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".

Copy files

• Download and unzip the GXT library
• Copy the subfolders from examples-src\ into your src folder
• Unzip gxt-examples-3.x.war (you might need to change the extension to .zip first)
• Copy web.xml and the lib folder from WEB-INF (extracted war folder) into war/WEB-INF, except gwt-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 and uibinder-bridge-2.4.0.jar into war/WEB-INF/lib
• For GXT 3.1.x: copy gxt-chart-3.0.x.jar, gxt-theme-neptune.jar and gxt-themebuilder.jar into war/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") → Select explorerGray.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!