The following figure shows gvSIG version 1.1 open in Eclipse.

No reason to get over overwhelmed by the amount of projects (well, just a little bit...;-)). The first thing is to work with those that are indispensable. Later, if required we could modify or look at the code of the rest of the pluggings by opening and compiling those that we need.

VERY IMPORTANT: To execute the first compilation, follow the instructions from the Readme.txt file. In each distribution the method and/or the arguments could change some, but usually they are similar.

Basically there are 2 methods, one semiautomatic that compiles all the projects and another one "manual" that consists in finding the build.xml files of each project and execute them as ant targets. It is important to follow the established order in order to avoid problems.

Once the projects are compiled, we can start to work.

The best is to work only with those projects we are going to need. Close all the extension's projects you are not interested in, and leave open at least these ones:

• _fwAndami
• libCorePlugin
• libFMap
• appgvSIG

If you are interested in the editing functionalities, you should leave open the extCAD. If you would like to work with spatial database, leave open extJDBC. If your thing is raster, you will probably need libCq CMS for java and extRasterTools.

To start with, leave also an example project: extNewDocumentExample. It will help us as a starting point for our first pluggin.

Each project has a build.xml file that is executed as an ant target (mouse right click, run as... | ant tool.

In the build.xml file we define the name for our plugging, as well as the libraries and files that are needed to function. For example:

<project name="exaWorkshop" default="generate-without-source" basedir=".">
<description>
Examples for workshop on III Jornadas gvSIG
</description>
<!-- set global properties for this build -->
<property name="src" location="src"/>
<property name="build" location="bin"/>
<property name="dist" location="dist"/>
<property name="mainplugin" value="com.iver.cit.gvsig"/>
<property name="plugin" value="org.gvsig.workshop"/>
<property name="gvsiglibjar" value="org.gvsig.workshop"/>
<property name="andami" location="../_fwAndami" />
<property name="extensionsDir" location="../_fwAndami/gvSIG/extensiones"/>
<property name="lib-dir" location="${extensionsDir}/${mainplugin}/lib"/>

<target name="init">
<!-- Create the time stamp -->
<tstamp/>
<!-- Create the build directory structure used by compile -->
<mkdir dir="${build}"/>
<mkdir dir="${dist}"/>

</target>

<target name="generate-without-source"
description="generate the distribution without the source file">
<!-- Create the distribution directory -->
<mkdir dir="${dist}"/>

<!-- Put everything in ${build} into the MyProject-${DSTAMP}.jar file -->
<jar jarfile="${dist}/${plugin}.jar" basedir="${build}" includes="org/gvsig/workshop/**"
/>
<copy todir="${dist}/images">
<fileset dir="images" includes="*"/>
</copy>
<copy file="config/config.xml" todir="${dist}"/>
<copy todir="${dist}">
<fileset dir="config" includes="text*.properties"/>
</copy>
<move todir="${extensionsDir}/${plugin}/">
<fileset dir="${dist}" includes="**/**"/>
</move>
</target>


<target name="compile" description="compile the source" >
<!-- Compile the Java code from ${src} to ${build} -->
<mkdir dir="${build}" />
<echo>${compile-classpath}</echo>
<javac srcdir="${src}"
destdir="${build}"
debug="${debug}"
debuglevel="${debuglevel}"
classpath="${compile-classpath}"/>
</target>

<target name="copy-data-files">
<copy file="config/config.xml" todir="${dist}"/>
<copy todir="${dist}">
<fileset dir="config" includes="text*.properties"/>
</copy>
</target>

<target name="move-to-andami">
<move todir="${extensionsDir}/${plugin}/">
<fileset dir="${dist}" includes="**/**"/>
</move>
</target>


<target name="clean"
description="clean up" >
<!-- Delete the ${build} and ${dist} directory trees -->
<delete dir="${dist}"/>
<delete dir="${build}"/>
</target>
</project>

Inside the file will be defined the directories that are going to be used and where the results of the compilation will be saved. The most important variables are:

• ${extensionsDir} => The directory where we will copy everything.
• ${plugin} => The name of the plugging.

In the file you could see the targets defining it: to initialize, to erase the temp folder, to copy the files with the button icons, the config.xml file, etc.

The bold text is what you usually will need to change (the name of your pluggin and the classes your are including in the .jar, basically.

The easiest way to start a new gvSIG plugging is to copy this example, verify it compiles and works and then make the necessary changes to the package's name, the config.xml and the build.xml files. Then, the best thing is to look if there is any functionality already implemented within gvSIG that it is similar to the one we would like to implement. Probably that would be the case (click in the map, query a layer and display a form with the selected data, add a layer by code, add a table, open a project, zoom to selected, ...).

Once the common behaviors of our pluggins are identified, it is time to investigate which extensions within gvSIG can perform those tasks. We will see this with more calm later on, in the appgvSIG description, but for now it is enough to know that the starting point for our search is the config.xml, where we will find the menu or button and the class that gets executed upon selection of the option that we would like to use as a model.