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## Chapter 8. JBuilder OpenTool

Describes the installation and usage of the Jalopy JBuilder Plug-in OpenTool.

JBuilder is a powerful Java IDE that - depending on the flavor - speeds Enterprise JavaBeans, Web, Web Services, XML, mobile and database application development with two-way visual designers and rapid deployment to leading J2EE application servers.

The homepage can be reached under http://www.borland.com/jbuilder/

## 8.1. Installation

Explains the steps involved to install the JBuilder Plug-in.

##### 8.1.1. System requirements

The JBuilder Plug-in requires JBuilder 5.0 or higher. See Section 1.1, "System requirements" for the basic requirements to run Jalopy.

##### 8.1.2. Installation

The Plug-in comes as an executable Jar Archive (Jar) that contains a graphical setup wizard to let you easily install the software. Wizard installation is recommended and explained in detail in Section 1.3, "Wizard Installation".

If you would rather install the Plug-in manually, you have to decompress and copy the appropriate files into the different application folders. To decompress the contents of the installer Jar, you can either use the Jar tool that ships with your Java distribution or any other software that can handle the ZIP compression format (e.g. 7Zip or WinZip).

If you're upgrading from a prior version and want to keep your settings, first copy or rename the current Jalopy settings directory to match the version number of the new release. For instance, if your current settings directory is `"C:\Documents and Settings\John Doo\.jalopy\1.0.4"` and you're about to install Jalopy 1.8, either copy the directory contents or rename it to `"C:\Documents and Settings\.jalopy\John Doo\1.8"`. Wizard installation can perform this step automatically.

Make sure JBuilder is not running and remove any prior Jalopy Jar files from your JBuilder extension folder. The JBuilder extension folder is located under the root directory of your JBuilder installation, e.g. `"C:\Program Files\JBuilder\lib\ext"`. Remove all Jar files starting with `"jalopy-"`.

Now decompress the contents of the installer Jar file into a temporary directory and copy the two Jar files `"jalopy-1.8.jar"` and `"jalopy-jbuilder-1.8.jar"` from the temporary directory into the JBuilder extension folder.

## 8.2. Integration

Describes how the Plug-in integrates into JBuilder.

##### 8.2.1. AppBrowser main menu

The software adds two new menu items into the main menu of the AppBrowser:

- Tools->Jalopy Preferences....

  Displays the Jalopy preferences dialog.

  Use this item if you want to configure your settings to control the layout of any formatted code.

Figure 8.1. Jalopy Preferences menu item

- Project->Format <File>

  Formats the current editor view. Use this item if you need to format the currently opened file.

  Only available if there is an open view that contains a Java source file.

Figure 8.2. Jalopy Format menu item

##### 8.2.2. Project pane popup menu

There will also be a new menu item available at the end of the popup-menu of the Project pane: Format. Use this item if you want to format several files at once. All currently selected files are formatted.

Figure 8.3. Jalopy Project pane popup menu item

If it happens that a file has an open editor view, this view will be updated, not the actual file. You have to save the view first to see the physical file updated.

##### 8.2.3. Editor view popup menu

Both the Format <file> and Jalopy Preferences... items can be also reached via the popup menu of the active editor view.

Figure 8.4. Jalopy Editor view popup menu item

##### 8.2.4. Message pane

Jalopy displays all runtime messages in the message pane. Messages are shown in a tree control, with each branch containing the messages for a specific file, and individual messages displayed as leafs. File messages show the number of leaves and the warning and error count.

The message types are differentiated with icons and by color: Errors are red with an error icon, warnings are shown in blue and display a warning sign, informational messages are black and carry a file icon and debugging messages are black and prepended by a bug icon.

Figure 8.5. Jalopy Message pane

Clicking on a file name will open that file, clicking on a message that contains location information will open the file containing the message and move the caret to the nomimated location.

Figure 8.6. Jalopy Message pane context menu

The window provides a context menu with some useful actions.

- Copy

  Copies the textual contents of the selected messages into the System clipboard. If a message contains children, the contents of all children are copied as well.

- Clear

  Removes all selected messages.

- Clear All

  Removes all messages currently being displayed in the window.

- Select All

  Selects all messages currently being displayed in the window.

## 8.3. Configuration

Although Jalopy ships with sensible default settings (mimicking the Sun Java coding convention), you most likely want to configure the formatter to match your needs (adding copyright headers, tune Javadoc handling and the like). For such, Jalopy comes with a graphical configuration tool that lets you interactively customize the settings. See Chapter 2, Configuration for an in-depth discussion of the available options.

Please refer to Section 8.2, "Integration" for information on how to display the configuration tool from within JBuilder.