OpenCms provides a source code distribution that you can use to build the OpenCms core. This is only needed if you want to add your own core extensions. To develop the usual kind of website functionality, you should use the OpenCms module mechanism which is much easier to start with and also better documented. Before even considering starting to work on the core, you definitely should have written some OpenCms modules to understand the separation between a module and and a core extension.
The OpenCms core comes with the best possible documentation: The source code itself ;-) This is really not something for the novice Java developer. However, if you have some experience in Java, Java Servlets, JDBC, and XML in general you might take a look. As said before, you should also have already a firm understanding of the OpenCms module API.
Since this is rather deep stuff targeted rather at experts than at beginners, we will not explain every detail of the process. You have been warned.
Note: In case you are using the Eclipse Platform for development, you don't need an installation of Ant, it is included in Eclipse.
Apache Ant is a Java based build tool. In theory it is kind of like make without make's wrinkles. You need Ant version 1.6 or later to build the OpenCms core. Ant is part of the Jarkarta Apache Project and can be downloaded here. Please check the Ant documentation to make sure you understand the basic principles behind Ant.
Ant installation is described in the Ant manual. It requires that you have set up your path to Java correctly. Make sure Ant runs before proceeding.
Check out the latest OpenCms source distribution from the CVS repository as described here. It contains all classes necessary to build the OpenCms core. You will then end up with the following structure in your work directory:
/opencms /modules <= Module resources /src <= Start of the OpenCms source tree /src-components <= Component sources (Upload applet, Ant tasks) /src-modules <= Module sources /test <= JUnit test classes /webapp <= Contains the webapp files for Tomcat /webapp/WEB-INF/lib <= the necessary libaries build.xml <= This is needed by Ant
In case you want to use the Oracle database, you need the Oracle JDBC driver which you can download from the Oracle Technology Network (http://www.oracle.com). You have to register there to get the driver.
The file you need is the JDBC driver called
classes12.zip
. Place the file in the directory
/lib
of the OpenCms output folder. If you don't have this file, the OpenCms Oracle
Driver (package
org.opencms.db.oracle
) is not compiled, which is ok if you don't run on Oracle.
Ok this is the easy part. Call up a commandline, move to the
/opencms
directory (where the file
build.xml
resides) of the OpenCms source tree. In your commandline, enter the
following:
ant war
That's it! This will build a complete OpenCms distribution. Your
work
directory will look like this after Ant is finished:
/opencms <= Unchanged /ExternalComponents <= Unchanged /build /classes <= Will contain the compiled OpenCms classes /opencms <= This is the standard .war directory layout /WEB-INF /lib /oclib /META-INF /zip <= The OpenCms distribution file will be placed here /pdf
The final result of the compilation will be a ZIP file which will be placed in the
/zip
directory. This ZIP is exactly the same layout as the OpenCms binary
distributions, so it will contain the
opencms.war
archive.
Now that you have your new OpenCms binary distribution, you simply need to follow the Server installation guide for your server setup. Please make sure you don't mess up any existing installation. Best have a separate machine that is used only for testing and development.
There are several more targets in the
build.xml
that might be useful for you. Here's a short overview:
war
opencms.war
, but does not create the binary distribution ZIP file.srcdist
tomcat.dist
TOMCAT_HOME
or
CATALINA_HOME
), calling this target will have Ant updating the OpenCms classes on your
machine. This is done by replacing the files in the Tomcat
webapps/opencms
directory. If you have renamed
opencms.war
, or if your Tomcat is not installed the usual way, this probably will not
work.setup
tomcat.dist
: It depends on
tomcat.dist
, but will also update the OpenCms database, provided you run MySQL on your
development machine. This is useful if you do changes to the OpenCms Workplace template files.
CAUTION: This drops your complete database without further notice. Don't use until you know
what you do.Apr 13, 2022 - OpenCms 13 features a new plugin system as a more flexible replacement of the "headincludes" functionality. Geo search functionality has been added to find contents by geo coordinates. Extensions to the template variant mechanism allow setting overrides and renaming of formatter keys. There are also refinements for the "Mercury" default template as well as security improvements.
Apr 13, 2022 - The OpenCms 13 release notes contain detailed information about the new features and fixes in this version.
Apr 13, 2022 - Alkacon OCEE 13 is the latest OCEE release for OpenCms 13. This version fixes a number of issues that have been detected in Alkacon OCEE 12 and improves the licensing mechanism.
Oct 12, 2021 - OpenCms 12 features a headless JSON API for REST content access, together with several JavaScript demo applications that show how to use it. The default "Mercury" template has been greatly improved. Template variants allow to completely switch the generated HTML of a website simply by configuration. The updated WebDAV implementation enables mounting the OpenCms virtual file system from any WebDAV client.
Do you want to take a quick test drive of OpenCms to get an impression of its great features? Try out the OpenCms Live Demo website available at http://demo.opencms.org
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