Maven on Eclipse Tutorial

04/12/2009

Install Java and Maven

First off, make sure you have a Java JDK installed and that your JAVA_HOME environment variable points to it. You can check by typing “echo %JAVA_HOME%” in Windows or “echo $JAVA_HOME” in Linux. You’ll next want to download and install Maven by following the directions on their website.  Once Maven is installed, you’ll want to create a settings.xml file in your .m2 directory, which is located at ~/.m2 in Linux or C:\Documents and Settings\%USER%\.m2 on Windows.  You can do this by copying the settings.xml file from the directory where Maven in installed to you .m2 directory.

Install m2eclipse

You’ll want to make sure your Eclipse installation is pointing at your JDK.  You can check by going to Window > Preferences > Java > Installed JREs.  You’ll also want to set the -vm flag in your eclipse.ini file which is located at the root of your Eclipse installation.  Here’s what my file looks like:

-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
256M
-framework
plugins\org.eclipse.osgi_3.4.0.v20080605-1900.jar
-vm
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_11\bin\javaw.exe
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.5
-Xms40m
-Xmx512m

Finally, you get to install m2eclipse by opening up Eclipse and selecting Help > Software Updates… > Available Software > Add Site…  Then enter http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e, check the newly added boxes, and press Install.

Create Your First Maven Project

Now for the fun.  You can create a Maven project in Eclipse by selecting New > Project… > Maven > Maven Project.  Check “Create a simple project” on the first screen and hit Next.  Enter the Group Id, Artifact Id, and Name.  For example, “com.benmccann.robot”, “window-robot”, “Window Robot”.  Now, at long last, you can do some actual programming.

Add Dependencies

It won’t be long before you’ll want to add dependancies.  Open the Maven Indexes View by selecting Window > Show View > Other… > Maven > Maven Indexes.  You’ll want to make sure you have the Maven Central Repository, so right-click the view and choose “Add Index”.  Enter http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/ for the Repository URL and hit Retrieve to fill in the Repository Id of central.  Now you can right-click the project and choose Maven > Add Dependancy.  We’ll add jUnit since you’ll probably want it anyway.  Type junit and you should see it populated into the box below.  Use the dropdown at the bottom to set a scope of “test” and hit OK.