We Keep Coding

Eclipse: Is it possible to publish Javascript edits to an external Tomcat instance

I am converting an application from Flex to Javascript. My workflow within Eclipse for Flex was to use Maven to start my Java web app in Tomcat and then have Eclipse configured to compile edited Actionscript files to a SWF and save it to my exploded WAR directory (that Maven/Cargo uses).
It worked very well for a long time allowing me to edit actionscript source code, flip over the browser, refresh the screen and see the changes.
I am new to Javascript however, and am struggling to get the same workflow up and running. The part I don't understand is how to tell Eclipse that I would like my edited Javascript files to be written out to a particular directory (that contains the exploded WAR). In my WAR project (a WTP dynamic web project) there is something that looks like a Javascript build path called "Javascript resources", but there is no output directory.
I would really like to continue to run Tomcat and Jetty via Maven if at all possible. I realize I can do what I want via WTP (M2E-WTP), but would prefer to use Maven/Cargo.

Denis's suggestion to create custom builder is probably best solution if you want to continue using pure Maven/Cargo approach with Eclipse.
If you are deploying to an exploded war directory, then another similar idea would be to use a File Synchronization plugin. These will automatically copy modified files to configured folders. See:
http://andrei.gmxhome.de/filesync/
https://wiki.onehippo.com/display/CMS7/Use+Filesync+Eclipse+plugin+for+faster+turn+around
-------------
FWIW, I don't think Maven:Tomcat/Cargo plugins are ideal for real-time web development, especially on the frontend side of things. They are useful mainly for controlled deployments or bootstrapping a server without initial setup. My thoughts:
Eclipse WTP used to be great for real-time web development, but I stopped using it a few years back as it just got way too hard to make it work correctly in a Maven environment. Fwiw, my preferred approach these days looks like this:
Do not install or use Eclipse WTP.
Use m2eclipse to integrate Maven with Eclipse.
Use Maven to do clean builds and generate exploded WAR directory in target folder.
Setup independent Tomcat server to load webapp from the exploded target folder.
I suspect the tomcat setup/startup could be integrated into Maven. It's not worth the extra complexity to me though.
Then, I configure JRebel (automatically via Maven) to handle java and web resource file changes. With this setup, I almost never have to redeploy or restart Tomcat. All changes (java, html, js, etc.) are seen immediately.
I think the same setup could be used without JRebel (for non-java files only) by configuring the web source folders as source folders in Eclipse with custom target output path being the corresponding directory in the exploded war directories. If that didn't work, then it would definitely work by using the custom builder or file synchronization solutions mentioned above.

Eclipse introduces the concept of "builder" to build a project. It comes with hardcoded builders such as the java compiler or the war builder of WTP.
But eclipse also enable to setup your own Builder using ant files : on your project, right click the project properties, go to section Builders, click on the new button.
You can use arguments to your ant file and use variables defined in by eclipse to build them
Do not forget to fill the refresh tab if you want eclipse to by notified of the produced files.
Do not forget the fill the Build options tab, section "Specify working set of relevant resources" in order to have your builder called each time a source used by the build file is changed inside eclipse.
Also go to the "targets" tab to specify during which type of build phase your ant file is called and which target is called.
I knwo this solution may not be the best for you since your build process will be described more than once but it may help you achieve your goal.

run a java program with lingpipe classes on a website?

I am working on a text classification project for a class and I am having some difficulties setting it up correctly. My classification code is in Java and uses methods from the Lingpipe toolkit, but I have to run the program from a website. I've been attempting to put together a servlet for this purpose, and so far have downloaded and set up a container (Tomcat), but I'm finding the process of setting up all the necessary files in the right directories to be complicated. Does anyone out there have any advice as to how to run such a Java program from a website, either using a servlet or not?
Thanks!!!

The easiest way handle dependencies and create WAR is to use Maven. You need to put lingpipe library into your local repository /home/{$username}/.m2 . Create maven project with web project archetype and put lingpipe as dependency. Easiest java web framework for me is play framework.

