In this section, we will work on setting the project up for collaboration, and configure the local environment. After this, we will edit some XML files, which will change the lists, views, and layout of our application. This step will enable us to test and deploy our application locally on our own (or another) machine.

For more information, visit our Dev Guide - which will help you learn and understand about our development. It also covers most Skyve Framework elements and concepts. In addition, there are many real examples for you to refer to.

3.1. Collaboration

Next, we need to set our application up for collaboration using GitHub.

Why do we need collaboration?

Collaboration will allow another user of your team to edit your application or between Foundry users and developer. So, to enable collaboration, we need to provide our application with a remote endpoint of a new Git repository.

Collaboration with Skyve Foundry

To find out more details on collaboration, go to the Help button in the top right of the Foundry page, and follow the steps for collaboration.

Collaboration

Setup for GitHub

To enable collaboration, firstly sign up or log into a GitHub account. To create a new repository, follow the steps below:

  • Click on the Add button on the top right side to create a new repository

    Create repository

  • Next, enter the name of the repository, make it private, and click on create

    repository name

  • After the repository has been created, you will see the link as shown below. Copy this link.

    Link

  • Next, go to Foundry, open the collaborate tab and paste the link in Remote Endpoint

  • Click on Apply

  • Click on Save

    remote endpoint

  • Then, go to the collaborate tab of your application, describe the changes with a comment, and click on the “commit and push” button

    (Note: “Commit” will put your changes into your local repository and “Push” sends those changes to the remote location)

    commit and push

  • Next, check your project in GitHub

  • Go to GitHub and open the repository to see all the files

    Repository files

You have now successfully created your application and configured it for collaboration!

3.2. Configure your Local Environment

For this section, we have chosen to show how to use Eclipse as the development environment, however, if you prefer, you can use other development environment tools such as IntelliJ, NetBeans, Visual Studio Code, etc. However, if you’re not completely familiar with these, use Eclipse so that you can follow the steps below.

Before you can import the project into Eclipse, you need to download and install Eclipse in your system.

NOTE: do not use the Eclipse EE9 preview, you will need the Jakarta EE Full & Web Distribution

Download and Install Eclipse and JDK

Download and Install Eclipse

NOTE: do not use the Eclipse EE9 preview, you will need the Jakarta EE Full & Web Distribution

Download Eclipse

  • Click on download
  • Then, install Eclipse in your system

Download and Install JDK

  • Install an OpenJDK 17 version from AdoptOpenJDK (or an alternative OpenJDK of your choice)

3.3. Install and Configure Wildfly Server

We need an application server to be able to access the application through our browser. For this we will demonstrate using Red Hat’s Wildfly application server plugin. Skyve apps can be deployed on recent versions of Wildfly (27+).

Install Wildfly Server

You can skip this step if WildFly Server is already installed on your system.

Before installing WildFly Server, make sure JBoss Tools is installed on your system.

To install JBoss Tools, click on Help, then click Eclipse Marketplace.

JBoss tools

In the search bar, enter ‘jboss’, then search.

Select the JBoss Tools version that the search returns, and click Install.

JBoss install

Select the list as shown below

JBoss install selection

To check if JBoss Tools is installed properly, click on Help, then click Eclipse Marketplace.

JBoss tool install

Change to the Installed tab.

If the JBoss Tools plugin is present, you are ready to continue.

JBoss tool plugin

After JBoss Tools is installed properly, follow these steps to install WildFly Server.

  1. Once Eclipse is opened, right-click under the Project Explorer tab and highlight New, then from the pop-out, click on Other

    new-other

  2. Enter text server in the type filter text field, select Server and click the Next button.

    server

  3. Select the WildFly version you wish to work with and click Next (Skyve currently supports versions 27+)

    select server

  4. Click Next again

    select Next

  5. Click on the Download and install runtime link

    install runtime

  6. Select the latest version of WildFly, then click Next

    select runtime

  7. Once you have read the terms of the licence agreement, check the box to accept the terms, and click Next

    accept agreement

  8. Finally, select the path for where you wish your download and install locations to be found, select the appropriate runtime JRE and then click Finish to complete the installation

    download-runtime runtime-jre

  9. Wait for Eclipse to complete the download and installation process before moving on to the next step

3.4. Add Repository in Eclipse

After download and installation of Eclipse and the server, the next step is to add our repository to Eclipse.

