Seam Eclipse project structure (newbie question)

[tptackab]

I'm still rather new at Seam (and web development) and I'm finding it difficult to setup a Seam POJO project using a standard WTP JSF 1.2 (dynamic web) project. I understand the packaging structure defined in the Seam reference doc; however, I'm unsure as to how that would translate into my development project structure.

I'm using Eclipse 3.3 + WTP JSF 1.2. When I create a new project, Eclipse creates (and expects) a structure like this:

my-application/
 src/
 com.myapp.foo.java
 com.myapp.bar.java
 ...
 WebContent/
 index.html
 index.xhtml
 foopage.xhtml
 barpage.xhtml
 META-INF/
 MANIFEST.MF
 WEB-INF/
 faces-config.xml
 web.xml
 LIB/
 el-api.jar
 el-ri.jar
 jsf-facelets.jar
 ...

The Seam reference document (J2EE/pojo) example shows the following packaging:

my-application.war/
 META-INF/
 MANIFEST.MF
 WEB-INF/
 web.xml
 components.xml
 faces-config.xml
 lib/
 jboss-seam.jar
 jboss-seam-ui.jar
 el-api.jar
 el-ri.jar
 jsf-facelets.jar
 hibernate3.jar
 hibernate-annotations.jar
 ...
 my-application.jar/
 META-INF/
 MANIFEST.MF
 seam.properties
 hibernate.cfg.xml
 org/
 jboss/
 myapplication/
 User.class
 Login.class
 Register.class
 ...
 login.jsp
 register.jsp
 ...

The example above shows the project source JARd up with seam.properties and the hibernate config files. Is it necessary to create this JAR, i.e can those files "live" in src/, the web root, or WEB-INF during development? Can I deploy those files exploded somewhere else in the standard Eclipse-built war structure during development?

My best guess would be as follows:

my-application/
 src/
 com.myapp.foo.java
 com.myapp.bar.java
 ...
 WebContent/
 index.html
 index.xhtml
 foopage.xhtml
 barpage.xhtml
 META-INF/
 MANIFEST.MF
 WEB-INF/
 faces-config.xml
 web.xml
 components.xml
 seam.properties
 LIB/
 jboss-seam.jar
 jboss-seam-ui.jar
 el-api.jar
 el-ri.jar
 jsf-facelets.jar
 hibernate3.jar
 hibernate-annotations.jar
 ...

I've not had any luck with the above structure so far, but that might be becuase of other configuration issues, missing libs, ingnorant newbie, etc. :-)

Am I on the right track?

If you've accomplished this in Eclipse, I would very much appreciate an example.

Thanks!

[pmuir]

Our recommendation is to use seam-gen, and the eclipse project it creates for you.

[pmuir]

Which isn't WTP based.

[tptackab]

Thanks for the responses Pete. I've used Seam-gen, and it's very cool in many ways, but I've run into too many issues with that build structure - mostly related to the fact that Eclipse/WTP doesn't recognize it as a web app. I'll admit it might be due to my inexperience, but it ends up costing me more time than it saves. I've had much more success using the standard projects created by WTP - unfortunately they were without Seam.

I would prefer to fit things into the WTP structure if possible.

[asavitsky]

"tptackab" wrote:
My best guess would be as follows:

my-application/
 src/
 com.myapp.foo.java
 com.myapp.bar.java
 ...
 WebContent/
 index.html
 index.xhtml
 foopage.xhtml
 barpage.xhtml
 META-INF/
 MANIFEST.MF
 WEB-INF/
 faces-config.xml
 web.xml
 components.xml
 seam.properties
 LIB/
 jboss-seam.jar
 jboss-seam-ui.jar
 el-api.jar
 el-ri.jar
 jsf-facelets.jar
 hibernate3.jar
 hibernate-annotations.jar
 ...

...

Am I on the right track?

In short, yes, you are. The standard WAR structire (without application code in JAR) works ok for Seam. I'm currently using Eclipse 3.2 (waiting for 3.3 to hit GA) + WTP 1.5 (again, I'm behind you there), and my setup is pretty much the one you've shown, with only one difference: all JARs are instead placed in my-application/lib, and linked to the project as "J2EE Module Dependencies". It's only a matter of taste though, placing them in WEB-INF/lib would work just the same (I tried).

