Introduction

We take so much for granted when it comes to setting stuff up. Only when we might be helping someone new to get started with WebObjects development do we realize that there is so many separate inter-related technologies associated with WebObjects development. We have many tutorials that give pieces of the picture, but not one master step by step setup guide. This page is intended to fill that void and to provide all the tasks necessary for a beginner to setup and configure her Mac from scratch for WebObjects development. This document will link to other mini-tutorials where necessary to prevent repetition. Also this article will not necessarily try to explain the many different possibilities on how to configure a WebObjects development setup, but will try and focus on one path so as not to confuse beginners.

This article will describe how to configure your Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger development machine with WebObjects, Eclipse and a compatible database.

Also, there are alternative scratch setup guides such as http://wotutorial.furfly.com/downloads.html, however the objective here is to have a community maintained wiki page since the collective community will hopefully result in keeping this accurate and up to date rather than the burden to maintain it being on one author.

Pre-requisites

• A Mac with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger latest
• Java 1.5 is the default Java on Tiger ... leave it that way. If you have changed default to 1.4, then now is a good time to change it back to 1.5.
• What does an ideal development machine spec look like: Intel CPU, 3GB of RAM, 2 screens having at least one of them a 23" or bigger. Eclipse is very snappy on Intel CPU. In any case, any Mac supporting 10.4 Tiger with at least 1GB of memory should work, but at least 2GB of memory will really make a difference.
• Willingness to learn whatever technologies you don't already know in your spare time using books, internet, friends, community mailing lists, or whatever means are available.
• Useful technologies to learn to get you on the fast-track with WebObjects development
  • Unix command line basics (cd, ls, mv, cp, ls, chown, chmod, tar, ssh, scp, ctrl-a, ctrl-e, ctrl-c, sudo, su, etc.)
  • SQL (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE)
  • HTML (4.01)
  • CSS (2.0)
  • Java (1.5)
  • Object Oriented Programming
  • Basic Design Patterns

Setting Up a Local Development Database Server

Details on setting up MySQL for java and WebObjects development along with InnoDB transaction-safe engine as default can be found here:
http://homepage.mac.com/kelleherk/iblog/C711669388/E20070719095201/index.html

WebObjects supports most popular ANSI 92 SQL databases. If possible develop with the same database brand/version that you intend to use for deployment only because this is the path of least resistance.

Installing Apple's WebObjects Frameworks

If you are using Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), the release of WebObjects for this platform is 5.4.  To get the frameworks, you need Xcode 3.0.  A complete procedure on how to install the frameworks is available on this wiki.  You can also look at this podcast that will show you how to install the WebObjects frameworks, Eclipse and WOLips.

If you are using Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), the release of WebObjects for this platform is 5.3.  To get the latest frameworks, you need the latest XCode 2.5 installer.  Xcode 2.5 is available on Apple Developer Connection.

When installing XCode 2.5, chose the "Custom Install" option and check the WebObjects checkbox since WebObjects is not installed by the default "Easy Install".

Following all this, you will have the WebObjects frameworks installed in your system along with XCode development tools and Apple's WebObjects development tools (WOBuilder and EOModeler, if running on Mac OS X 10.4). Don't even bother looking at those because they are deprecated and on the way to the "deprecated tools graveyard". Instead, go ahead and install the Eclipse platform and Eclipse plugins for WebObjects development as outlined in the next section. This development environment is actively supported by the community.

Installing WebObjects Development Tools

Jump over to the Eclipse with WOLips installation tutorial and complete the Eclipse 3.2.2 and WOLips Stable plugin (build 4118) installation.

Configuring Apache WebServer

Next configure Apache (already preinstalled on your Mac) so that your development setup simulates the deployment environment. Take note of the Application configuration parameters here for when you create your first application.
WO:Development Tools-Running Through Apache

Installing Additional Essentials

Some may regard these extras as non-essential, however, once you use them, you will for sure find them essential.

Installing EOGenerator

Instructions are here:
Generating EO Java Classes

Search this wiki for EOGenerator to find some (possibly slight outdated, but useful) details on EOGenerator.

Installing Project Wonder Frameworks

Project Wonder is the largest open source WebObjects treasure chest or colection of many essential WebObjects frameworks and sample applications. For basic WebObjects applications, simply adding the two core frameworks from Project Wonder (ERExtensions and ERJars) will automatically patch many WebObjects bugs that exist in the standard frameworks, not to mention provide you with a plethora of reusable web components and application classes that will save you 100's of programming hours as you inevitably reinvent the wheel if you don't use Project Wonder. So, don't be afraid of it. Start using the two core frameworks from the outset and sign up for the Project WOnder mailing list.

Nightly build binaries are available, but working with live source is the way to go. Instructions for easy setup and maintaining up to date Project Wonder frameworks on your system are here:
Wonder Source Download, Installation, Setup and Upgrading