Building the GUI

Important

Before following this guide, ensure you have completed the following steps from the first-time installation guide:

Checking out the code

Development builds of the IBEX GUI are conventionally located in c:\instrument\dev. Create this folder if it doesn’t already exist.

From a windows command prompt, navigate to c:\instrument\dev and run:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/ISISComputingGroup/ibex_gui.git

The code for the IBEX GUI will now be located in c:\instrument\dev\ibex_gui.

A pre-commit hook should now be installed; to do this, run:

cd c:\instrument\dev\ibex_gui\build
install_pre_commit_hook.bat

Installing Eclipse

You must use a version of eclipse which supports the RCP and Java versions currently in use by the client. There are two options for this:

  • Download a recent Eclipse version directly from the eclipse website; choose the package for “RCP and RAP developers”

  • Use the most recent version in \\isis\inst$\Kits$\CompGroup\ICP\Developer Tools (which is simply a download from the Eclipse website, at a specific version).

By convention eclipse versions are installed into c:\tools, for example in c:\tools\eclipse-rcp-2024-06-R-win32-x86_64.

After installing eclipse from either of the above sources, you will need to add the line

-Djdk.util.zip.disableZip64ExtraFieldValidation=true

to the end of eclipse.ini (located next to the eclipse.exe executable), if it is not already present.

Building in Eclipse

See also

If at any point during these instructions you get errors, there are troubleshooting notes for Eclipse here and for the GUI in general here.

The first time the Eclipse IDE is started, it will ask you for a folder to use as a workspace. Unless you have a specific reason to choose a different location, use c:\Instrument\dev\eclipse_workspaces\ibex_gui (create this folder if it doesn’t already exist).

From the menu bar choose File -> Import -> General -> Existing Projects into Workspace. Choose “Select root directory” and browse to c:\Instrument\dev\ibex_gui\base. You should now see a list of plugins to import with names like uk.ac.stfc.isis.ibex.*. Eclipse should automatically select everything so you just need to click “Finish” to add them to the project.

Tip

If “Marketplace solutions available” dialogues appear, click cancel; these will be obtained later.

../../_images/eclipse_import_ibex_gui.png

From the “Project Explorer” tab on the left, expand the target platform folder (labelled as uk.ac.stfc.isis.ibex.targetplatform), double click on the targetplatform.target file and choose “Set as Active Target Platform”. This may take some time as dependencies are downloaded - there is a progress bar in the very bottom-right of the Eclipse IDE.

Once the target platform has finished downloading, the target platform view should look like this:

../../_images/eclipse_target_platform_view.png

To run the application from within Eclipse: open ibex.product from the uk.ac.stfc.isis.ibex.e4.client.product folder, select “Launch an Eclipse application”. The IBEX GUI should now open.

Next, From the menu bar choose Run->Run configurations and select ibex.product from the left hand list under “Eclipse Application”. In the “Main” tab, in Run configurations, tick the “Clear” tick box and untick the “Ask for confirmation before clearing”.

../../_images/eclipse_clear_workspace.png

In the “Configuration” tab, tick the “Clear the configuration area before launching” tick box, then click “Apply” and select “Run”.

Lastly, you should set up checkstyle.

Building via Maven

Firstly, ensure you have a recent Maven version installed. Generally a suitable version will be the highest version number in \\isis\inst$\Kits$\CompGroup\ICP\Binaries. You can double-check your current Maven version by running mvn -v in a command prompt.

To build using Maven, run:

cd c:\Instrument\dev\ibex_gui\build
build.bat

Once the build finishes, the IBEX client executable can be found in .\built_client\.