GRADLE.md

Let's get started with Gradle and Bck2Brwsr VM!!

The way to create new projects in Gradle is to initialize an empty skeleton. Execute:

$ mkdir demo
$ cd demo
demo$ gradle init --type java-application
demo$ find *
build.gradle
src/test/java/AppTest.java
src/main/java/App.java
gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties
gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.jar
gradlew
gradlew.bat
settings.gradle

That command gives you the skeletal structure of your project, together with ./gradlew launcher. Use it to run the sample App in the regular way:

demo$ ./gradlew run
...
:run
Hello world.

BUILD SUCCESSFUL

Now let's run it in a browser! Apply following change to your project build.gradle configuration file:

diff -r b3329c3585ca build.gradle
--- a/build.gradle      Fri Jun 01 05:35:47 2018 +0200
+++ b/build.gradle      Fri Jun 01 05:41:25 2018 +0200
@@ -6,22 +6,33 @@
  * user guide available at https://docs.gradle.org/3.5/userguide/tutorial_java_projects.html
  */

+buildscript {
+    repositories {
+        mavenCentral()
+    }
+    dependencies {
+        classpath "org.apidesign.bck2brwsr:bck2brwsr-maven-plugin:0.23"
+    }
+}
+
 // Apply the java plugin to add support for Java
 apply plugin: 'java'

 // Apply the application plugin to add support for building an application
 apply plugin: 'application'
+apply plugin: 'bck2brwsr'

 // In this section you declare where to find the dependencies of your project
 repositories {
     // Use jcenter for resolving your dependencies.
     // You can declare any Maven/Ivy/file repository here.
     jcenter()
+    mavenCentral()
 }

 dependencies {
-    // This dependency is found on compile classpath of this component and consumers.
-    compile 'com.google.guava:guava:21.0'
+// No need for this additional huge library in the browser:
+//    compile 'com.google.guava:guava:21.0'

     // Use JUnit test framework
     testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'

and your project is ready to be executed in the browser:

demo$ ./gradlew bck2brwsrShow
Launching [xdg-open, http://localhost:10039/index.html]
Hello world.
<===========--> 85% EXECUTING
> :bck2brwsrShow

A browser is opened and a Hello World. message gets printed into its console and also console of your terminal window.

Interacting with Java

While in browser console (press F12 to open it), you can interact with the Java virtual machine by loading public Java class and invoking its public static methods:

vm.loadClass("java.lang.System", function(System) {
  System.exit(0)
});

Coding

Your Java code is in src/main/java/App.java open it in your editor, change it and run again

demo$ ./gradlew bck2brwsrShow

Well done!

The next step is to interact with JavaScript. For that purpose Bck2Brwsr VM uses Apache HTML/Java @JavaScriptBody annotation. See the package tutorial for list of examples.

There are some ready to use libraries built around this annotation: Charts, canvas, maps. Include their coordinates in the dependency in your pom.xml and you are ready to use them all!