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Maven

I did some experimenting with Maven, and thought other developers might be interested.

Maven vs Ant

In ant, you define each task for each project, in build.xml. In maven, all the tasks are provided for you (and there are tons). Maven calls tasks 'goals'. They run using properties you specify in your project definition (project.xml). So all you have to do is define some properties and you can run tons of tasks. If you need a plugin to do a goal, it downloads and installs it automatically.

If you want to add more, you can define your own goals for your project in maven.xml. Any ant task can be called from a goal.

With maven, one project can extend another, inheriting any properties that are not overridden.

Maven with jEdit

Building jEdit with maven instead of Ant could have some advantages. If you wanted to build the user's guide, you wouldn't have to install xalan yourself. Running the appropriate goal would install xalan for you, and build the user's guide, all in one command.

Most of the properties defined in a PluginName.props file are already required for project.xml. jEdit could parse project.xml or build.xml instead of having a separate properties file.

Maven and plugins

For people who want to create jEdit plugins, and aren't familiar with ant or maven, I think maven would be much easier to use, since they can simply copy another plugin's project.xml and replace a few properties.

jEdit could also provide a default plugin project definition, which plugin project definitions could extend, making plugin build files even simpler.

Making custom jEdit distros

There have been inquiries, mainly from teachers, about making custom jEdit distros, so they can have the same setup on all their lab computers, and so students can install the same setup at home. I think these people could use a customized project.xml to install plugins and set properties to their liking.

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Topic ApacheMaven . { Edit | Attach | Ref-By | Printable | Diffs | r1.2 | > | r1.1 | More }
Revision r1.2 - 23 Jan 2004 - 21:05 GMT - Brad Mace %WEBCOPYRIGHT%