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Set up the development environment

Openflexo is built with Gradle, not Maven — stray pom.xml files you may find in some repos are not the build. There is no single top-level repository: the workspace is a set of independently-cloned git repos (connie, pamela, gina, diana, openflexo-core, openflexo-*, the editors…), and cross-project development goes through the openflexo-dev composite build, which resolves each included project against local source instead of a published snapshot.

1. Clone openflexo-dev​

git clone https://github.com/openflexo-team/openflexo-dev.git

Its settings.gradle declares one includeBuild '../<project>' per repository — most already active, a handful commented out (research prototypes, or a technology not everyone builds locally; see the repository map for which). Clone the projects you intend to work on as siblings of openflexo-dev; for a project whose line is commented out, un-comment it. A cloned project whose includeBuild line stays commented, or a project you never clone at all, is resolved as a published jar from the Openflexo Artifactory instead of local source.

2. Generate the parsers, once, before the first compile​

Several modules (connie/*-parser, openflexo-core/fml-parser, openflexo-core/fml-cli, the technology-adapter parser modules) are generated from SableCC grammars under src/main/sablecc/*.sablecc. A plain compile does not trigger generation — run this once, before the first build or IDE import, and again whenever a grammar changes:

./gradlew sableccParser

Generated sources land in build/generated-sources/ and are never committed or hand-edited.

3. Build​

./gradlew compile     # compile everything included in openflexo-dev
./gradlew test        # non-UI tests — read the printed summary, ignoreFailures hides red tests
./gradlew testAll     # every test, including UI (needs a display)

Using Eclipse​

  • Install a recent Eclipse with Buildship (the Gradle integration) — most recent Eclipse releases ship it; otherwise install it from Help ▸ Eclipse Marketplace….

    Install Buildship

  • Clone openflexo-dev from the Git perspective, then Import… ▸ Existing Gradle Project, pointing at the openflexo-dev checkout and using the Gradle wrapper.

    Import openflexo-dev

  • Clone and import each project you intend to work on the same way, then un-comment its includeBuild line in openflexo-dev/settings.gradle and right-click openflexo-dev ▸ Gradle ▸ Refresh Gradle Project.

  • Run ./gradlew sableccParser (step 2 above) before importing a project with a *-parser module, or Eclipse will report the generated classes as missing.

  • To run a packaged application from Eclipse: create a Run Configuration with main class org.openflexo.Flexo, module set to one of the existing packages under openflexo-packaging (flexomaintainer, flexosemantics, …), and program argument dev.

    Launch configuration

Using IntelliJ IDEA​

  • File ▸ New ▸ Project from Version Control to clone openflexo-dev, then reload it as a Gradle project from the Gradle tool window.

    Import openflexo-dev

  • Clone each project you intend to work on the same way, check out the branch matching openflexo-dev, un-comment its includeBuild line in openflexo-dev/settings.gradle, and reload the Gradle project again.

  • Run ./gradlew sableccParser before working on a project with a *-parser module.

  • To run a packaged application: Add Configuration… ▸ Application, JRE per the component's own requirement, module set to one of the existing packages under openflexo-packaging, main class org.openflexo.Flexo, program argument dev.

    Launch configuration

Recommendations​

  • Use the Eclipse code formatter published in openflexo-production (EclipseCodeFormatter.xml), configured to run on save.
  • See Code standards for the conventions beyond formatting.