If you plan to deploy your maven application via webstart you are a lucky man, because this is easy if you know how to do it 😉

I tried it without success, but then Geoffrey with his networktools came to my rescue. Now TimeFinder is jnlp-enabled. The following steps were necessary:

1. create a new folder ‘jnlp’ under src/ (where main and test live)
2. put the file template.vm there with:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <jnlp spec="1.0+" codebase="http://timefinder.sourceforge.net/jnlp2" href="$outputFile">
    <information>
       <title>TimeFinder</title>
       <vendor>TimeFinder Team</vendor>
       <homepage href="http://timefinder.sourceforge.net/"/>
       <description kind="one-line">TimeFinder</description>
       <description kind="short">TimeFinder - the automatic timetabling generator for universities and schools</description>
       <description kind="tooltip">TimeFinder - the automatic timetabling generator for universities and schools</description>
       <icon href="http://timefinder.sourceforge.net/jnlp/shamrockwhite.jpg" kind="default"/>
       <shortcut online="false"><desktop/><menu submenu="TimeFiner"/></shortcut>
    </information>
    <security>
    <all-permissions/>
    </security>
    <resources>
       <j2se version="1.6+" initial-heap-size="32m" max-heap-size="128m" />
       <property name="jnlp.versionEnabled" value="true"/>
       $dependencies
    </resources>
    <application-desc main-class="$mainClass">
    </application-desc>
   </jnlp>

3. create a keystore:
   keytool -genkey -alias timefinder -keystore timefinder.jks
   be sure that you use keytool from the same JDK-PATH as you use for maven!
4. add the following to your pom.xml:

   <build>
     <plugins>
       <plugin>
          <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
          <artifactId>webstart-maven-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>1.0-alpha-1</version>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
    <pluginManagement>
       <plugins>
          <plugin>
             <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
             <artifactId>webstart-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <!-- do not bind to install phase
             <executions>
              <execution>
                <goals>
                  <goal>report</goal>
                </goals>
              </execution>
             </executions>
             -->
           <configuration>
              <jnlp>
               <mainClass>de.timefinder.core.Startup</mainClass>
              </jnlp>
             <sign>
              <keystore>/home/peterk/Dokumente/quell/timefinder/trunk/timefinder-core/timefinder.jks</keystore>
              <keypass>unsecpwd</keypass>
              <storepass>unsecpwd</storepass>
              <storetype>jks</storetype>
              <alias>timefinder</alias>
              <verify>true</verify>
            </sign>
           <verbose>true</verbose>
         </configuration>
        </plugin>
      </plugins>
     </pluginManagement>
    </build>
   </project>

5. Now you should be able to execute:
   mvn install webstart:jnlp
   which will create a zip file with all the signed jars
6. See my next post for versioning and pack200!

What is the difference between phases and goals in maven?

I would like to explain the difference with an example:

Imagine you need an ant task (like copying files) and you want to do this task on every call of

mvn install

For this it is necessary to bind the goal ‘run’ from the maven-ant plugin to the phase ‘install’ of the maven lifecycle:

<build>
   <plugins>
     <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
        <executions>
          <execution>
             <phase>install</phase>
             <configuration>
                <tasks>
                    <copy file="fromfile" todir="todirectory" />
                </tasks>
             </configuration>
             <goals>
                 <goal>run</goal>
             </goals>
          </execution>
        </executions>
    </plugin>
   </plugins>
</build>