This is just a tutorial application. It is a quite basic and simple contact manager.

My goals are:

• learn Groovy
• learn JavaFX
• learn the Griffon framework
• use data binding
• use JPA/Hibernate application managed persistence with Groovy

Preparations

The first thing is to get the IDE up and running. I use eclipse so there is no perfect "works out of the box" experience.

Eclipse IDE for Java Developers Version: Oxygen.2 Release (4.7.2)

Groovy Plugin

The Groovy plugin for eclipse is here available.

Groovy compiler 2.4.13.

Attention! There is a regression with greclipse and buildship (gradle plugin) at the moment (2018-07-24).

Sdkman

The next step was the installation of sdkman. Sdkman is a tool that allows you to install different JDKs on a host. It enables you to switch between OpenJDK versions, Oracle JDK versions, ... within seconds. I wanted to use Oracle JDK without interfering with the OpenJDK installed as default on Suse Tumbleweed. Oracle JDK brings JavaFX. Unfortunately there is not OpenFx package for Suse Tumbleweed.

BTW: Sdkman supports a bunch of other tools as they are: Gradle, Grails, ...

lazybones

Lazybones is a project and code generator for different tools and frameworks. You can install it with sdkman.

Installation

Install Lazybones with sdkman:

sdk install lazybones 0.8.3

Configuration

Lazybones needs extra proxy settings. Apart from that it needs the URL to find the griffon templates. You can enter this information in "$HOME/.lazybones/config.groovy":

systemProp {
    http {
        proxyHost = "proxy"
        proxyPort = 3128
    }   
    https {
        proxyHost = "proxy"
        proxyPort = 3128
    }
}

bintrayRepositories = [ 
    'griffon/griffon-lazybones-templates',
    'pledbrook/lazybones-templates'
]

First test - create griffon project from scratch

Create Project

Go to your eclipse workspace directory and call lazybones

lazybones create griffon-javafx-groovy groovyGriffonSample

Run Project

Change directory to groovyGriffonSample and call this instruction:

gradle run

Now command line gradle builds the project and start the app.

Eclipse

Import project

Import project with menu file, import. Import as gradle project. Now you have to make some further steps to convert eclipse into a griffon compatible IDE.

JRE Access Rules

Eclipse does not automatically allow access to classes of ifxrt.jar. You have to add an access rule. Go to project settings, build path, libraries, JRE (open this tree fragment) and add an access rule that allows access for javafx/**.

Look here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22812488/using-javafx-in-jre-8

APT Annotation Processing Tool

Now you have to activate APT. You can enable it in the project settings dialogue section annotation processing.

Additionally you have to add some jar files to the factory path at the same section:

• griffon-groovy-compile-...jar"
• griffon-core-compile-...jar"
• jipsy-...jar
• gipsy-...jar

Syntax errors

Eclipse has problems to "interpret" some of the annotations right and therefore shows some syntax errors. To avoid this:

• Controllers must inherit from AbstractGriffonController
• Models must inherit from AbstractGriffonModel

Create another MVCGroup

This is not necessary for the first test. I just want to demonstrate how lazybones works.

In the project directory call:

lazybones generate artifact

or more direct

lazybones generate artifact::mvcgroup

Get started with this project

Check out project

• open git perspective
• choose clone clone a git repository
• enter URI https://github.com/dumischbaenger/griffonGroovyJavaFxDBaccessSample.git
• follow the assistant

Import project

• use menu file, import to import the gradle project

The application itself

The application consists of:

• Logging
• Multiple MVC Groups
• FX Views defined within FXML Files
• Griffon JPA plugin
• One service for authentication against the database
• One service accessing the database
• Multiple entity beans

Logging

The app uses SimpleLogger via SLF4J. The file .../src/main/resources/simplelogger.properties contains the complete logger configuration. In order to force hibernate to use SimpleLogger too, I added this command System.setProperty("org.jboss.logging.provider", "slf4j"); in Launcher.groovy. It must be called in a static context.

MVC Groups

The application has the following MVC groups:

• login - dialog that pops up at the start of the application
• mainFrame - the main window
• searchBar - search buttons in the upper area of the main window
• personList - table that lists the persons
• personDetail - panel that holds the person details

Login

MainFrame

SearchBar

PersonList

PersonDetail