</extraParam>
      </configuration>
      <goals>
        <goal>compile</goal>
      </goals>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>

I should say, though, that I now use the GWT Eclipse Plugin to run my app within Eclipse, so it's been a while since I used this configuration. From what I remember reading, the "copyWebapp" "true" is one of the key pieces of configuration. It also helped me to specify the module name directly, because the gwt-maven-plugin sometimes had problems locating it.