Getting Started with NetBeans and Java EE 8 and JBoss EAP 7.2

Introduction

NetBeans has very good Java EE integration both for code completion support, but also deploying, running and debugging Java EE application in a Java EE container.

Currently is NetBeans moving to Apache NetBeans, but this is still work in progress and involves licensing. See e.g. https://developer.jboss.org/thread/279950.

Current Apache NetBeans releases have limitations, so I recommend sticking with the latest Oracle/Sun version 8.2, until the migration process is more done. The 8.2 version is running on Java 8.

• Apache NetBeans 10 has no Java EE support.
• Apache NetBeans 11 has Java EE support, but not WildFly or JBoss EAP. Supports Java 11.

Installation

There is also a ready to use installation script, but I prefer downloading the zip version. The zip version is also good when working on offline computers.

1. Download netbeans-8.2-201609300101-javaee.zip from https://netbeans.org/downloads/zip.html.
2. Unzip to e.g. /home/magnuskkarlsson/bin/netbeans-8.2-201609300101-javaee
3. Run it with bin/netbeans

Then you need to download and extract JBoss EAP 7.2 from https://developers.redhat.com/products/eap/download/ to e.g. /home/magnuskkarlsson/bin/jboss-eap-7.2.0

Before we set up our Java EE Web project inside NetBeans i prefer to change the keyboard shortcut to Eclipse. Open Tools -> Options.

Now we are ready to create Java EE 8 project. Open File -> New Project...

Here we need to add JBoss EAP. To add the version 7.2 as a JBoss EAP does not work, but you can add it as a WildFly application server.

Then click finish. Now your maven Java EE Web project is created, but we need to clean it up and modify the pom.xml to use Java EE 8 instead. I also added some testing dependencies, which are handy when doing JPA integration testing. For generating random test data I use javafaker.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" 
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>se.magnuskkarlsson.examples</groupId>
    <artifactId>example-javaee8</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.build.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.outputEncoding>
        <maven.compiler.source>1.8</maven.compiler.source>
        <maven.compiler.target>1.8</maven.compiler.target>
        <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax</groupId>
            <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
            <version>8.0</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
 
        <!-- Test Support -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>4.12</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hamcrest</groupId>
            <artifactId>hamcrest</artifactId>
            <version>2.1</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.mockito</groupId>
            <artifactId>mockito-all</artifactId>
            <version>1.10.19</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- generate random test data -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.github.javafaker</groupId>
            <artifactId>javafaker</artifactId>
            <version>0.18</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- in-memory db for jpa it -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
            <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
            <version>1.4.199</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- production db -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>mysql</groupId>
            <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
            <version>8.0.12</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- hibernate 5 -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
            <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
            <version>5.3.7.Final</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
            <artifactId>hibernate-envers</artifactId>
            <version>5.3.7.Final</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- bean validation -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hibernate.validator</groupId>
            <artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId>
            <version>6.0.14.Final</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</project>

Then modify web.xml to use Java EE 8 Servlet 4 and add JSF support - src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/web.xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_4_0.xsd"
         version="4.0">
     
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>*.xhtml</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
    
    <welcome-file-list>
        <welcome-file>index.xhtml</welcome-file>
    </welcome-file-list>
</web-app>

Then add Java EE 8 CDI 2.0 - src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/beans.xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/beans_2_0.xsd"
          bean-discovery-mode="all"
          version="2.0">
 
</beans>

Now lets add a simple JSF index page - src/main/webapp/index.xhtml.

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:h="http://xmlns.jcp.org/jsf/html"
      xmlns:core="http://xmlns.jcp.org/jsf/core">

    <h:head>
        <title>Facelet Title</title>
    </h:head>
    <h:body>
        Hello from Facelets
    </h:body>
</html>

Now lets test it, by first right click on project and select Clean and Build and then Run. JBoss EAP 7.2 is now started from NetBeans and you default browser should now open and display index.xhtml.

You are now ready to develop your Java EE 8 application and whenever your code is out of sync simply Clean and Build again and whenever neccessary select Run and the application will be redeployed.