You'll want to put dependency jars (including the LingPipe jar) in the WEB-INF/lib directory of your web application.
Classes you develop yourself, including your servlet class(es) can either be packaged into a jar and deployed in the same WEB-INF/lib directory or placed directly in the WEB-INF/classes directory (in Java's standard package-as-directory format - e.g. com.foo.MyServlet is deployed as WEB-INF/classes/com/foo/MyServlet.class).
A reasonable summary is available at http://tutorials.jenkov.com/java-web-apps/web-app-directory-layout.html.
One caveat - you probably want to look into the LingPipe license. At one point LingPipe considered moving to the AGPL, but apparently they decided not to make that move; their license is a bit unusual, and the terms thereof may affect your web application deployment.

what are the steps in order to run java enterprise application

Sorry for this simple questions but i am too much confused with how to run java application. Whenever i ask some each one tells his own tools to proceed and i have learn that thing.
So provided i have simple basic eclipse with no plugin and i have downloaded the sample web application which uses spring , hibernate , mysql ,
The folder structure of app is
.setting
src--main,test
target
.classpath
.project
Now i want to run this using localhost in browser
what thing i need to do. i will tell from my knowledge and u guys can correct it
i don't want to use STS or install any plugin in eclipse.
I imported the project from eclipse
menu and i appeared on left window
As it uses spring do i have to add
the spring jar files in build path
of spring. or anything else
Same for hibernate jar files
Fior simple java app i used to
compile the class which contain the
void main function but i have no
idea which file to compile to run
this app
I added the mysql connector in build
path to connect with mysql in simple
java app. will same thing work here?
I knoow we need web server for that.
so if i want to install glass fish
server then how will i connect it to eclispe or that app. will tomcat be
ok than glass fish??? i know tthere
is eclispe ide with embedded glass
fish but i want integrate evrything
myself
IN browser i which url i need to use
to see that app
I don't know how did maven , appfuse fit in here. Can i run app without maven if yes then what does maven really do , i mean does it compile the java files or what. If i require maven then
Do i need to install it separately i
mean exe file or jar file
how to link with eclipse
I have read about building with
maven , what will ahppen after
building i mean what is the result
of building , will i see browser
after building or after building
there are some steps further. do
maven needs to link with web server
installed
sorry for basics questions but i am confused with all new trminology

Building a webapp is complicated. I will try and address your specific questions.
Utimately you don't need Maven or Appfuse, both can be very helpful.
Maven is a build tool. Maven and Eclipse do some similar tasks. Both can compile your code and manage a classpath. Maven handles a lot of things out of the box that Eclipse can't do by default. Maven can manage dependencies (i.e. download the spring jars for you) and create complex build processes.
If you are unfamiliar with Maven and creating a build file from scratch then it probably won't be much help. If you have a pom.xml (Maven build file) from somewhere else then Maven can be a big help. The result of Maven depends on how your build file is structured. The result is most often either a .war file (described below as step 5) or that your application is deployed directly to your web server (described below as step 6).
Appfuse is also not mandatory but can be useful. Appfuse will create a skeleton project for you. When it does this it will create a pom.xml (Maven build file) to automatically build your project. Appfuse by itself doesn't do anything other than help get projects started. Most people don't start building web apps from scratch anymore since getting the directory structure right and creating the build file can be a lot of work and it's easy to make mistakes. A tool similar to Appfuse is Spring Roo.
Tomcat, Glassfish, Jetty, and JBoss are web servers. They are also often called Servlet Containers which is just another name for a web server that hosts servlets in a certain fashion. Any of them will work for your project, they all have different learning curves. Integrating them into Eclipse may work for you, when I got started I found it was easier (although a little slower) to keep them separate.
In the JDK there is an interface named javax.servlet.Servlet. This is the interface that the entry class of your web application must implement. In particular the method service(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res) is called every time there is a request for a URL. If you want your web application to respond to HTTP it may be simpler to extend the abstract class HttpServlet (which implements Servlet) instead. Most libraries (i.e. Spring web framework) have their own implementations of Servlet that are the entry point to the library.
I will now describe the basic process for building a web application. This is a complicated process and most people eventually automate it with Maven. I do not suggest trying to manually walk through the process yourself it can be very complicated but you can if you want. I am going to assume that you are placing all of your built files in a folder named $BUILD
Compile your source code. The compiled classes need to end up in a folder called $BUILD/WEB-INF/classes
Place all your jar files (external libraries) in a folder named $BUILD/WEB-INF/lib
Create a deployment descriptor, this is a file that tells your web server how to deploy your code. The most important thing in this file is a mapping from URLs to Java classes that implement Servlet. It should be named web.xml and put in $BUILD/WEB-INF
jar up the all this code with the root of the jar being at $BUILD. You could call this code application.jar
Rename the jar file extension to war. A war file is simply a jar file that has the required WEB-INF directory inside of it.
Deploy this war file to your web server (Tomcat/JBoss/Jetty/Glassfish/etc.), the process for doing this is different for each web server
That is the basics of web application deployment. Your web server will extract the war file and load all of the jars in the lib folder into the classpath. It will then take any URL requests it receives and send them to the appropriate Servlet implementations declared in your deployment descriptor.
As you can see this is not a simple process. This is the reason tools like Appfuse and Roo exist. They try and give you a starting point which does all of this basic stuff for you. If you are having trouble I would suggest trying again from scratch with Appfuse/Roo. As you start to get the hang of things I would also suggest learning more about Maven (or Ivy+Ant) to handle dependencies for you.

