Development on TMAJ


Before You Start

Before you can do any development on TMAJ, you need to perform all the steps in Server Setup.  This page picks up where the Server Setup page left off.

IDE Setup (Optional)

You should setup an IDE.  While this step is optional (you could use notepad if you really wanted.), we recommend setting up a good IDE.  We use Eclipse as an IDE. 
  1. Download Eclipse.  You may download the classic version or the "Eclipse IDE for Java developers".
  2. Unzip Eclipse into any directory.  For example, unzip it into: C:\Program Files\Eclipse
  3. Create a shortcut to the eclipse.exe file and put it on your desktop (optional)
  4. Double click the eclipse.exe file to start Eclipse
  5. Choose New -> Project, Then choose Java Project
  6. Enter a project name (such as tmaj). This can be any name you like.
  7. Choose "Create project from existing source".  For the directory choose the root source tmaj directory (the directory
    with the .project file in it. The .project file is an eclipse file.)
  8. Click the Finish Button
  9. (Optional) If you get warnings or errors in Eclipse that you would like to filter out (so you don't see them in the errors/warnings list) , you can go to the menu under Windows and then go to Java -> Compiler -> Errors/ Warnings to turn them off.

Making and Testing Changes

The Client and the Server

There are 2 parts to TMAJ: The client and the server.  The server runs on the machine that runs Apache Tomcat.  The server will make a direct connection to the database.  The client only connects to Apache Webserver (the server); the client never directly connects to the database.  (TMAJ would have very low security if clients could connect to the database directly.)  All GUI components are part of the client.  All SQL components are part of the server. 

Making a Change to the Client Code

Any GUI components are part of the client.  Let us try a simple example.  Try making a change to the login dialog.  For example, change the JLabel to say "username555" instead of just "username". 
To see your changes applied, run this command to start the TMAJ application:
ant gui  [shows the the gui client for tmaj] 

Making a Change to the Server Code

The server code is executed by Tomcat.  Let us try a simple example.    In our sample change, we will make it so that TMAJ does not check the password that a user enters.  It will allow users to simply enter their username, and any password entered will be accepted. 
As mentioned before, all SQL executions are part of the server. 
Locate the SQL statement that checks a user's username and password. 
Change the WHERE clause the SQL will look something like this: (Comment out the part in the WHERE clause where the password is checked.)
                + " WHERE Username = "
                + StringQuoter.quote(username)
                //+ " AND Password = "  //This line is commented out
                // + StringQuoter.quote(digestedPassword); //this line is commented out.
Next, go to the console and type in:
ant reload  (tells Tomcat that the code has changed -- this is necessary for Tomcat to "see" your changes)
ant gui (runs the tmaj gui client)

If you forget the ant reload step when making a change to the server, Tomcat will not see your changes.  This step is unnecessary if you are changing the client.  If you are unsure whether you changed client or server code, doing an ant reload will not hurt anything.  The only advantage of skipping it is the saved time.

Pushing your Changes to Production

To push your changes to production, simply run the command:
ant push