Setting up a Development Environment for Web Space Server

If you are beginning a Web Space Server-based project, you will probably need to get your developers up and running before your production systems are ready. In order for a developer to do his or her work, an instance of Web Space Server needs to be running on his or her machines. Additionally, to prevent file-locking issues, a developer's version of Web Space Server should not use the embedded database, so a separate database will need to be installed.

Web Space Server uses many open source tools for development which means there are no expensive tools to purchase. Also, developers can choose the tools they are most comfortable with to write code on Web Space Server platform.

Some tools are required in order to develop with Web Space Server:

• Apache Ant 1.7.0 or later.

• A Java Development Kit.

• A Web Space Server-supported database. (MySQL is recommended for a developer machine.)

• The IDE or development environment of your choice.

If you are customizing Web Space Server through the extension environment, you might need a subversion client, or you can also download the Web Space Server source from the web site. See the Web Space Server Developer's Guide for further details.

Developing With Apache Ant

Apache Ant is a build tool that is used extensively by both the Web Space Server source and the extension environment. You can download the latest version of Ant from http://ant.apache.org. After downloading, uncompress the archive into a folder. You then need to set the ANT_HOME environment variable to add binaries to your PATH.

To Set the ANT_HOME Variable on Windows

1. Choose Start -> Control Panel, and double-click the System icon.

2. Click the Advanced tab, and then click the Environment Variables button.

3. Under System Variables, select New to create the ANT_HOME environment variable.

4. Set the variable name to ANT_HOME and the variable value to apache-install-dir\apache-ant-version and click OK.

   For example, the installation directory might be C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.0.

5. Select New again to create the ANT_OPTS environment variable.

6. Set the variable name to ANT_OPTS and the variable value to -Xms256M -Xmx512M and click OK.

7. Select the PATH environment variable and select Edit.

8. Add %ANT_HOME%\bin to the end or beginning of the PATH.

9. Click OK and then click OK again.

10. To test the setting, type ant at a command prompt and press Return.

    • If a Build not found error message appears, you have correctly installed Ant.

    • If you do not see an error message, check the environment variable settings and make sure they are pointing to the correct directory locations.

To Set the ANT_HOME Variable on a Linux or Macintosh System

1. In your home folder, open the .bash_profile file in the root directory.

2. Add the following lines to the file, substituting the directory where you installed Ant:

   ANT_HOME=/apache-install-dir/apache-ant-version
   ANT_OPTS="-Xms256M -Xmx512M"
   PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:$ANT_HOME/bin
   export ANT_HOME ANT_OPTS PATH

3. To test the setting, type ant at a command prompt and press Return.

   • If a Build not found error message appears, you have correctly installed Ant.

   • If you do not see an error message, check the environment variable settings and make sure they are pointing to the correct directory locations.