And just for your reference, here's the list of JARs I have in the project, in case you're trying to figure out which ones you're missing:

lib/commons/commons-beanutils-1.7.0.jar
lib/commons/commons-codec-1.3.jar
lib/commons/commons-collections-3.2.jar
lib/commons/commons-digester-1.7.jar
lib/commons/commons-fileupload-1.1.1.jar
lib/commons/commons-lang-2.2.jar
lib/commons/commons-logging-1.1.jar
lib/commons/itext-2.0.1.jar
lib/commons/log4j-1.2.13.jar
lib/jpa/antlr-2.7.6.jar
lib/jpa/asm.jar
lib/jpa/cglib-2.1.3.jar
lib/jpa/dom4j-1.6.1.jar
lib/jpa/ejb3-persistence.jar
lib/jpa/hibernate-3.2.3.jar
lib/jpa/hibernate-annotations-3.3.0.jar
lib/jpa/hibernate-commons-annotations.jar
lib/jpa/hibernate-entitymanager-3.3.1.jar
lib/jpa/hibernate-validator-3.0.0.jar
lib/jpa/javassist.jar
lib/jpa/jboss-archive-browsing.jar
lib/jsf/ajax4jsf-1.1.0.jar
lib/jsf/el-api.jar
lib/jsf/el-ri.jar
lib/jsf/jsf-api.jar
lib/jsf/jsf-facelets-1.1.11.jar
lib/jsf/jsf-impl.jar
lib/jsf/oscache-2.3.2.jar
lib/mc/concurrent.jar
lib/mc/jboss-common-jdbc-wrapper.jar
lib/mc/jboss-common.jar
lib/mc/jboss-container.jar
lib/mc/jboss-dependency.jar
lib/mc/jboss-j2ee.jar
lib/mc/jboss-j2se.jar
lib/mc/jboss-jca.jar
lib/mc/jboss-local-jdbc.jar
lib/mc/jboss-microcontainer.jar
lib/mc/jboss-security.jar
lib/mc/jboss-system.jar
lib/mc/jboss-transaction.jar
lib/mc/jnpserver.jar
lib/mc/xercesImpl.jar
lib/seam/jboss-seam-debug.jar
lib/seam/jboss-seam-pdf.jar
lib/seam/jboss-seam-ui.jar
lib/seam/jboss-seam.jar

About half of them is the microcontainer, really, so if you're using embedded EJB, YMMV.

HTH,

Alex

[tptackab]

Great! Thanks Alex. It's good to know I'm not too far off track. The list of jars will be a big help.

Tom

[tptackab]

Thanks once again Alex. I was able to get my app deployed from WTP using a structure nearly identical to the one you described. I got the jars from a Netbeans Seam generated war. Now I just have to figure out which of the jars I'll really use...;-)

Here's the WTP project structure as it appears in Eclipse for anyone that might be interested:

my-application/
 src/
 com.myapp.foo.java
 com.myapp.bar.java
 ...
 META-INF/
 persistance.xml
 seam.properties
 security.drl
 messages.properties
 WebContent/
 index.html
 index.xhtml
 foopage.xhtml
 barpage.xhtml
 META-INF/
 MANIFEST.MF
 WEB-INF/
 faces-config.xml
 web.xml
 components.xml
 seam.properties
 LIB/
 ajax4jsf-1.1.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
 antlr-2.7.6.jar
 antlr-3.0ea8.jar
 commons-jci-core-1.0-406301.jar
 commons-jci-janino-2.4.3.jar
 drools-compiler-3.0.5.jar
 drools-core-3.0.5.jar
 el-api.jar
 el-ri.jar
 janino-2.4.3.jar
 jboss-seam-debug.jar
 jboss-seam-ioc.jar
 jboss-seam-mail.jar
 jboss-seam-pdf.jar
 jboss-seam-remoting.jar
 jboss-seam-ui.jar
 jboss-seam.jar
 jbpm-3.1.4.jar
 jsf-facelets.jar
 oscache-2.3.2.jar
 richfaces-3.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
 stringtemplate-2.3b6.jar