You should download the Java EE edition of Eclipse - it contains the code needed to work with enterprise applications.
You will also need an enterprise server (like JBoss or Glassfish) and the corresponding server adapter, which is a bit much for a beginner.
The easiest way to get started is to download Netbeans with Glassfish and use that instead - at least for now - as everything is configured correctly and it is very fast to get started! When you are more familiar with the way things work, you can switch back to Eclipse if you want to.

How do I properly deploy and structure projects in Eclipse against Tomcat?

I am relatively new Java developer that's been thrown in the deep end, my usual skillset lies in Microsoft products and C#.
However I have managed to write a nice web service using Restlet and incorporating Toplink and doing some database CRUD stuff, etc etc.
I developed this in Eclipse against Tomcat 5.5. I followed tutorials and examples and managed to throw something together that works.
I had all my jar files in WebContent/WEB-INF/lib directory of my project - I soon realised that when I export this as a WAR file and deploy in Tomcat, it takes these jar files with it and stores them local to the application.
Fine, but then when you try to undeploy the app, it only does it partially as Tomcat "holds on" to some of the jars it was using i.e. the Oracle JDBC, and Toplink ones. This makes sense as the web service was using these jars as there was a live Oracle connnection going on.
So then I thought I should have all these jars in a common place where all deployed apps can access them, that folder I believe is:
C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 5.5\common\lib
(in my case). This made total sense, it's logical as you don't want loads of apps on Tomcat all referencing the same jars. So I removed all the jars out of my projects lib folder and put them in the common\lib directory.
Now my app will not work properly - it can't find my source code in src, the custom bespoke code that I have programmed against these jars. It will only work if I jar up my source code and put in the directory stated above. Odd.
I am obviously very confused with class paths and build paths and all of that stuff, and must have got this sort of stuff all wrong as I am no Java expert, as I readily admit I have pretty much hacked this together - so can anyone explain to me in laymans terms how I should structure my project to get it working with jars held in a common folder in Tomcat. Or are there any good resoureces on the web to help explain to me what I should do.
Hope this all makes sense...
Here is a pic of my current project:

Sounds like you are not using WTP web project.
If you've installed 'Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers' flavor of Eclipse, the WTP is already bundled in there. Otherwise here its update site -> http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/updates
Once you've installed WTP you should create 'Dynamic Web Project'.
In general I would recomment to put only your presentation layer here ( JSPs, CSS, HTML ) and put all pure java projects into standard 'Java' project that you later add as a dependency to 'Dynamic Web Project'.
WTP can run your web application under a number of containers, fortunately Tomcat is supported.
You will need to configure it through Window->Preferences->Server->Runtime Environments.
Once runtime envirnonment is configured, you can create your server runtime:
Right click in 'Servers' view.
Choose New->Server
Select server type: 'Tomcat v.5.5 Server'
(Optional) Change server name to whatever makes sense for you
Select server runtime environment: This is the Runtime Environemtn that you have configured previously
Hit 'Next' button
Add your 'Dynamic Web Project' project to 'Configured projects:' panel
Hit 'Finish' button
After the server is configured you can just run it, or you can put it in Debug mode. All source code referenced by dependent projects will be available for debugging.
NOTE:
From personal experience, I would not recommend using common/lib. Put all the jars that your web application relies upon into its WAR file. If you are worried about dependency tracking then start looking into Maven and m2eclipse.

Usually I put my jars in $CATALINA_BASE/shared/lib/
Please read this documentation for more clarification and specially Class Loader Definitions section.
Also restart the server after you copied the jars.