  1. Open Eclipse in your system

  2. Click on the Window tab and click on Show View, then Other

    Window

  3. Select Git Repositories and click on open

    Git

  4. Click on Git Repositories in the bottom area of eclipse, right click and select “Clone a Git Repository”…

    Git clone

  5. Get URL from GitHub by going to GitHub and click on Code button.

    Git URL

  6. Copy that link, paste in the Clone window, and click on Next

    Clone Window

  7. Click on Next again

    Clone Next

  8. Choose the directory where you want to put your project and Click on Finish

    Clone Finish

In Git Repositories, we can see our repository is added now!

3.5. Import Project

As we have already created a project in Skyve Foundry, now it is time to import that project into Eclipse to complete changes in the Aged Care app. To import the project in Eclipse, follow the steps below:

  1. Click on File tab in Eclipse and Select import

    import

  2. Select Existing Maven Project from list and click on Next

    Maven

  3. Set your root directory (the folder where you cloned your Git repository to in the previous section) and click on Finish

    Root

You can see your project in the Project Explorer area in Eclipse.

3.6. Set the server

To run our project on the server, we need to set Server in Eclipse first.

  1. Click on Server tab in Eclipse and right click

    Server tab

  2. Click on Add and Remove and then Finish

    Server set

3.7 Configure and Deploy the Skyve Project

Deploy your Skyve project

Once the Wildfly Server is configured, it’s easy to deploy your Skyve project to your WildFly Server.

Firstly, do a maven install to resolve and download dependencies and addins.

  1. From Eclipse, choose Run As->maven install Maven install

Skyve applications can store images and other types of rich content. To do this, Skyve needs to have full access to a folder to store and manage content. You need to create a dedicated folder for Skyve to do this. The content folder can be located anywhere and named whatever you like, however it is easiest to place it inside your eclipse workspace folder (but outside of your project) and name it something simple like content.

  1. Create a folder named content inside your eclipse workspace folder

    Content folder

  2. Open the File window and browse to the content folder (which is in your root folder) and create new folder named agedCare.

    Content folder agedCare

Skyve provides a content management addin to manage your files and content. Place this addin somewhere on your file system - for example, within a folder called addins in your content folder.

  1. Create the addins folder inside your content folder

  2. In eclipse, expand the target folder and copy the skyve-content.zip addins file into the addins folder

    Content addin

    Content addin in place

  3. Open the WildFly deployments folder by right-clicking on the server and clicking on Show In, then clicking on File Browser

    Deploy

  4. Copy the agedCare.json and agedCare-ds.xml and paste in the WildFly deployments folder that you opened in the previous step.

    Copy files

  5. Open the agedCare.json file in your preferred text editor.

Go to the content section and modify the directory setting to tell Skyve where the content folder is located. Note that you must not use backslashes even if you are running on Windows - and the folder path must be terminated with a slash e.g. directory: "C:/eclipse/content/",

Also update the addins section and for the location you created above

json content

Go to the bottom of the file to change the identifier.

json environment and bootstrap

If you want to change the username and password, you can change in the bootstrap section.

Lastly, save and close the file.

  1. Open agedCare-ds.xml file in the text editor,
    1. go to the connection-url and replace /content/agedCare with the content folder address,
    2. and add a new file name for your database
    3. set a username and password and
    4. save the file.

    agedCare-ds

Run your Aged Care application

Part of Skyve’s low-code approach is to generate Java code for you (in the background) so that you don’t have to write large amounts of Java code. We call this step Generate Domain because Java classes will be created representing the domain (the problem domain or area of knowledge) of your project. The domain classes are Java classes that do the work of managing data access and storage for your application.

Generate domain validates and compiles the metadata (XML files) in your project and checks that the application domain is in a valid state. Errors for the developer to fix are written to your console, and if generation is successful, the domain will be compiled to produce Java domain files and unit tests.

To run the Generate Domain command, follow the steps below:

  • Click the Run tab, then click Run Configurations.

Run configurations

  • Enter the text generate in the type filter search field, click the option agedCare - Generate Domain, then click Run.

Run Generate domain

  • Right click the server and click the Start button to start the server.

start server

When your Console Window shows text similar to that shown below, your agedCare app has been deployed and is running on your localhost server (your local machine).

Console

If not, you may try to debug by yourself to find the source of the problem, or Join Us On Slack and ask any questions there. You will receive support from the Skyve team or a community team member.

Access the Aged Care app from your Web Browser at http://localhost:8080/agedCare. Sign in using the default username “setup” and password “setup”.

Aged Care app

Continue to 3.8 List Views