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Add Non-Customer Module

Adding a new module contains the following steps:

Nr

Required

Description

1

Add Module in Backoffice

2

Create Basic Folder Structure

3

Add Content to module Folder

4

Add Java Source Folders

5

if 3 is done

Include Resources in Archive

Add Module in Backoffice

Each existing module (core, optional and core) must be documented in our Backoffice. This is important because depending on the documented modules the dependencies will be generated for customer modules.

  • Open the Entity Module in the backoffice

    ../../../_images/modules-module-menu1.png
  • Create a new Module entitiy

  • Set a good technical name. The technical name should be the same as it will be called in the folder structure of the nice project

  • Set the correct type of the module. One of core, optional, customer or between.

    ../../../_images/modules-set-module-type1.png
  • Add all required modules. Depending modules are all modules which are used by the new module. This is important because if this module later is added to a customer all depending modules also need to be added to the customer.

    ../../../_images/modules-depending-modules1.png

Create Basic Folder Structure

A new customer module can be created using the command gradlew createNewModule -P moduleType={core, optional} -P moduleName=<name>.

This command creates the necessary folder structure and project files and registers the new module in the settings.gradle file. Core modules are also automatically added to the generic :customer module so that they are included for every customer. Optional modules are automatically added to the test (and some other) customer.

Add Content to module Folder

Inside the module folder optional/${MODULE}/resources different folders which configure the module can be added. Here are the most common use cases:

model

The model folder must be added as soon as you need to

db Inside the db folder changesets are placed. See document Changesets.

acl Inside the acl folder all acl rule files are located. See chapter ACL

resources Inside the resources folder JS files are placed. For actions and public flows.

outputtemplate Inside this folder FTL templates are placed which for example can be used for reports.

Add Java Source Folders

Java code (e.g. listeners, actions, services, rest-resources, …) can just be added to the src/main/java folder of the module. We usually separate the code into the 3 packages impl, api and spi.

  • api -> defines services which can be injected by other modules

  • spi -> defines classes which other modules can use or extend.

  • impl -> the implementation of the module specific Java code

../../../_images/module-folder-structure.png

To be able to access classes of api or spi in other modules, all packages must be listed as exports in module-info.java

open module nice.core.netui {

    exports ch.tocco.nice2.netui.api.actions;
    exports ch.tocco.nice2.netui.api.actions.security;
    // ... mode exports / imports
}

Include Resources in Archive

build.gradle defines which resources will be included in the generated archive. By default all files / file patterns defined in ext.resourceIncludePattern of the root build.gradle are included. If module requires additional files this must be declared on the “top level” of the module specific build.gradle.

resourceIncludePattern << 'resources/font/*'
resourceIncludePattern << 'resources/reporting/*.ftl'

dependencies {
//...
}

Country-specific Module

If only changes to text resources are required, these can be directly done in the base module with the file language_de_DE.properties (See Different orthography for germany). For changes that go beyond this, an additional, Germany-specific module is created, which extends the base module.

The Gradle module name should match the pattern optional|core:[country]:[module]-[country]. The Germany-specific module for the optional:address module is therefore named optional:de:address-de. The module name in module-info.java should match the pattern nice.optional|core.[module].[country]. The module-info.java for the Germany-specific module address looks like:

open module nice.optional.address.de {
    requires nice.optional.address;
}

Text resources work as usual in country-specific modules. The only difference is that the German file should be named language_de_DE.properties (There will be no language_de.properties). If you just want to change German texts you can use # nice2validate stop validation -- textresources below this point will not be validated. as else all language files must contain all text resources keys.

Back Office

For modules of the type customer module, the country in which the respective customer is based is set. If no country is set, Switzerland is used as default.

For modules of the types core, marketing and intermediate several countries can be selected. If there is a Germany-specific module for the address module, Germany is selected in the country field of the country-specific module in the back office. In the base module address the address-de module is added as “country-specific module variants”.