There are two different and very distinct kinds of builds used during the development and deployment of a WebObjects project.
Both Incremental and Deployment builds make use of some common files to tell them where to look for resources needed to build an application or framework. They include:
woproject.jar
library is embedded in WOLips to help Eclipse, Ant (when triggered from within Eclipse) and Maven build a valid WebObjects Application (.woa
) or WebObjects Framework (.framework
) bundle. If you are going to build your project using Hudson/Jenkins, then it will also need access to this library~/Users/yourusername/Library/Application Support/WOLips/wolips.properties
/home/<user>/Library/Application Support/WOLips/wolips.properties
C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Library\Application Support\WOLips\wolips.properties
While you are writing your classes and Components (.html, .wod, etc.) the incremental builder is running in the background continuously compiling and validating your code against your projects other code and dependencies. The only time it isn't running is when you turn off "Build Automatically" in Eclipse under the Project menu.
When you are building automatically, you can launch your application at any time from within WOLips/Eclipse by right-clicking on the project and selecting either Run As — > WO Application or Debug As — > WO Application with no need to manually compile or install any source code either from your current project, or from any frameworks in the workspace that your project depends upon. WOLips/Eclipse takes care of resolving dependencies for things that are not in the locations they will be in in a deployed .woa
or .framework
bundle. The Incremental Builder does not use Ant or Maven.
Just because your project runs fine in Eclipse/WOLips does not necessarily mean it will build when using Ant or Maven. If you haven't made changes to the defaults and are doing a standard deployment then it should just work, but if you've modified install locations or are using source (as opposed to binary) frameworks then you will likely have additional steps that you'll need to do complete prior to being able to use Ant or Maven to build. |
The process of building WebObjects Applications and Frameworks for Deployment is more complicated and requires any depended-upon frameworks to already be compiled and installed in defined (but customizable) locations. Building and Installing of both Frameworks and Applications can be also be done directly in Eclipse, but it can also be done from the Command Line or better yet, using a Continuous Integration Server like Hudson/Jenkins. Use of Hudson/Jenkins to build your Applications is highly recommended.
The process and options vary slightly between Frameworks and Applications, but they share many fundamental concepts.