Go to Window > Show View > Other > Server > Servers, a servers tab will appear below with console tab. Click on your server and then F3, this will open server configuration.
Check Server Locations, and make sure you checked Use tomcat installation(takes control of tomcat installation) then click Modules tab below and it will show your installed modules, make sure the module is present or add it.

Deploy java (command line) app using Netbeans / ant

I've finally managed to create a Netbeans project out of an old standalone (not Web-) Java application which consisted only out of single .java sources. Now I have basically two questions regarding Netbeans Subversion interaction and application deployment:
Do you check in all the Netbeans project files into the repository, normally?
If I build the project using Netbeans (or ant) I get a .jar file and some additional jar libraries. In order for the app to run properly on the server, some additional config files and directories (log/ for example) are needed. The application itself is a J2SE application (no frameworks) which runs from the command line on a Linux platform. How would you deploy and install such an application? It would also be nice if I could see what version of app is currently installed (maybe by appending the version number to the installed app path).
Thanks for any tips.

No, not usually. Anything specific to NetBeans (or Eclipse, IntteliJ, etc), I don't check in; try to make it build from the command line with your ant script and produce exactly what you want. The build.xml is something that can be used for other IDEs, or in use with Anthill or CruiseControl for automated builds/continuous integration, so that should be checked in. Check in what is needed to produce/create your artifacts.
You don't specify what type of server, or what exact type of application. Some apps are deployed via JNLP/WebStart to be downloaded by multiple users, and have different rules than something deployed standalone for one user on a server to run with no GUI as a monitoring application. I cannot help you more with that unless you can give some more details about your application, the server environment, etc.
Regarding the config files, how do you access those? Are they static and never going to change (something you can load using a ResourceBundle)? ? You can add them to the jar file to look them up in the ResourceBundle, but it all depends on what you are doing there. If they have to be outside the jar file for modification without recompiling, have them copied with an installer script.
As for directories, must they already exist? Or does the application check for their existence, and create them if necessary? If the app can create them if absent, you have no need to create them. If they need to be there, you could make it part of the install script to create those folders before the jar files are installed.
Version number could be as simple as adding an about box somewhere in the app, and looking up the version string in a config/properties file. It has to be maintained, but at least you would be able to access something that would let you know you have deployed build 9876.5.4.321 (or whatever version numbering scheme you use).

Ideally, you should not tie down your application sources and config to a particular IDE.
Questionwise,
I suggest you do not. Keep you repository structure independent of the IDE
You might have to change your application so that it's structure is very generic and can be edited in any IDE.
Is this a web app? A standalone Java app? If you clarify these, it would be easier to answer your query.

We don't check in the /build or the /dist directories.
We tend to use this structure for our Netbeans projects in SVN:
/project1/
/trunk
/tags/
/1.0
/1.1
/binaries/
/1.0
/1.1
When a change is need we check out the netbeans project from trunk/ and make changes to it and check it back in. Once a release of the project is needed we do an SVN copy of the netbeans project files to the next tag version. We also take a copy of the deployable (JAR or WAR) and place it in the version directory under binaries along with any dependencies and config files.
By doing this we have a clean, versioned deployable that is separate from the source. Are deployables are version in the name - project1-1.0.jar, project1-1.1jar and so on.
I disagree with talonx about keeping your source non-IDE specific - by not storing IDE files in SVN along with you source you are adding extra complication to the checkout, change, checkin, deploy cycle. If you store the IDE project files in SVN you can simply check out the project, fire up the IDE and hit build. You don't have to go through the steps of setting up a new project in the IDE, including the files you SVNed, setting up dependencies etc. It saves time and means all developers are working with the same setup, which reduces errors and discrepancies. The last thing you want is for a developer to check out a project to make a small bug fix and have to spend time having to find dependencies and set stuff up.

To answer question #2 -- who's your consumer for this app?
If it's an internal app and only you (or other developers) are going to be deploying it, then what you have is perfectly all right. Throw in a README file explaining the required directories.
If you're sending it out to a client to install, that's a different question, and you should use an installer. There are a few installers out there that wrap an ant script and your resources, which is a nice approach particularly if you don't need the GUI... just write a simple ant script to put everything in the right place.
Version number is up to you -- naming the JARs isn't a bad idea. I also have a habit of printing out the version number on startup, which can come in handy.