forge-from-scratch: Shows How Forge Can Generate an Application

Author: Lincoln Baxter, Matej Briskar
Level: Intermediate
Technologies: Forge
Summary: The forge-from-scratch quickstart demonstrates how JBoss Forge can generate a Java EE (JPA, EJB, JAX-RS, JSF) web-enabled database application.
Target Product: WildFly
Source: https://github.com/wildfly/quickstart/

What is it?

The forge-from-scratch quickstart demonstrates how to create a fully Java EE compliant project using JBoss Forge and Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio and deploy it to WildFly Application Server 11 or later.

The generated example will be a standard Maven, Java Web project with JPA, EJB, CDI, JSF with complete JAX-RS endpoints for all data Entities. It will also provide views to Create, Read, Update, and Delete records.

But that is not all! You can use Forge on your new or existing projects to continue to enhance any application.

Note: This quickstart uses the H2 database included with WildFly Application Server 11. It is a lightweight, relational example datasource that is used for examples only. It is not robust or scalable, is not supported, and should NOT be used in a production environment!

System Requirements

The application this project produces is designed to be run on WildFly Application Server 11 or later.

All you need to build this project is Java 8.0 (Java SDK 1.8) or later and Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio 10.0 or greater. These versions of JBoss Developer Studio embed Maven 3.3.3, so you do not need to install it separately.

Run the Quickstart in Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio

JBoss Developer Studio 10.3 ships with Forge 3.5.1.Final.

Generate and Build the Application

  1. Start JBoss Developer Studio.
  2. Open the Forge Console Window. To open it, navigate to menu item Window -> Show View -> Other. Locate Forge -> Forge Console and click OK.
  3. Click the Start button (green triangle) in top right corner of the Forge Console to start the default Forge runtime.
  4. In the Forge Console Window, navigate to the root directory of this quickstart.
    $ cd QUICKSTART_HOME/forge-from-scratch/
    
  5. Notice there is a file in this directory named generate.fsh. Run this file from the Forge console using the run command:
    $ run generate.fsh
    
  6. At this point, Forge creates the new project and builds it.

NOTE: After you run the run generate.fsh command, you will see the following warnings in the Problems window for the generated files. You can ignore these warnings.

  Web XML Problem: location references to "/faces/error.xhtml" that does not exist in web content	web.xml	/forge-example/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF	line 17
  Web XML Problem: location references to "/faces/error.xhtml" that does not exist in web content	web.xml	/forge-example/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF	line 21
  JPA Problem: No connection specified for project. No database-specific validation will be performed.	forge-example

What Did This Create?

This quickstart created a native Java EE 7 application.

Deploy the Generated Application

  1. If you have not yet done so, add the WildFly 11 runtime server to Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio. For general information about how to import a quickstart, add a WildFly server, and build and deploy a quickstart, see Use JBoss Developer Studio or Eclipse to Run the Quickstarts.
  2. Right-click on the project name and choose Run As --> Run on Server. If you have more than one server, choose the WildFly 11 Runtime server. Then click Finish.
  3. Upon successful deployment, a Welcome to Forge Window opens with the application running at the following URL: http://localhost:8080/forge-example/

Server Log: Expected warnings and errors

Note: You will see the following warnings in the server log. You can ignore these warnings.

WFLYTX0013: Node identifier property is set to the default value. Please make sure it is unique.
WFLYDM0111: Keystore /home/user/eap-7.1/standalone/configuration/application.keystore not found, it will be auto generated on first use with a self signed certificate for host localhost
HHH000059: Defining hibernate.transaction.flush_before_completion=true ignored in HEM
HHH000431: Unable to determine H2 database version, certain features may not work

Access the Running Application

The application appears in a 'Welcome to Forge' Window and displays the following:

Welcome to Forge

Your application is running.

The following entities are displayed on the lower left side of the page:

When you click on an entity, you are provided with a form that allows you to:

The running application also provides links to find more information about the Forge.

Undeploy the Application

When you are ready to undeploy the application from WildFly:

  1. Go to the Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio Servers window.
  2. Expand the WildFly Server to see the list of deployed applications.
  3. Choose the forge-example project created by this quickstart, right-click, and choose Remove.
  4. Click OK when asked if you are sure you want to remove resource from the server. You should see the following message:
    INFO  [org.jboss.as.server] (DeploymentScanner-threads - 1) WFLYSRV0009: Undeployed "forge-example.war" (runtime-name: "forge-example.war")
    

Next Steps

Open generate.fsh and take a look inside! There is not much magic happening here. All of the commands used to generate this project are clearly listed just as if they were typed by your own hands.

Play around with creating more entities, relationships, UI, and generating JAX-RS endpoints,all with just a few simple commands.