This page explains how to build your own Chameleon using Maven. With such a way, you can create your own application distribution based on Chameleon. You inherits from all the feature of Chameleon, and provide a robust, reproductible and configurable way to package applications.

Despite this page explains how to build the application using Apache Maven, the concepts can be applied to any other process.

Create a Maven project

The first step is to create a Maven project using the pom packaging. The construction and packaging of the application use the maven-assembly-plugin. Here is an example of pom file you can use:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0
            http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>


    <groupId>YOUR_GROUP_ID</groupId>
    <artifactId>YOUR_ARTIFACT_ID</artifactId>
    <version>YOUR_VERSION</version>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.4</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <phase>package</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>single</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
                <configuration>
                    <appendAssemblyId>false</appendAssemblyId>
                    <descriptors>
                        <descriptor>src/main/assembly/distribution.xml</descriptor>
                    </descriptors>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>


    <dependencies>
        <!-- the Chameleon base distribution  -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.ow2.chameleon</groupId>
            <artifactId>chameleon-core</artifactId>
            <version>1.10.8-SNAPSHOT</version>
            <type>zip</type>
        </dependency>

        <!-- Add here your dependencies -->
    </dependencies>

</project>

We will come to the dependencies later. The Chameleon distribution will be built in the target/chameleon directory.

The assembly file

The maven-assembly-plugin we use relies on assembly files. Create the src/main/assembly/distribution.xml file with the following content:

<assembly xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.2"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.2 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/assembly-1.1.2.xsd">
    <id>chameleon</id>

    <formats>
        <format>zip</format>
        <format>dir</format>
    </formats>

    <includeBaseDirectory>false</includeBaseDirectory>

    <dependencySets>
        <dependencySet>
            <!-- Base distribution -->
            <outputDirectory>.</outputDirectory>
            <unpack>true</unpack>
            <includes>
                <include>*:chameleon-core:zip</include>
            </includes>
            <unpackOptions>
                <excludes>
                    <!--
                    Here we will add the file we overide in the project
                    -->
                </excludes>
            </unpackOptions>
        </dependencySet>

        <dependencySet>
            <!-- Runtime -->
            <outputDirectory>runtime</outputDirectory>

            <includes>
                <!--
                Includes the dependencies that will be added to the
                distribution (in runtime)
                -->
            </includes>
        </dependencySet>

        <dependencySet>
            <!-- Runtime -->
            <outputDirectory>application</outputDirectory>

            <includes>
                <!--
                Includes the dependencies that will be added to the
                distribution (in application)
                -->
            </includes>
        </dependencySet>
    </dependencySets>

    <fileSets>
        <fileSet>
            <!--
            copy the configuration file from src/main/resources/configuration
             -->
            <outputDirectory>conf</outputDirectory>
            <filtered>true</filtered>
            <fileMode>644</fileMode>
            <directory>src/main/resources/configuration</directory>
        </fileSet>

        <fileSet>
            <!--
            copy the configuration file from src/main/resources/runtime,
            generally cfg files
             -->
            <outputDirectory>runtime</outputDirectory>
            <filtered>true</filtered>
            <fileMode>644</fileMode>
            <directory>src/main/resources/runtime</directory>
        </fileSet>

        <fileSet>
            <!--
            copy the configuration file from src/main/resources/application,
             generally cfg files
             -->
            <outputDirectory>application</outputDirectory>
            <filtered>true</filtered>
            <fileMode>644</fileMode>
            <directory>src/main/resources/application</directory>
        </fileSet>
    </fileSets>
</assembly>

Adding bundles

Bundles are added as Maven dependencies and then included in the assembly (either in the runtime or application directories).

For example, to add the commons-io, add the following dependency to the pom.xml file:

<dependency>
    <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
    <version>2.4</version>
</dependency>

Then, edit the distribution.xml file to include the artifact to the distribution. For example, to add the bundle to the runtime directory, extend the file with:

<dependencySet>
    <outputDirectory>runtime</outputDirectory>

    <includes>
        <include>*:commons-io</include>
    </includes>
</dependencySet>

Adding Configurations

Configurations are written as cfg files. They are placed in the src/main/resources/runtime and src/main/resources/application directories.

Configure the Chameleon

The chameleon.properties file as well as other configuraiton files are placed in the src/main/resources/configuration directory:

.
|-src\
      main\
           resources\
                    configuration\
                            chameleon.properties
                            system.properties
                            logger.xml

However, the base chameleon distribution also contains configuration (the default configuration). As the processing order is rather unpredictable, you need to edit the distribution.xml file to avoid unpacking the configuration files:

<dependencySet>
    <outputDirectory>.</outputDirectory>
    <unpack>true</unpack>
    <includes>
        <include>*:chameleon-core:zip</include>
    </includes>
    <unpackOptions>
        <excludes>
            <exclude>conf/chameleon.properties</exclude>
            <exclude>conf/logger.xml</exclude>
        </excludes>
    </unpackOptions>
</dependencySet>

Building the Chameleon

Once you are ready, you can build the Chameleon distribution using:

mvn clean package

It creates a zip file containing the distribution, it also create a copy that you can use directly in target/chameleon.