Project Deployment Descriptor

Each Axon Ivy project has a deployment descriptor. The deployment descriptor defines various properties of a project that are important with respect to deployment on the engine. Specifically the descriptor defines:

1. A unique project ID (i.e. a fully qualified symbolic name) for the project, by which it can be identified and referenced. Also a current development version of the project is defined (please note that this version may, but does not necessarily have to be, identical with the project model version on the engine into which the project will eventually be deployed).

2. The dependencies of a project to other projects and the exact version range of those projects that must be available in order for the project to work. Once a project is referenced in this way, its artifacts may be used inside the referencing project. This applies especially to the following artifacts: User Dialogs, Data Classes, Web Service Configurations, CMS Entries, Configurations, Java classes or Java libraries (JAR files).

3. Information about the implementor of the project and its purpose.

The following figure illustrates the above:

A project dependency, defined by the Project Deployment Descriptor

Since referenced projects may in turn reference other projects, a whole (acyclic) dependency graph may be constructed this way. All artifacts of projects that are reachable from some project in this way (i.e. by following the arrows) can be used.

The following figure illustrates this feature. For example, a User Dialog defined in Project D may be used in Project A. A Data Class that is defined in Project E may also be used in Project A. However, it is not possible to use a sub process defined in Project B from Project C (unless Project B is added as required project in the deployment descriptor of Project C).

The search order to look up reused artifacts is breadth first. The order in which directly referenced projects are looked up, can be defined in the Project Deployment Descriptor.

Project Dependency Graph

Projects may be required with a specific version or within a specific version range. This is also illustrated in the above figure.

When deploying projects on the engine, the availability of the required projects (and their versions) is checked. If the required project versions cannot be resolved, then a project cannot be deployed. Therefore projects must be deployed bottom up, i.e. one must start by deploying first the required projects that are lowest in the dependency hierarchy.

Deployment Descriptor Editor

The Deployment Descriptor editor allows to edit a project’s deployment properties as well as the required projects and their version ranges as described above. Most of those properties can already be specified in the New Project Wizard, when a project is initially created.

The deployment descriptor editor consists of two tabs:

• The Deployment tab is used to configure the project’s own deployment information.

• The Required Projects tab is used to define other projects (possibly in a specific version) that the project depends on.

The deployment description is stored as Maven pom.xml, allowing Ivy Projects to be built on a continuous integration server. See Continuous Integration.

Accessibility

Axon Ivy Project Tree -> double click on the Deployment node inside the project tree ()

Deployment Tab

Group ID

Identifies your project uniquely across all projects. It has to follow the package name rules, which means that it has to contain at least the domain name you control, and you can create as many subgroups as you want. e.g. com.acme.ria.

Project ID

You can choose any name you want in lowercase letters and without special symbols, e.g. users or user-manager.

On deployment to the Axon Ivy Engine the concatenated Group ID + Project ID will act as unique identifier of the project.

Project Version

The current development version of the project.

Provider

The name of the user or company that implements and maintains (i.e. provides) the project. The provider setting has not functional purpose. It is for documentation only.

Description

A (short) description of the project’s purpose and contents. The description setting has no functional purpose. It is for documentation only.

Required Projects Tab

Deployment Descriptor Editor: Required Libraries Tab

Required Projects

A table shows the list of the required projects, both with their name and their ID (as defined in the project’s deployment descriptor). The table also shows the version range in which the referenced project must be available.

Name

The display name of the required project (how it is shown in the workspace).

ID

The unique identifier of the required project.

Version

The range specification of the version that the referenced project is required to have.

Note that the order in the table defines the order how referenced artifacts are searched (Use the Up Button and Down Button to change the order). The general search order in the dependency graph is breadth first, but the order that you define here is the search order that will be used on a specific node when searching the graph.

Clicking the Add button brings up a dialog with a selection box, in which any of the projects that are currently present in the workspace may be selected as required project. Closed projects or projects that are already (directly) required, cannot be selected.

Selecting an entry in the table and subsequently clicking the Remove button removes a project dependency.

Required Project Details

Shows the details of the currently selected project.

Group and Project ID

The identifiers of the required project (not editable).

Maximum Version

Optionally specify the maximum version that the required project needs to have. Choose whether you want to include or exclude this maximal version by checking the Inclusive box

Minimum Version

Optionally specify the minimum version that the required project needs to have. Choose whether you want to include or exclude this minimal version by checking the Inclusive box

Warning

Beware of cycles in the project dependencies! You should never require a project B from a project A, if B also requires A (or if B requires any project that in turn requires A, which would form a larger cycle). Error markers will be displayed when the workspace is built, and cycles are detected as this condition can lead to endless recursion and other unpredictable behavior when looking up artifacts.

Project Graph view

The Project Graph view shows the dependency graph of all projects in the workspace.

Toolbar actions

Refreshes the complete graph. Manually moved nodes will be rearranged by the auto layout algorithm.

Selects the zoom level of the view.

Selects the layout algorithm that arranges the nodes and dependency edges in the view.

Automatically opens the Project Graph whenever a Library Descriptor Editor is opened.

Graph actions

• Double click on a node to open its Library Descriptor Editor

• Drag a node to improve the layout

• Click on a node to highlight it

Accessibility

• Windows -> Show View -> Axon Ivy -> Project Graph

• CTRL + 3 (Quick Access) -> Project Graph

• Deployment Descriptor Editor -> Open Project Graph from header toolbar

  

Adding additional dependencies

To add Java libraries to your projects that are not included in the Axon Ivy platform, you can include them as Maven dependencies.

To add a new dependency, open the Deployment Descriptor with the Maven POM Editor by right clicking on the Deployment Descriptor file and choosing Open With -> Maven POM Editor

Then go to the Dependencies tab and click Add… to add a new dependency. All libraries included in the dependencies will be added to the classpath and are also included in the packaged Axon Ivy project.