Compiling Sencha GXT showcase
I work professionally using GWT and Sencha GXT. Sencha offers a showcase, which is a huge help to understand their components. Sometimes I need to alter their examples in order to test something. Copying all necessary files is quite laborious. Since the source code is provided along with the library, I decided to set it up under Eclipse. In this article, I want to share all the steps and pitfalls with you.
Requirements
- GWT 2.4 (for GXT 3.0.x) or GWT 2.5+ (for GXT 3.1.x)
- Java 1.6
Keep in mind: GXT 3.0 won't work with GWT 2.5+, and GXT 3.1 won't work with GWT 2.4.
Create Eclipse project
- Select "New Project" → "Google" → "Web Application Project"
- Project name:
GXT-Examples
- Package:
com.sencha.gxt
- Uncheck "Use Google App Engine" and "Generate project sample code".
- Project name:
Copy files
- Download and unzip the GXT library
- Copy the subfolders from
examples-src\
into yoursrc
folder - Unzip
gxt-examples-3.x.war
(you might need to change the extension to.zip
first) - Copy
web.xml
and thelib
folder fromWEB-INF
(extracted war folder) intowar/WEB-INF
, exceptgwt-servlet.jar
(this should already exist in your project) - For GXT 3.0.x: copy
gxt-chart-3.0.x.jar
,gxt-legacy-3.0.x.jar
anduibinder-bridge-2.4.0.jar
intowar/WEB-INF/lib
- For GXT 3.1.x: copy
gxt-chart-3.0.x.jar
,gxt-theme-neptune.jar
andgxt-themebuilder.jar
intowar/WEB-INF/lib
- Add all libraries to your build path (select all → Build Path → Add to Build Path)
- Copy all files and folders from your extracted war file, except
WEB-INF
, into/war
Run the showcase
Run the
com.sencha.gxt.explorer.Explorer.gwt.xml
("Run as" → "Web Application") → SelectexplorerGray.html
This should fail with the following exception:
org.apache.openjpa .persistence.ArgumentException: This configuration disallows runtime optimization, but the following listed types were not enhanced at build time or at class load time with a javaagent:
- com.sencha.gxt.examples .resources.server.data.Music
- com.sencha.gxt.examples .resources.server.data.Folder
Add a Java agent: "Run" → "Run Configuration" → Select
GXT-Examples
under "Web Application" → "Arguments" → Add to VM arguments (jar version might be different):-javaagent:${project_loc:GXT-Examples}\war\WEB-INF\lib\openjpa-all-2.1.0.jar
If the Google plugin removes this argument, make the run configuration read-only: "Common tab" → "Select Shared file" → "Apply" → Close
Select the *.launch file in your root project directory → "Properties" → "Read-only" → "OK".
Run your configuration one more time. This time the Sencha Explorer should launch in your browser after a while. Have fun experimenting!