[rdennisj]

I received Dave Muerer’s write-up on the approaches to extending the code generation capabiities, and am excited about the possibilities for adding more capabilities. I want to download the JET plugin, per the document’s recommendation, but I am concerned that the plugin might conflict with Eclipse for Spring 8.6 install that I already have. Can you recomment the correct version of the plugin that would be compatible. Or, should I install into a separate version of Eclipse? Thanks!

[davemeurer]

Hello,

You shouldn’t have any issue downloading the latest Galileo version, which is 1.0.2. If you search for JET in the Software and Configuration Workspace center, the 1.0.2 JET should be the first one to show up in the Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo) Discovery > Modeling folder.

NOTE: I do want to note that significant changes are being made to make customization easier for 8.6.1. These changes may break any existing extensions folks make to code generation.

Kind regards,
=Dave

[rdennisj]

Hi Dave,
Thank you for the reply. Any ETA for version 8.6.1? Also, I am fairly familiar with plug-in development, but I am curious if you think during the wait for 8.6.1, it would be worth my while to get a better understanding of the EMF tooling? Do you generate EMF-based data models from the database schemas (and then use JET to generate the Java and Client side source), or use some other appoach? Thanks again.

[davemeurer]

Hello,

With the customization enhancements in 8.6.1, it would probably be more worth your while getting a good understanding of JET. Here are a couple good resources:
– JET tutorial
– JET 2 Control Tags

Understanding EMF would also be helpful if you plan to extend the EMF models that we use for the Spring DSL, but the major capability in the customization piece is modifying our JET templates. Static files, like images, CSS, sitemesh are just as is (not via JET), and it’ll be a matter of just manipulating these files in the customization project.

The ME4S generation does use EMF ecore models like you mentioned, but also contains ecore models for other Spring/Java artifacts like the DAO, Service and Controller. It can be better explained by enabling the Spring DSL on a project. You’ll see visual representations of how specific spring or java information can be manipulated. Underneath those visual artifacts are EMF ecore models. (you can see a representation by right clicking – open as – xml or text). For example, the Web Controller visual DSL artifact contains various tabs, like the Spring MVC tab that contains information on request mappings, etc. This data is stored in an emf ecore model. The generation engine then kicks in and generates the java and configuration files based on the data.

As for 8.6.1, the best ETA I can give is the October timeframe.

HTH,
Dave

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