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The Cocoon 2.1 Build System
Cocoon's build system and options can be daunting for a first time user, but you do not need to delve deeply into them to get a usable starting point for your own application. If you are just starting out, it's recommended that you build the default build with everything enabled to get a feel for what Cocoon is and can do. After that, come back here and follow the steps below.
Build properties.
As explained in INSTALL.txt, copying build.properties and blocks.properties to local.*.properties is a recommended first step when you're ready to start configuring Cocoon to meet your needs. Editing those files gives you a good amount of control over what is and is not included or enabled in the Cocoon framework you'll assemble your application around.
Most user-oriented options are simple true/false/omitted settings but some have values that can be useful to set. For explanations of the options, see BuildProperties.
Preliminary block support has been added.
Read the new INSTALL.txt in the root directory (which should get copied here, and to the "official docs"). Here are some more details about how the blocks build works:
Blocks are under
src/blocks/
The code is in
src/blocks/(blockname)/java
The configuration x* files (which patch cocoon.roles, cocoon.xconf, logkit.xconf, web.xml, sitemap.xmap, and the block-samples.xml file as needed) are in:
src/blocks/(blockname)/conf
How is it done?
module.xml has been checked in the cocoon root; it's the Gump descriptor. Each block must have a <project> section with dependencies, and other info. See supplied module.xml and the Gump project for details.
Dependencies without the version attribute are intended to be compiled by the build system. Otherwise, there is version="supplied".
The compile target has been changed. It calls a stylesheet in
tools/src/build-blocks.xsl
on the module.xml file and creates an Ant file that can resolve the dependencies between docs, call the main compile-core target, and compile each block.
The blocks are built in
build/cocoon/blocks/(blockname)
Each block will result in a (blockname)-block.jar in the build dir.
The confs are copied in the
build/cocoon/blocks
dir and then all inserted in the relevant descriptors during the webapp target.
How do I disable the compilation of a specific block?
In blocks.properties, the new file from which Ant takes properties, you find the possible exclude properties. The build first looks for a local.blocks.properties and you should copy the original over to that name, and edit your private copy. Uncomment the excludes for blocks you don't want to compile and run the build.
build clean
and then
build
To create a .war do:
build war
I'm sure that I forgot something ;-P , please ask on the cocoon-dev mailing list.