Motivational News

We are studying development tools in the context of the mobile app arena. Here is a news article on what opportunities that context has generated in the last few years. Apps create 466,000 jobs in the U.S. since 2008.

HelloWeb with Google Web Toolkit

First Light for the semester with the Web Application Starter Project tutorial.

Converting an animated GIF to a tile sheet using ImageMagick

I found a great blog post on converting animated GIFs to a tile sheet to use to animate sprites. ImageMagick is a free graphics utility.

Google Web Toolkit Update

Google just released an update to the Google Web Toolkit, now at version 2.2. There are several enhancements including wider HTML 5 support and a better UI designer. Check out what's new in version 2.2. This page also gives you links to download the latest GWT SDK and the latest GWT eclipse plug-in and designer.

Installing and Configuring the Eclipse IDE for GWT development

Installing and Configuring the Eclipse IDE for GWT development

1. Download and run the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers installer package from the eclipse download website to install the Eclipse IDE on your system.
   
2. Follow the step-by-step instructions to install the Google Plugin for Eclipse and optionally the Google Web Toolkit SDK and the Google App Engine SDK. In the process of the steps, give it a local name of Google Web Toolkit and be sure to select all the components for installation. After the components have downloaded, click the next button and then select the I accept terms of use radio button and then finally click the finish button.
   
3. Run through this tutorial to write your first GWT web app using Eclipse as the IDE.
   
4. Use the same procedure that you followed in step 2 to download and install the GWT Designer. 
5. GWT Designer is a visual interface builder that generates the code as you visually build your user interface. Read the GWT Designer User Guide. 

Java Platform, Micro Edition Software Development Kit 3.0

Java Platform, Micro Edition Software Development Kit version 3.0 (Java ME) is a nicely self contained IDE and emulator environment. We will explore this environment while cutting our chops for writing mobile apps in Java. The IDE installation for Microsoft Windows systems is available here.

GWT DevKit install and config for cl development

For the ITS381B class, one needs the following software tools for Google Web Toolkit (GWT) development. Most of the installations are straight forward. I installed the Java SDK and TortoiseSVN in the default location of Program Files. For everything else, I created a root level directory that I named Development. This post assumes a Windows 7 machine as the target.

Software Installation

Google Web Toolkit 2.1

You just unzip this archive and place the resulting gwt-2.1.1 directory into the Development directory.

Java SDK 1.6

Be sure to get the SDK (developer) version for your particular platform.

Apache Ant

Please put the 'apache-ant-1.8.2' directory and the gwt-2.1.1 directory into a directory at C:\Development.

Google App Engine SDK for Java

Please put the 'appengine-java-sdk-1.4.0' directory into the directory at C:\Development.

TortoiseSVN A subversion client so that we can use the Google code repository. http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads.html

System Configuration

In Windows, under Computer->Properties->Advanced System Settings->Environment Variables...

In User variables for (Open User)

Create the following variables with the following values:

ANT_HOME

C:\Development\apache-ant-1.8.2

JAVA_HOME (the path name is the one I installed yours may be slightly different)

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_23

GWT_HOME

C:\Development\gwt-2.1.1

APPENGINE_HOME

C:\Development\appengine-java-sdk-1.4.0

CLASSPATH

%CLASSPATH%;%JAVA_HOME%\lib;%ANT_HOME%\lib;%GWT_HOME%;%APPENGINE_HOME%\lib;

PATH

%PATH%;%JAVA_HOME%\bin;%ANT_HOME%\bin;%GWT_HOME%;%APPENGINE_HOME%\bin%;

Now you are all set for GWT development at the command line.